Pandora is a music recommendation site that is completely different. Unlike sites like Last.fm and iTunes, Pandora does not use a collaborative filtering algorithm. These site tell you what people who like your favorite songs also listen to. Instead, Pandora breaks songs into basic elements like tempo, instrumentality, tone, and type of vocals to play you songs with similar elements. This breaks the boundaries of what genre a band is supposed to be, so the results are often surprising.
Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project. Founders of the site divide songs into hundreds of musical attributes much like the Human Genome Project divides the DNA sequence into many genes. The goal is to capture the musical identity of a song based on these “genes” and find songs with similar components. It disregards the band’s image, genre, and who buys the record, and only focuses on what each song sounds like.
Since Pandora started in 2000, thousands of songs have been sequenced. Even some of the obscure bands that I am fond of are on there, which I find very refreshing. So how does it work? You just type in the name of an artist, song, or band, and it will play a song that is iconic to that band (or the song you actually type in). From there, it begins to play songs similar, and you vote whether you like it or do not want to hear it again. You can even decide a song is overplayed and tell it not to play for a month, or add qualities from a different band to the station. What is created is a totally unique radio station on your computer.
Unfortunately, you cannot take this station and play it in your home or your car unless you pay a $36 per month fee. Is it worth it? You decide.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Article Review: Eye-Fi
“Eye-Fi: How One Little Chip Will Change the Way You Share Pictures”
WIRED magazine, 11/9/07
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/news/2007/11/eyefi
Eye-Fi is a new company that makes Wi-Fi memory cards for cameras. This enables users to automatically route photos to their hard drive or to photo vendors like Facebook or Flikr.
This product is extremely innovative and useful. Photos the world over are trapped inside of people’s cameras because of the chore of uploading them. Then many never make it online because it is a multi-step process: plug in the camera, upload the pictures to the hard drive, filter through the pictures, and manually upload them to the web. The card’s software even handles scaling and compression. As for filtering through the pictures, privacy settings on the sites can even help with this.
So why haven’t we seen anything like this sooner? Eye-Fi was the first to create a Wi-Fi-equipped memory card because many of the large companies like Kodak and San Disk focus solely on hardware and not software. Eye-Fi was able to assemble the necessary people involved because the company was focused solely around the idea of producing a Wi-Fi chip. Camera producers like Nikon and Canon have played around with the idea, but their solutions locked users to one photo platform for uploads. Users wanted more freedom.
Eye-Fi has been working on creating this chip for two and a half years. They’ve produced a 2-GB SD wireless memory card. The user just needs to sync the card to a hard drive or Wi-Fi network, and all the work is done for him. Eye-Fi also pioneers on listening to customers. Anyone can log onto eye.fi.com to suggest additional photo platforms.
Because of the integration of technology, IDC analyst Jonathon Gaw anticipates that more devices will soon network via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. As for Eye-Fi, CEO Yuval Koren cryptically tells readers, “’There’s a lot more that we have in mind. Keep following what we’re doing.’”
I think that this is a remarkable idea. I can never find my cord to upload my pictures and even when I do upload them, I hardly ever post them online just because it is such a hassle. This could enable me to upload and share more pictures and would save a lot of time. I might even take my camera more places and take more pictures with this much work eliminated. However, I would still want to be able to edit a lot of my pictures so loading them directly online would not be for me. I also think that it would take up a lot of memory on your computer and website if all the pictures you took were uploaded. Many pictures that the average person takes end up being deleted. How is this worked out?
Another problem is the range of the Wi-Fi. If you are in a remote area or overseas, what happens to your uploads? Can you still upload manually if need be? Different countries also have different band frequencies, which could cause a problem.
Overall, I think it’s a very interesting and useful technology, but not something I would purchase until it becomes more widespread. Cost and logistics uploading would be issues for me, and I don’t think these have been brought into light yet since the concept is so new.
WIRED magazine, 11/9/07
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/news/2007/11/eyefi
Eye-Fi is a new company that makes Wi-Fi memory cards for cameras. This enables users to automatically route photos to their hard drive or to photo vendors like Facebook or Flikr.
