In preparation for a class discussion on Thursday, please read the following article, and answer the six questions below. Please type and print out your answers, bringing them to class.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram-artist-richard-prince-selfies
Please type and print out your answers.
1. What do you think of Prince's New Portraits series? Do you consider it "good" art or "bad" art – and why is it successful/unsuccessful?
2. Part of what protects fair use is the idea of "transformation" of the work being adapted or changed. In what ways does Prince's work transform the original photographs (the article lists some elements of transformation, but it's not a comprehensive list), and do you think those transformations are sufficient to make the work legitimately his own, unique work?
3. How much does the sales price of his New Portraits affect your evaluation of it?
4. How important is the fact that he didn't ask permission from the original subjects/photographers for your judgment on the work?
5. If one of the original Instagrammers brought suit against Prince for copyright infringement, do you think they'd win? Why/why not?
6. How much does it matter to you that Prince was an outsider to the Instagram "community"? Or that some of his comments on the posts were skeevy?
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
MAPR this Thursday (10/12), Tutorial Assignment due Tuesday
Tutorial Assignment & MAPR Reminder
A Reminder – this Thursday, we'll be meeting on the third floor of Prim Library at 10am to join in on the Midway Art Portfolio Review, where Junior Art Majors present a body of work and answer questions. We have a couple of classmates participating. It's an interesting event, and if you get there a little early you get dibs on coffee and donuts. Ask some good questions!
On the following Tuesday (10/17), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about five to ten minutes.
Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.
Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post, checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.
A Reminder – this Thursday, we'll be meeting on the third floor of Prim Library at 10am to join in on the Midway Art Portfolio Review, where Junior Art Majors present a body of work and answer questions. We have a couple of classmates participating. It's an interesting event, and if you get there a little early you get dibs on coffee and donuts. Ask some good questions!
On the following Tuesday (10/17), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about five to ten minutes.
Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.
Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post, checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Thursday (9/28) lab assignment
In this assignment, I want you to insert a small image into a large landscape, or a large image into a small space: think of putting a giant banana in the middle of Times Square, or putting the eiffel tower into an aquarium. This is a basic compositing exercise -- I want you to make it as convincing as possible. Six things to look for when compositing, to make consistent across your composited images:
1. Color Balance
2. Brightness and Contrast
3. Key Light Direction (and Shadows)
4. Perspective
5. Blur
6. Grain
Here's a good tutorial on changing the lighting source for an image by creating two layers for a single image, adjusting them to highlight and shadow values, and then blending the two layers:
Lighting a Giant Elephant By bpkelsey
1. Color Balance
2. Brightness and Contrast
3. Key Light Direction (and Shadows)
4. Perspective
5. Blur
6. Grain
Here's a good tutorial on changing the lighting source for an image by creating two layers for a single image, adjusting them to highlight and shadow values, and then blending the two layers:
Lighting a Giant Elephant By bpkelsey
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Assignment for Tues (9/12)
Write a three-page (doublespaced) paper on a collage artist, choosing from the list below. When you've selected your artist, post the artist's name in the "comments" below, along with which section of the class you're in -- morning or afternoon (and make sure no one in your section has already claimed that artist by checking out the comments before you). This is first come, first serve, so the quicker you pick and artist and comment, the wider choice you'll have.
Your paper should include some biographical background, to put the artist's work in context, and you should also choose two specific collage works by the artist, and give an aesthetic analysis of those works. You can talk about content -- what is the "meaning" of the piece, and how does the artist articulate that meaning? What sort of sources did the artist draw the collage material from, and how does that inform the meaning of the work? Also analyze its formal properties: how has the artist used color? Composition? Variation - of size, of light areas/dark areas, etc? Negative space and positive space? Rhythm? Texture? Is there a foreground and a background -- and if so, how do they relate to each other?
