Author: abradbur@andrew.cmu.edu

For this Looking Outwards post I specifically wanted to find projects that integrated writing or storytelling, since I already knew that that was the direction I wanted to take my project. The first work I found is actually a simple point and click style game which you can download for free at the the artist’s web page here .

Since an extremely simple(as in far more simple than Desert Fox’s work) point and click game struck me as something I could conceivably accomplish for my final project, I admired the developer’s simplistic art style and their way of conveying the mood of the scene. In the “Bad Dream” series by Desert Fox, published in its early stages back in December of 2013, the player walks through a morbid dreamscape and attempts to wake up. One of the challenges of a point and click is to make the story interesting even though for the most part images are stagnant and pacing is entirely dependent on the player’s ability to solve a puzzle. For this purpose, intriguing backgrounds, good writing, and interesting puzzles are necessary. Desert Fox accomplishes most of these things, but though I enjoy their simple art style, it can become a little bland to look at after a while, even with gory details. As a result I would like the visuals in my final project to be just a little more dynamic.

The second work I found is “Fabulous/Fabuleux” by Heather Kelley. It debuted in 2008.

Here is Heather Kelley’s web page.

This project uses interactive software to tell a story according to the movements of the people who participate. I admire the use of sound, motion, and simple game mechanics to communicate the story, as well as the enchanting visual effect of creating a constellation that forms key objects in that story. However, if I were to change the project, not necessarily for improvement but to be more suited to my tastes, I would make the system of interaction itself relevant to the story, so that if you just replaced the story they used with a different one, it wouldn’t work as well. For this project the story itself doesn’t matter as much as the technology behind it, and I would like the writing in my project to have more of an impact.

For this Looking Outwards I wanted to find some musical pieces that couldn’t be reproduced with physical instruments and would instead need to be played entirely electronically. I started out looking for some artists who had perhaps made a specialized synthesizer when I came across an artist that, although utilizing a program that they hadn’t created themselves, they instead created a new genre of music. “Black Midi” is a music genre defined in that if you were to write the sheet music of a song in that genre, you would end up with a black piece of paper because so many notes are played in the song. It’s not just the magnitude of the music that makes Black Midi so interesting, but also the visual aspect of it. Rendering the notes in such a way that in video the music is mesmerizing to look at. “Pi, The Song With 3.1415 Million Notes” by TheSuperMarioBros2 on Youtube, is a particularly mesmerizing piece. Uploaded on March 14, 2015, the visuals include the symbol of Pi itself, morse code, and swirling visuals composed of the notes on Synthesia. It’s truly impressive, and while the music may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I find it enjoyable. It’s like video game music.

(The song duration is also 3:14)

Entangled by Camille Utterback (2015)

I was really drawn to this piece because of the magical imagery behind it. The images produced from projections onto three diaphanous screens give both a sense of volume and depth as well as a sort of ghostly feeling at the same time. The idea of two people connecting on other sides of the screen to make a collaborative piece of art is also very poetic. Since the images produced appear on both sides and are affected by both participants, no one has total control.

Camille Utterback has a BA in art from Williams College, and a Masters from The Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She says that her art tries to bring the focus back to the richness of the human body in contrast to a world that is consistently digitized. Her work “explores the aesthetic and experiential possibilities of linking computational systems to human movement and physicality in visually layered ways.”(Bio)

Here is her website.

Here is the page with this particular work.

beyond the edge

A post shared by agatha (@eggbadger) on Mar 19, 2017 at 8:00am PDT

alchan-Looking Outwards 05

I chose this post by alchan(andrew ID leaves their true name a mystery), because I really enjoyed the style of artwork she chose to write about. I’m a big fan of low poly, soft colored, images and animations and works of art, and “Crystal Shore” (February 21, 2017) by Agatha Yu was especially soothing for me to look at. Usually video games are criticized or made fun of for low poly graphics, but in reality this style makes for some very intriguing art pieces and graceful animations. I would agree with alchan in that low poly lends itself to create entirely new art styles instead of video game or true to life graphics. Said simply, low poly images like this one and all others by Agatha Yu have a bouncy, fun, simplicity to them, while also remaining strikingly elegant.

Here is Agatha Yu’s Instagram.

Here is Crystal Shore.

Zach Lieberman at Eyeo 2011

Zach Lieberman actually holds a degree in the fine arts, and says that it was mostly by accident that he fell into working with technology. He’s become somewhat of a giant in the art and coding industry, as he was one of the co-creators of openFrameworks and open source C++. As an interactive new media artist, he describes his three muses as drawing, movement, and magic.

I chose to watch Zach’s first Eyeo presentation firstly because I remembered watching clips of his earlier presentation in lecture, and I recalled really enjoying his presentation style. However after watching this first presentation I’ve come to truly admire him for the creativity combined with the innovation of his works. A throughline comparing his projects would demonstrate that a common theme in his work is the relationship with and the effect it has on people. He stresses the humanity behind his work, and creates these sort of exhibits where people can come together. This is also evident in his Open Source materials and his Poetic School for computation.

I enjoyed Zach’s presentation because you felt how sincerely he cared about his work. He wasn’t professional and cold on stage, performing with gimmicks and flashy graphics like some might. He let his work and the reactions people had to it speak for itself. He conversed with the audience in his speech, rather than talking down at them, and he let his humor show through. That’s why his talk was able to pull me in for an entire 50 minutes, rather than bore me to death in the first 15.

Night Lights 2009