This product is extremely innovative and useful. Photos the world over are trapped inside of people’s cameras because of the chore of uploading them. Then many never make it online because it is a multi-step process: plug in the camera, upload the pictures to the hard drive, filter through the pictures, and manually upload them to the web. The card’s software even handles scaling and compression. As for filtering through the pictures, privacy settings on the sites can even help with this.
So why haven’t we seen anything like this sooner? Eye-Fi was the first to create a Wi-Fi-equipped memory card because many of the large companies like Kodak and San Disk focus solely on hardware and not software. Eye-Fi was able to assemble the necessary people involved because the company was focused solely around the idea of producing a Wi-Fi chip. Camera producers like Nikon and Canon have played around with the idea, but their solutions locked users to one photo platform for uploads. Users wanted more freedom.
Eye-Fi has been working on creating this chip for two and a half years. They’ve produced a 2-GB SD wireless memory card. The user just needs to sync the card to a hard drive or Wi-Fi network, and all the work is done for him. Eye-Fi also pioneers on listening to customers. Anyone can log onto eye.fi.com to suggest additional photo platforms.
Because of the integration of technology, IDC analyst Jonathon Gaw anticipates that more devices will soon network via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. As for Eye-Fi, CEO Yuval Koren cryptically tells readers, “’There’s a lot more that we have in mind. Keep following what we’re doing.’”
I think that this is a remarkable idea. I can never find my cord to upload my pictures and even when I do upload them, I hardly ever post them online just because it is such a hassle. This could enable me to upload and share more pictures and would save a lot of time. I might even take my camera more places and take more pictures with this much work eliminated. However, I would still want to be able to edit a lot of my pictures so loading them directly online would not be for me. I also think that it would take up a lot of memory on your computer and website if all the pictures you took were uploaded. Many pictures that the average person takes end up being deleted. How is this worked out?
Another problem is the range of the Wi-Fi. If you are in a remote area or overseas, what happens to your uploads? Can you still upload manually if need be? Different countries also have different band frequencies, which could cause a problem.
Overall, I think it’s a very interesting and useful technology, but not something I would purchase until it becomes more widespread. Cost and logistics uploading would be issues for me, and I don’t think these have been brought into light yet since the concept is so new.
3-D Printers
3-D Printers Redefine Industrial Design
Article by: Bryan Gardiner
I came across this article on Geekipedia, I had never heard of a 3-D Printer before so I thought I would do a little investigating. After reading the article I’ve decided I want one for myself, although I won’t be able to afford one anytime soon because they are rather pricey. For anyone who was like me and didn’t know about 3-D printers I’ll give a little description.
So basically a 3-D printer prints out models in 3-D. There are various kinds of 3-D printers that are capable of printing different materials. The feature printer that was discussed in the article is a printer from Frog Design; it is used for more traditional modeling purposes. The printer uses two materials: ABS (acryolintrile butadiene styrene) plastic and industrial-strength glue. The glue is what enables the machine to build hollow or concave objects without letting them collapse in on themselves. An example of using a 3-D printer in product design would be for the use of creating personal hearing aids;
“They stick some clay in your ear, it takes the shape of your ear, then they 3-D laser scan that and it gets fabricated by a 3-D printer, it’s kind of co-designed by your ear, by your personal geometry.”
Evolving technology has even generated 3-D printers that are capable of printing out fully functional finished products. In fact, battleships and aircraft carriers now make extensive us of selective laser sintering (SLS) printers. These printers are capable of “printing out” materials like titanium, cobalt chromium and polyamide. They actually use these printers to fabricate spare parts on the spot instead of carrying huge warehouses full of replacements.
3-D printers are a really great tool that can speed up production time, ultimately cutting costs for all sorts of products. My personal experience with creating 3-D projects is that for one I usually end up wasting a lot of material. I’ll come up with ideas in my head and decide upon materials, but often while I’m building the structure I come across technical problems with the design. By using a 3-D printer you can eliminate many of these problems before final production.
The craziest concept that I read about was that some manufacturers of 3-D printers even use their own products to create parts for the next generation of printers. In a way I think it’s a little scary that machines are able to build other machine. Although this fear could have to do with the fact that I watched the movie i-Robot last night. Convenience and efficiency are goals people strive to accomplish while creating new technology; the end result is easy living.