The central message of your paper should be a summary of the particular methods the artist uses and the effects the artist achieves through collage. You can break down the three-page structure like this:
Page 1: Central message and bio
Page 2: Analysis of one collage
Page 3: Analysis of second collage
You will be presenting your paper next Thursday. Bring a printed-out version of the paper and visual materials (the two images you've chosen, and anything else that will help in explaining your chosen artist and his/her work -- for the presentation, you can make a powerpoint and/or bring digital images to project). You will also be making a digital collage that is in some way a response to the artist's work; we will be working on that assignment for a couple classes. This is not to be a copy of any of the artist's work -- but take some principles that the artist embodies, and apply them to a work of your own making. For instance, Max Ernst used illustrations from 19th-century popular illustrated novels and science books and combined them to make a kind of disjointed story. What would a collage-story look like if it were assembled from science books of today?
So - due this coming Tuesday - the paper (which you will present), and an idea for your "artist response" collage, which you will begin working on in class the following Thursday.
Use the MLA guide for citing sources for your bibliography, for the paper:
http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm
Citation help:
Citation machine
Easybib
Here is the common writing rubric, which I'll be using to grade your paper:
http://www.sierranevada.edu/wp-content/uploads/SNC-Common-Rubric-Written-Assignments-4-columns1.pdf
And here's the list of collage artists. Not all of them were primarily collage artists, but all used collage (I've asterisked some that are already taken – check the comments to see if your initial choice has been claimed by someone else):
Eileen Agar
*Jean Arp
Romare Bearden
Umberto Boccioni
Mark Bradford
Georges Braque
Joseph Cornell
James Dawe
Arthur G. Dove
Marcel Duchamp
Dan Eldon
Max Ernst
Raoul Hausmann
John Heartfield
Hannah Hoch
David Hockney
Lee Krasner
Kazimir Malevich
*Neck Face
Man Ray
Henri Matisse
*Pablo Picasso
Ad Reinhardt
Allison Renshaw
Mimmo Rotella
Kurt Schwitters
Nancy Spero
Annegret Soltau
John Stezaker
Bernie Stephanus
Jonathan Talbot
Cecil Touchon
Jesse Treece
*Marnie Weber
Please, when you've selected you collage artist, add a "comment" to this blog with the name of the collage artist you're doing your presentation on. Do not pick an artist who someone else has "claimed," so that we don't have a number of repeats in the presentation. Also - several of the artists on the list worked in a variety of media - make sure the examples you pick are actual collages, and not paintings.
Your paper should include some biographical background, to put the artist's work in context, and you should also choose two specific collage works by the artist, and give an aesthetic analysis of those works. You can talk about content -- what is the "meaning" of the piece, and how does the artist articulate that meaning? What sort of sources did the artist draw the collage material from, and how does that inform the meaning of the work? Also analyze its formal properties: how has the artist used color? Composition? Variation - of size, of light areas/dark areas, etc? Negative space and positive space? Rhythm? Texture? Is there a foreground and a background -- and if so, how do they relate to each other?
The central message of your paper should be a summary of the particular methods the artist uses and the effects the artist achieves through collage. You can break down the three-page structure like this:
Page 1: Central message and bio
Page 2: Analysis of one collage
Page 3: Analysis of second collage
You will be presenting your paper next Thursday. Bring a printed-out version of the paper and visual materials (the two images you've chosen, and anything else that will help in explaining your chosen artist and his/her work -- for the presentation, you can make a powerpoint and/or bring digital images to project). You will also be making a digital collage that is in some way a response to the artist's work; we will be working on that assignment for a couple classes. This is not to be a copy of any of the artist's work -- but take some principles that the artist embodies, and apply them to a work of your own making. For instance, Max Ernst used illustrations from 19th-century popular illustrated novels and science books and combined them to make a kind of disjointed story. What would a collage-story look like if it were assembled from science books of today?
So - due this coming Tuesday - the paper (which you will present), and an idea for your "artist response" collage, which you will begin working on in class the following Thursday.
