Experiments with Kinect

The Kinect may not be doing all that well for the home console market, but the amount of other uses people have found for it on the PC are amazing. Below, I've provided two examples that I came across that were relevant to some of the things I enjoyed doing.

As someone who has played around with Source Filmmaker, seeing just how easy it is for the Kinect to provide motion capture that can be ported to Maya for use on 3D models, then SFM for filming is quite amazing. The video available through this link gives a better look at the process of actually getting the motion into SFM.

Garry's Mod is a game that allows the player to create their own world in a sense, using props and tools provided by content creators, and already established items provided by compatible games on Steam. Here, the creator of the game is testing live capture from the Kinect into the game world through the use of ragdolls.

Guerrilla Girls

The Guerrilla Girl Movement started after an outcry caused by an exhibition in 1985, in which only 13 female artists were considered the most important contemporary artists of the time out of 165, and the curator mentioned that "anyone who wasn't in the show should rethink his career." Through artwork, posters, and protests, the Guerrilla Girls have anonymously taken up the cause to fight sexism and racism in the art world. Personally, I find the way that they are protesting very unique. They create their own art to combat the discrimination that is found in art. Using the medium to combat the issues of the medium seems like one of the best ways to get the point across, at least personally. While some of their actions may be unusual in an attempt to protest, it still helps to get their point across and known. Inequality can be found in many different parts of our society through racism and sexism, and it's great to see that the art world is no stranger to activists trying to fight for the equality that all people deserve.

Performance Piece

Here is my performance piece for the class, entitled All Work and No Play; Business is a Well Oiled Machine. The performance was done in downtown Tampa in which I put on a disheveled business suit and one shoe, a mask of Ronald Reagan, and played a soundclip that I had created for the piece itself. As I marched down the streets, focusing only on my watch with my phone to my ear, people were able to hear the speech that I had created, which was just a cacophony of business words and stress, being thrown from the subconscious mind of the character into the real world. The point was to show the stress induced from the everyday work environment that honestly could be said is slowly killing some of us. It's the story of a man so overworked that he has forgotten conventional ways, brought down by the work he does, day in and day out. The soundclip that I was using has been provided below. One thing that came very clear after doing this piece was that the timing in which I had done it could have probably been better. I had performed this piece on April 21st, 2013, in the wake of the bombing and other issues in Boston. It seems that this may have caused a large amount of paranoia in other cities, as moments after I finished my piece I was stopped by a police car. Then, two more squad cars parked behind me to also question what I had just been doing. According to one of the officers, they had actually planned on even getting two more cars on the scene because of the calls they had been getting. I was completely honest with them, showed them everything I had used and told them that it was a school project, and they were very polite and let me on my way. This was definitely an experience that I will not soon forget.

The Postmodern Crisis of Bioshock Infinite

I recently played through Bioshock Infinite, a game that came out about a month ago to great reviews and was an overall great experience. The story takes place in a fantastical world in which the year about 1912 and tears in the fabric of space-time has allowed the creation of a puritan colony in the skies. The most interesting part of these tears in time is that it seemed that according to the game's lore, one of the minor characters profited off of them by taking songs that he heard through the tears and writing them for the time. This is a wink at the audience playing the game, as the characters mention that they have never heard the songs, but the player may know them from their own past. I've provided a couple of the songs below, and they honestly give me goosebumps when I listen to them again. It's interesting to see a game take an old song for a new era, and make it sound even older!

The Surrealist Movement

Growing out of Dada, the surrealist movement gave rise to some of my favorite kinds of art. Surreal seemed to focus on the twists and turns of the mind, using more of the imagination or subconscious to create art rather than focusing on copying things out of nature and attempting to refine them. Surrealism allowed artists to focus on some of the most basic carnal instincts of man, while also allowing them to freely explore their own mind, whether this leads to dark, uncovered areas, or large, bright flights of fancy. Dali had the biggest personal effect on me when I was first getting into art. I was never big into the arts, but his work just seemed to speak to me. His work allowed me to explore my own imagination and possibilities. Though I may not plan on going into any artistic field of work, I've always taken inspiration in the surreal and absurd.

Speaking of surreal and absurd, the music videos that we have been watching in class reminded me of a video that was recently directed by Eric Warheim, of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! fame. The video seems as though it cannot be embedded, so check it out here.

Alan Turing

Alan Turing, through his work during World War II, ultimately led to the creation of the first computers. In Bletchley Park, Turing helped develop the "Bombe" to decipher messages sent during the war. Thanks to his ingenious work, the German Enigma codes were able to be deciphered, greatly aiding the Allies in their advances in the war. Basically, his work not only helped turn the tide of war, but also lead to the computer revolution. In his personal life, it was reported that he was homosexual, and persecuted greatly for it, to the point of actually being given a chemical castration. It is said that this persecution and operation may have been the reason that he took his life at 41, but a petition was signed around the entire United Kingdom that actually led to an official government apology after his death for the inhumane treatment Turing was put through. Though he may have not been as celebrated for his accomplishments after the war at the time, his memory and achievements still live on today.

Final Project, First Draft

I was definitely excited when I heard that "piratage" would be an acceptable form of video art for our final ART211 project. Though I still need to record my performance piece, I used much of the free time I had this weekend to start on the final project, just because of how exciting I find the medium to be. The task ended up being a bit more daunting than I expected. I've yet to go through all 7 hours of content that I plan to scan for usable clips, but I'm pretty happy with what I've extracted and created so far. This isn't some project I'm doing just for class, but rather this is something I'm also doing for myself. I've always been fascinated with videos like these but I've just been too lazy to try it myself, but now I have the push I needed to finally try it out.

Anything I've finished so far is subject to change, especially the visuals. I'll probably try to make it more lively later, but for now I'm focusing on getting the audio itself down, then worry about the visual aspect. Even so, the audio I've created so far may also change along the course of working on it more. As for the source, it's an anime series I've really enjoyed that I happened to own on DVD.