Article by: Bryan Gardiner
I came across this article on Geekipedia, I had never heard of a 3-D Printer before so I thought I would do a little investigating. After reading the article I’ve decided I want one for myself, although I won’t be able to afford one anytime soon because they are rather pricey. For anyone who was like me and didn’t know about 3-D printers I’ll give a little description.
So basically a 3-D printer prints out models in 3-D. There are various kinds of 3-D printers that are capable of printing different materials. The feature printer that was discussed in the article is a printer from Frog Design; it is used for more traditional modeling purposes. The printer uses two materials: ABS (acryolintrile butadiene styrene) plastic and industrial-strength glue. The glue is what enables the machine to build hollow or concave objects without letting them collapse in on themselves. An example of using a 3-D printer in product design would be for the use of creating personal hearing aids;
“They stick some clay in your ear, it takes the shape of your ear, then they 3-D laser scan that and it gets fabricated by a 3-D printer, it’s kind of co-designed by your ear, by your personal geometry.”
Evolving technology has even generated 3-D printers that are capable of printing out fully functional finished products. In fact, battleships and aircraft carriers now make extensive us of selective laser sintering (SLS) printers. These printers are capable of “printing out” materials like titanium, cobalt chromium and polyamide. They actually use these printers to fabricate spare parts on the spot instead of carrying huge warehouses full of replacements.
3-D printers are a really great tool that can speed up production time, ultimately cutting costs for all sorts of products. My personal experience with creating 3-D projects is that for one I usually end up wasting a lot of material. I’ll come up with ideas in my head and decide upon materials, but often while I’m building the structure I come across technical problems with the design. By using a 3-D printer you can eliminate many of these problems before final production.
The craziest concept that I read about was that some manufacturers of 3-D printers even use their own products to create parts for the next generation of printers. In a way I think it’s a little scary that machines are able to build other machine. Although this fear could have to do with the fact that I watched the movie i-Robot last night. Convenience and efficiency are goals people strive to accomplish while creating new technology; the end result is easy living.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Website Review: Don't Click it (it's long, sorry)
Review on www.dontclick.it
While I was trying to find a completely new and innovative website on the Internet to do my website review on, I stumbled upon a sight not coincidentally called, www.stumbleupon.com and looked under websites only to find the dontclick.it site. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t go to the dontclick.it site right away, and decided to see what was so great about this other websites. What I found was they had no cool flash intro that I had never see before, just good ideas or sites with crazy and cool information with only a mediocre site. It wasn’t until then, that I decided to click on the dontclick.it sight. I mean it had to be interesting considering it isn’t even a .com…right?
Wrong. It was beyond what I expected! At first it was a little confusing so I started shaking the mouse, which is what I would assume would be the normal reaction for anyone. Then I realized it, this website doesn’t require you click ANYTHING! You just slide the mouse over the webpage to find out information and navigate. It was fantastic. And although you would think it would be hard to get used to, I didn’t once hit a false click. It seemed so natural to me (which I think I’m going to give the dock on my Mac credit for that).
So how different is this website? Well besides the fact that you don’t have to click and wait anywhere from 3-30 seconds for a page to load, this page uses an entirely new type of graphical user interface (GUI). And because it is a website (and I am fortunate enough to be in a computer science class with web design) I also know that the page is made entirely out of Flash which is similar to AJAX (which is what is used for Google maps). These 2 technologies combined allow for a 98% seamless interaction and at most 5 seconds wait time for a page to load. The idea that www.dontclick.it is exemplifying reduces anticipation of the user, boredom from waiting, and no stress (the site tells you in its Body Ergonomy section that studies show that bad user interfaces, ie: run of the mill websites, cause stress because of boredom, and having to wait).
Although I was a little confused upon entering the sight, it didn’t take long for me to figure out how to navigate around it. After figuring out what the idea was behind this whole site being unclickable, it made me want to explore the entire site just to see how it worked and figure know where the idea came from and how it was achieved. The website provided me with more information than I expected and answered all my questions. It even entertained me with statistics that it provided and a 3 level game it has to test the user’s ability in just dragging the mouse as opposed to having to normally drag and click. I’m happy to brag that my first time doing the game I score on an ‘Intermediate’ level.