Use the MLA guide for citing sources for your bibliography, for the paper:
http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm
Citation help:
Citation machine
Easybib
Here is the common writing rubric, which I'll be using to grade your paper:
http://www.sierranevada.edu/wp-content/uploads/SNC-Common-Rubric-Written-Assignments-4-columns1.pdf
And here's the list of collage artists. Not all of them were primarily collage artists, but all used collage (I've asterisked some that are already taken – check the comments to see if your initial choice has been claimed by someone else):
Eileen Agar
*Jean Arp
Romare Bearden
Umberto Boccioni
Mark Bradford
Georges Braque
Joseph Cornell
James Dawe
Arthur G. Dove
Marcel Duchamp
Dan Eldon
Max Ernst
Raoul Hausmann
John Heartfield
Hannah Hoch
David Hockney
Lee Krasner
Kazimir Malevich
*Neck Face
Man Ray
Henri Matisse
*Pablo Picasso
Ad Reinhardt
Allison Renshaw
Mimmo Rotella
Kurt Schwitters
Nancy Spero
Annegret Soltau
John Stezaker
Bernie Stephanus
Jonathan Talbot
Cecil Touchon
Jesse Treece
*Marnie Weber
Please, when you've selected you collage artist, add a "comment" to this blog with the name of the collage artist you're doing your presentation on. Do not pick an artist who someone else has "claimed," so that we don't have a number of repeats in the presentation. Also - several of the artists on the list worked in a variety of media - make sure the examples you pick are actual collages, and not paintings.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Assignments for Thursday (8/31)
Your scanned self-portrait is due at the start of Thursday's class.
In addition, I want you to have images ready for our next project - the Image and Text project.
You will be making two different pictures, working from the same initial image. Produce an image that can relate to text in an interesting way. Create that image either by shooting it yourself (it can be a staged image, or an image "caught on the fly"), or it can be an image that is collaged from at least three sources (if you want to make a drawing as one of your sources, that's perfectly acceptable -- otherwise you can cull images from Google images and so on).
Using that image as a base, make two seperate treatments of the image, with legible text in each.
In treatment #1, use text that has a sense of "interior monologue." It doesn't literally have to be an interior monologue, but it should have that interior quality -- as if we're listening in on the thoughts of someone -- perhaps the thoughts of someone in the picture, perhaps the thoughts of someone looking at the scene (as if we're looking at the scene through someone's eyes, and hearing their thoughts).
In treatment #2, take the same image and place text in it that has a quality of "exterior commentary" -- the type of commentary one might find in a news caption or textbook, explaining what's happening, or somehow passing judgement on the scene. It should be as if the words are coming from a source that's not participating in the scene -- but commenting upon it from some sort of remove.
Each treatment of type should be distinct, utilizing different fonts and different layout strategies. Think about how the text relates to the image both conceptually (in the manner of an idea) and formally (how it sits on the page, how the shapes of the letters relate to the imagery, etc). Try to be as radically different in your font treatments as possible. For instance, if you have one treatment where the text is all one font, horizontal, small, and in one color, the other treatment might mix different fonts, run the text vertically, large, and in various colors.
You will have class time to work on this project on Thursday. But come prepared with an idea, and with your text and images already selected.
In addition, I want you to have images ready for our next project - the Image and Text project.
You will be making two different pictures, working from the same initial image. Produce an image that can relate to text in an interesting way. Create that image either by shooting it yourself (it can be a staged image, or an image "caught on the fly"), or it can be an image that is collaged from at least three sources (if you want to make a drawing as one of your sources, that's perfectly acceptable -- otherwise you can cull images from Google images and so on).
Using that image as a base, make two seperate treatments of the image, with legible text in each.
