Carson Cole

I think video games, especially ones today that are starting to utilize new technology such as virtual reality, greatly demonstrate the point Ron Burnett makes about viewers wanting to become a part of the images they see on screens. Unlike a television or movie screen, video games invite a user to become an active participant in the images they are seeing, allowing them to make choices about what happens in their personal experience with the medium. I think this kind of interactive media will become much more prevalent in the future, we have already seen for years television shows that invite the viewer to 'vote' for contestants or otherwise participate in the events you see on screen. I was also intrigued by Burnett's discussion of a photograph he took. When he first took the picture, he wasn't necessarily thinking about conveying a particular message with it. However, he later came back to it and realized he could relate it to something personal from his life. I th...

It's interesting to read about the early "guerrilla" style reporters and activists who infiltrated events like political conventions with handheld video cameras. Today, almost anyone can participate in this kind of impromptu journalism, as video cameras exist on every cell phone. It seems as if these early pioneers of alternative news broke into a world that was otherwise very private and exclusive, and created a sense of accountability and transparency that we expect from news media today. The author also discussed further the definition of Art. He refers to the way video artists differ from documentarians or news reporters in that although the latter might create things in an artful way, their intent, unlike video artists, is not to create art. This was similar to my thinking that readymades, like the ones created by Marcel Duchamp, separate the object from their original use into an art form. The intent of the artist is what makes this separation. Further, just as Du...

I was once again impressed in this reading by the lengths the artists would go in the name of their art. Orlan, for example, underwent several facial surgeries in order to convey her message, bringing a whole new meaning to suffering for your art. Also, The Speech , the video performance by Doug Hall really resonated with me. I think that often in American politics, politicians give prepared speeches to audiences that are already supporters of their platforms. Even in the 'debates' we see before presidential elections, the candidates simply state their established positions at one another. There is no real attempt to convince or have a reasoned discussion. The message I got from Hall's performance is that people are more concerned with the optics of giving a speech, rather than the actual content of it. Mike Smith's 'Mike' character also made me think of questions I've had about myself and humanity in general. Namely, are we capable of original thought, or...

Although I think a lot of this reading was unnecessarily verbose, and in some places it seemed like the author was using obscure synonyms for words just for the sake of it, it did bring up some interesting points. I found the author's discussion in this reading about how virtual images are created in a computer to be particularly thought provoking. He refers to the way computers can be used to apply mathematical algorithms that are capable of generating realistic looking objects much faster than a painter could. For me this made me question the legitimacy of this kind of art, if it's done through a computer algorithm does it really require any skill to complete? I think what it comes down to is how an artist utilizes the algorithm, although it might not take skill to run the algorithm, it does take a competent designer to place and manipulate the objects in the virtual world in a pleasing or meaningful way. I also agree with the author when he says that digital mediums are wel...

The idea of having an online identity is something I've thought about a lot. Like the author, when I first started using social media I only used my real name and was relatively careless about what I put online or whether my profile was public. However as time has gone on I have become less inclined to use social media at all, due in part to stories we hear in the news about people losing their jobs due to posts on their social media. I've never tried to be offensive or objectionable online but oftentimes people don't realize that their posts might be misconstrued to mean something they didn't originally intend. The biggest factor for me was thinking about how potential employers could easily find my name online and possibly find a reason to not hire me. Because of all this I have taken steps in the past to 'preen' my social media presence as well as remove my full name from much of it. I also completely agree with the author's sentiment that anonymity onl...

I was very impressed in this reading by the way some of the video/performance art predicts some of the high production performances we see today. For example Robert Whitman's Prune Flat , featuring performers interacting with filmed images, immediately brought into my mind some of the performances involving projections on shows like America's Got Talent where the performers sync their movements with the images on screen. It's incredible to think about how far we've come with regards to technology, yet the ideas have been around for years. For me this chapter examined the reduction of art to its simplest form. Just like minimalist painters in the 60's and 70's attempted to reduce their subjects to the simplest possible shapes and colors, the video and performance artists in this chapter reduced their works to the actual process  of making the works. When I looked at and read about the pieces in this chapter, I have to admit, I found it hard to relate to or appr...

When reading this section I thought about whether artists like Marcel Duchamp or Joseph Beuys would have garnered so much acclaim or been so influential if they had created their art at any other time. It seems to me that their art hit some kind of cultural sweet spot to be able to start a movement and inspire so many others at the time. I think this phenomenon is so interesting to me because it's almost as if the physical art is less important than the timing  of the art, and the cultural implications thereof. I also think that this explains why it it so difficult for many people today to appreciate or understand this kind of art, and why its often met with dismissal or ridicule. I also noticed in the reading many examples of hypermediacy, such as John Cage's musical compositions, that included sounds such as pounding on the wood of a piano, making the listener aware of the medium. (P. 24) This focus on the medium seems highly prevalent in fluxus art, especially in the case ...

I thought the discussion in this reading on artists attempts at "erasing" themselves or their methods from their work was very compelling. It seemed to me that the author was somewhat critical of this practice, I tend to feel the same way, for the most part, completely removing all evidence of a human element from a painting or photograph for example does not necessarily make it a better work of art. However I do think with regard to software developers that it is usually better for them to remove or erase themselves from their work in order to create a more user friendly experience. Conversely, artists who practice hypermediacy relish in making the medium obvious to the viewer. When I read this the first thing I thought was, "which method is better?", or, more appropriately, which is better for me, because I think the answer depends on what you are trying to convey to your audience. In my opinion, hypermediacy of some form is always more appealing than complete tra...