There was a plethora of information on the site that went along with promoting the non-clicking idea of a website that I didn’t even think of. It has a section that says how it is positive for your body; it has a history of computers and the idea of the mouse; there’s a page that has an idea for a product that will stop the user from clicking if necessary; there’s even a page that explains the number of ways a user can advance with obtaining new information from the flash rollover idea and actual “mouse recordings” of how random users interacted with the website on their first try! Talk about informative.
One of my favorite screens of information (besides the game) was the experiment screen. In this one, it has 4 different scenarios that load when you rollover a test tube and an illustration of a random scene will pop up. Once this happens, it is up to the user on how to navigate throughout the area to explore what will happen. For example, in the 4th experiment test tube, there is an area of a parking garage that loads and as you move the mouse arrow throughout the space, a new interactive and different animation occurs in the certain section you just passed through. I liked this one the best because there were certain areas where you could continue to change the picture and others where once it reached a certain point, it couldn’t change anymore. It really pushed the idea of the limits you can do with have an entire flash based website.
After further exploration of the site and realizing that there was no separate pages that went along with the main one, I needed to view the source of this page to see what kind of code went into making this. When I did this, I think realized a main global attribute was used. In computer science terms, this means that the site is linked to a separate one in order for it to work the way it does. So then is it technically a website? No. It isn’t. However, I was able to go through the couple lines of code and find the global attribute (real website) that dontclick.it was connected to. So then in a sense dontclick.it is not a sight, but rather an entity that was created through, http://dcit.lxfx.org. Once I went to the real website, I looked at the sources for a couple of the screens that would appear once you “moused” over them. When I did this, I realized that the whole site was written in a simple code, that I didn’t understand so I assumed it was flash, and I haven’t learned that yet.
After all my detective work on this simple yet amazing idea behind not having to click, and using nothing but flash to create a website, I realized that soon this will be the reality of all websites. Sure, you cannot get away with totally eliminating having to click buttons or links, but I feel that applying the rollover technique to the design of websites will be eminent because face it, the computer makes people lazy and the more we use it, the more we get annoyed with aspects of it that so long ago seemed to be so cutting edge. For example, wait time. We’re an impatient bunch of humans in the new technological world and have a ‘Nothing- but- rollover” website design would eliminate the most impatient of the crew. This would then make these impatient people extremely happy and we can move forward to an even faster type of navigating through a website, if it’s even possible.
With all my detective work on just how dontclick.it worked, I dug even further and decided it would be useful to read the copyright. I found out something even cooler once I read this! Even though this idea of having the entire site be rollovers was created in 2005, it was created by a student named Alex Frank for his senior project at the University of Essen- Duisburg in Germany. To find this out was pretty inspiring for me because I really enjoy web design and the work that goes into creating a new and cutting edge website. Plus, the man is German and he’s able to create a website that can be read across the Atlantic Ocean and still be able to understand the content and idea behind it. That’s talent and success in design if I’ve ever experienced it. If a student could think of this 2 years ago, imagine the possibilities that await with Flash. Not only that, but it also gives me incentive because this kid was able to do this for a senior project. He must have gotten a job right away just because of this project. I want to do that when the time comes. Hell, I want to be able to create a website that is just as amazing by the time I need to apply for an internship. I’m sure that will land me a pretty solid one.
-shannon
While I was trying to find a completely new and innovative website on the Internet to do my website review on, I stumbled upon a sight not coincidentally called, www.stumbleupon.com and looked under websites only to find the dontclick.it site. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t go to the dontclick.it site right away, and decided to see what was so great about this other websites. What I found was they had no cool flash intro that I had never see before, just good ideas or sites with crazy and cool information with only a mediocre site. It wasn’t until then, that I decided to click on the dontclick.it sight. I mean it had to be interesting considering it isn’t even a .com…right?
Wrong. It was beyond what I expected! At first it was a little confusing so I started shaking the mouse, which is what I would assume would be the normal reaction for anyone. Then I realized it, this website doesn’t require you click ANYTHING! You just slide the mouse over the webpage to find out information and navigate. It was fantastic. And although you would think it would be hard to get used to, I didn’t once hit a false click. It seemed so natural to me (which I think I’m going to give the dock on my Mac credit for that).