In treatment #1, use text that has a sense of "interior monologue." It doesn't literally have to be an interior monologue, but it should have that interior quality -- as if we're listening in on the thoughts of someone -- perhaps the thoughts of someone in the picture, perhaps the thoughts of someone looking at the scene (as if we're looking at the scene through someone's eyes, and hearing their thoughts).
In treatment #2, take the same image and place text in it that has a quality of "exterior commentary" -- the type of commentary one might find in a news caption or textbook, explaining what's happening, or somehow passing judgement on the scene. It should be as if the words are coming from a source that's not participating in the scene -- but commenting upon it from some sort of remove.
Each treatment of type should be distinct, utilizing different fonts and different layout strategies. Think about how the text relates to the image both conceptually (in the manner of an idea) and formally (how it sits on the page, how the shapes of the letters relate to the imagery, etc). Try to be as radically different in your font treatments as possible. For instance, if you have one treatment where the text is all one font, horizontal, small, and in one color, the other treatment might mix different fonts, run the text vertically, large, and in various colors.
You will have class time to work on this project on Thursday. But come prepared with an idea, and with your text and images already selected.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Assignment - for Thursday's class (8/24)
For this Thursday's class :
Assemble personal materials for scanning to create a digital self-portrait -- be sure NOT to include photos or other images of your physical self. Give some thought to objects and textures that somehow say something about you, your identity, your sense of self. Make sure to bring at least four sepeaate things (all of them have to be able to be placed on a scanning bed, of course -and at least two of the objects must be three dimensional).
Please remember to acquire a jump drive, if you don't already have one -- it would be good to have it for Wednesday.
Assemble personal materials for scanning to create a digital self-portrait -- be sure NOT to include photos or other images of your physical self. Give some thought to objects and textures that somehow say something about you, your identity, your sense of self. Make sure to bring at least four sepeaate things (all of them have to be able to be placed on a scanning bed, of course -and at least two of the objects must be three dimensional).
Please remember to acquire a jump drive, if you don't already have one -- it would be good to have it for Wednesday.
Welcome: Fall 2017
Hi there -- and welcome to the blog for the Digital Darkroom Class.
For next class :
Assemble personal materials for scanning to create a digital self-portrait -- be sure NOT to include photos or other images of your physical self. Give some thought to objects and textures that somehow say something about you, your identity, your sense of self. Make sure to bring at least three seperate things (all of them have to be able to be placed on a scanning bed, of course).
Please remember to acquire a jump drive, if you don't already have one -- it would be good to have it for Thursday.
And here are some links to some of the artists whose work I showed in class:
Jill Greenberg
Flickr "Brushes" gallery
Chris Jordan
Alberto Seveso
Andrea Innocent
Emily Eibel (Tomby Illustration)
eBoy Pixel Art
12:31 and the Visible Human project
And the online art communities I talked about:
http://www.deviantart.com
http://www.conceptart.org
Visible Human Project source:
Finding Paths through the world's photos:
The Most Photographed Barn in America
Link to syllabus:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qyck799ylq506d4/17FallDART230-1Lanier.doc?dl=0
For next class :
Assemble personal materials for scanning to create a digital self-portrait -- be sure NOT to include photos or other images of your physical self. Give some thought to objects and textures that somehow say something about you, your identity, your sense of self. Make sure to bring at least three seperate things (all of them have to be able to be placed on a scanning bed, of course).
Please remember to acquire a jump drive, if you don't already have one -- it would be good to have it for Thursday.
And here are some links to some of the artists whose work I showed in class:
Jill Greenberg
Flickr "Brushes" gallery
Chris Jordan
Alberto Seveso
Andrea Innocent
Emily Eibel (Tomby Illustration)
eBoy Pixel Art
12:31 and the Visible Human project
And the online art communities I talked about:
http://www.deviantart.com
http://www.conceptart.org
Visible Human Project source:
Finding Paths through the world's photos:
The Most Photographed Barn in America
Link to syllabus:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qyck799ylq506d4/17FallDART230-1Lanier.doc?dl=0
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