So how different is this website? Well besides the fact that you don’t have to click and wait anywhere from 3-30 seconds for a page to load, this page uses an entirely new type of graphical user interface (GUI). And because it is a website (and I am fortunate enough to be in a computer science class with web design) I also know that the page is made entirely out of Flash which is similar to AJAX (which is what is used for Google maps). These 2 technologies combined allow for a 98% seamless interaction and at most 5 seconds wait time for a page to load. The idea that www.dontclick.it is exemplifying reduces anticipation of the user, boredom from waiting, and no stress (the site tells you in its Body Ergonomy section that studies show that bad user interfaces, ie: run of the mill websites, cause stress because of boredom, and having to wait).
Although I was a little confused upon entering the sight, it didn’t take long for me to figure out how to navigate around it. After figuring out what the idea was behind this whole site being unclickable, it made me want to explore the entire site just to see how it worked and figure know where the idea came from and how it was achieved. The website provided me with more information than I expected and answered all my questions. It even entertained me with statistics that it provided and a 3 level game it has to test the user’s ability in just dragging the mouse as opposed to having to normally drag and click. I’m happy to brag that my first time doing the game I score on an ‘Intermediate’ level.
There was a plethora of information on the site that went along with promoting the non-clicking idea of a website that I didn’t even think of. It has a section that says how it is positive for your body; it has a history of computers and the idea of the mouse; there’s a page that has an idea for a product that will stop the user from clicking if necessary; there’s even a page that explains the number of ways a user can advance with obtaining new information from the flash rollover idea and actual “mouse recordings” of how random users interacted with the website on their first try! Talk about informative.
One of my favorite screens of information (besides the game) was the experiment screen. In this one, it has 4 different scenarios that load when you rollover a test tube and an illustration of a random scene will pop up. Once this happens, it is up to the user on how to navigate throughout the area to explore what will happen. For example, in the 4th experiment test tube, there is an area of a parking garage that loads and as you move the mouse arrow throughout the space, a new interactive and different animation occurs in the certain section you just passed through. I liked this one the best because there were certain areas where you could continue to change the picture and others where once it reached a certain point, it couldn’t change anymore. It really pushed the idea of the limits you can do with have an entire flash based website.
After further exploration of the site and realizing that there was no separate pages that went along with the main one, I needed to view the source of this page to see what kind of code went into making this. When I did this, I think realized a main global attribute was used. In computer science terms, this means that the site is linked to a separate one in order for it to work the way it does. So then is it technically a website? No. It isn’t. However, I was able to go through the couple lines of code and find the global attribute (real website) that dontclick.it was connected to. So then in a sense dontclick.it is not a sight, but rather an entity that was created through, http://dcit.lxfx.org. Once I went to the real website, I looked at the sources for a couple of the screens that would appear once you “moused” over them. When I did this, I realized that the whole site was written in a simple code, that I didn’t understand so I assumed it was flash, and I haven’t learned that yet.
After all my detective work on this simple yet amazing idea behind not having to click, and using nothing but flash to create a website, I realized that soon this will be the reality of all websites. Sure, you cannot get away with totally eliminating having to click buttons or links, but I feel that applying the rollover technique to the design of websites will be eminent because face it, the computer makes people lazy and the more we use it, the more we get annoyed with aspects of it that so long ago seemed to be so cutting edge. For example, wait time. We’re an impatient bunch of humans in the new technological world and have a ‘Nothing- but- rollover” website design would eliminate the most impatient of the crew. This would then make these impatient people extremely happy and we can move forward to an even faster type of navigating through a website, if it’s even possible.
With all my detective work on just how dontclick.it worked, I dug even further and decided it would be useful to read the copyright. I found out something even cooler once I read this! Even though this idea of having the entire site be rollovers was created in 2005, it was created by a student named Alex Frank for his senior project at the University of Essen- Duisburg in Germany. To find this out was pretty inspiring for me because I really enjoy web design and the work that goes into creating a new and cutting edge website. Plus, the man is German and he’s able to create a website that can be read across the Atlantic Ocean and still be able to understand the content and idea behind it. That’s talent and success in design if I’ve ever experienced it. If a student could think of this 2 years ago, imagine the possibilities that await with Flash. Not only that, but it also gives me incentive because this kid was able to do this for a senior project. He must have gotten a job right away just because of this project. I want to do that when the time comes. Hell, I want to be able to create a website that is just as amazing by the time I need to apply for an internship. I’m sure that will land me a pretty solid one.
-shannon
Steven Heller Review: NYC
I had never heard of Steven Heller until about a month ago. After all the hype of how we would be able to meet with him in NYC was going on, and after finally hearing him talk, this is how I would describe him: Steven Heller is a failed artist who has a keen eye for design. He doesn’t know anything about it, except for what should look good. His eyes must be doing something right though, because this little window of opportunity has given him a life of wealth and recognition because he can write books on graphic design and good and bad design. He can pick apart every logo and idea ever created and name the top 100 without even knowing how to design the idea correctly. He can sure as hell talk an idea out though, because this failed artist not only makes money off the books he’s written, but also off of people who do all the work and creating of his ingenius ideas. I’m jealous of a failed artist.
When I received the email from Ashley saying that our VC department would be lucky enough to meet with Steven Heller on our November trip to NYC, I was very excited. To be able to be so close and in the same room as such an important asset and person to the history of and to graphic design in general I thought would ignite a great amount of inspiration and excitement. However, once Mr. Heller began to tell us of his journey into the business and the making of his books, I was kind of disappointed to hear him say that all he does is think of the ideas that make up every graphic design piece he has done. Sure I think most of his ideas are very smart and clever, however to know that he couldn’t organize the information into the picture of any certain dynamic piece that I could physically see, was rather disappointing.
Despite that huge disappointment, I was able to find his graphic design books inspiring; especially this one where he named and showed what he considered some of the most influential & smart icons throughout history. I’ll be adding that to my Christmas list. Another aspect of the talk that I enjoyed hearing was how Mr. Heller came into the business at the young age of 17. That is beyond me. I couldn’t imagine being able to do my job without even just the 2 years I have had of formal education in visual communications. He has a natural eye for graphic design even though he himself cannot create it and as I said, I do envy that one aspect of him.
I would also like to point out that even though I was disappointed, it was great to hear that someone who is regarded so highly in this industry got kicked out and failed in art school and was still able to climb to the top. That was what I found most influential of his entire talk and it really showed me that I need to keep trying even if I do fail because I can and do have the potential to get to where he is (even though I don’t aspire his particular job) in the end.
-shannon
When I received the email from Ashley saying that our VC department would be lucky enough to meet with Steven Heller on our November trip to NYC, I was very excited. To be able to be so close and in the same room as such an important asset and person to the history of and to graphic design in general I thought would ignite a great amount of inspiration and excitement. However, once Mr. Heller began to tell us of his journey into the business and the making of his books, I was kind of disappointed to hear him say that all he does is think of the ideas that make up every graphic design piece he has done. Sure I think most of his ideas are very smart and clever, however to know that he couldn’t organize the information into the picture of any certain dynamic piece that I could physically see, was rather disappointing.
Despite that huge disappointment, I was able to find his graphic design books inspiring; especially this one where he named and showed what he considered some of the most influential & smart icons throughout history. I’ll be adding that to my Christmas list. Another aspect of the talk that I enjoyed hearing was how Mr. Heller came into the business at the young age of 17. That is beyond me. I couldn’t imagine being able to do my job without even just the 2 years I have had of formal education in visual communications. He has a natural eye for graphic design even though he himself cannot create it and as I said, I do envy that one aspect of him.
I would also like to point out that even though I was disappointed, it was great to hear that someone who is regarded so highly in this industry got kicked out and failed in art school and was still able to climb to the top. That was what I found most influential of his entire talk and it really showed me that I need to keep trying even if I do fail because I can and do have the potential to get to where he is (even though I don’t aspire his particular job) in the end.
-shannon
Monday, November 12, 2007
Gallery Review (I wasn't in NYC, so this is from Rochester, NY)
Holly Knapp
The Apostacy Exhibition at Rochester Contemporary, artist Michael Bosworth
Michael Bosworth created an exhibition of installation pieces combining new media and historical imaging technologies. The artist’s intent is to make the viewer question current and past notions of the “imaged experience.”
I found the exhibition intruiging but highly confusing. Large balloon-like cloth forms hung from the ceiling with various blurry images of photographs of a face and glasses, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was supposed to know who this person was and I did not. There were also shadow images on the wall of human silhouettes interacting upside-down. I thought that this would be more effective if the viewer did not have to walk in front of the projector, thereby disrupting the image, to get to the other pieces.
The most captivating part was piece in the back of the small gallery. It was simply a video loop projected on a sheet. The sheet was blowing from a fan placed behind it. The images on it were of a boat swaying on the water and a man swimming underwater, and the movement of the screen really helped you feel the motion of the image. The video itself of the man underwater was very interesting because of the camera angles and his facial expressions.
I was highly confused by the whole experience, however. Before attending the exhibition, I had read on the gallery site that it was an interactive media piece where visitors to the artist’s website could interact with the audience at the gallery. Maybe it was the time of day or that the exhibition was not very publicized, but I felt very alone in the exhibition. A statement from the website was apparently supposed to be played when I entered the exhibition, but there was only silence. This defeats the purpose of the interactive part of the experience because the interaction is based on people editing the website’s wiki statement to interact with the audience. There was no explanation of what the pieces were about which would have really helped me because the images were blurry and unrecognizable. I couldn’t really get anything out of this experience besides confusion.
Although I’ve never seen these large-scale balloon figures with projections inside, they didn’t highly impress me. They reminded me of large Chinese lanterns. They were interesting, but they didn’t really jump out as being amazingly unique. Although I liked the projection on the sheet, that is also not unique, especially since you could see the fan and projector behind it, taking away any sense of wonder that the viewer might have. The most interesting and unique piece in my opinion was a pillar hanging from the ceiling. There was about 3 feet of space under it, and when you crawled under, there was a projected image of a skateboarder on the bottom. This is the only piece that really made me want to interact with it, and it also made me think about space since the skateboarder was airborne and I was viewing it from below. This was the most innovative and the most effective piece in the installation.
I left the gallery feeling pretty disappointed. I had brought a friend with me, and I felt compelled to apologize for the experience. I would not recommend visiting this exhibition.
The Apostacy Exhibition at Rochester Contemporary, artist Michael Bosworth
Michael Bosworth created an exhibition of installation pieces combining new media and historical imaging technologies. The artist’s intent is to make the viewer question current and past notions of the “imaged experience.”
I found the exhibition intruiging but highly confusing. Large balloon-like cloth forms hung from the ceiling with various blurry images of photographs of a face and glasses, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was supposed to know who this person was and I did not. There were also shadow images on the wall of human silhouettes interacting upside-down. I thought that this would be more effective if the viewer did not have to walk in front of the projector, thereby disrupting the image, to get to the other pieces.
The most captivating part was piece in the back of the small gallery. It was simply a video loop projected on a sheet. The sheet was blowing from a fan placed behind it. The images on it were of a boat swaying on the water and a man swimming underwater, and the movement of the screen really helped you feel the motion of the image. The video itself of the man underwater was very interesting because of the camera angles and his facial expressions.
I was highly confused by the whole experience, however. Before attending the exhibition, I had read on the gallery site that it was an interactive media piece where visitors to the artist’s website could interact with the audience at the gallery. Maybe it was the time of day or that the exhibition was not very publicized, but I felt very alone in the exhibition. A statement from the website was apparently supposed to be played when I entered the exhibition, but there was only silence. This defeats the purpose of the interactive part of the experience because the interaction is based on people editing the website’s wiki statement to interact with the audience. There was no explanation of what the pieces were about which would have really helped me because the images were blurry and unrecognizable. I couldn’t really get anything out of this experience besides confusion.
Although I’ve never seen these large-scale balloon figures with projections inside, they didn’t highly impress me. They reminded me of large Chinese lanterns. They were interesting, but they didn’t really jump out as being amazingly unique. Although I liked the projection on the sheet, that is also not unique, especially since you could see the fan and projector behind it, taking away any sense of wonder that the viewer might have. The most interesting and unique piece in my opinion was a pillar hanging from the ceiling. There was about 3 feet of space under it, and when you crawled under, there was a projected image of a skateboarder on the bottom. This is the only piece that really made me want to interact with it, and it also made me think about space since the skateboarder was airborne and I was viewing it from below. This was the most innovative and the most effective piece in the installation.
I left the gallery feeling pretty disappointed. I had brought a friend with me, and I felt compelled to apologize for the experience. I would not recommend visiting this exhibition.
hey everyone - just thought i'd drop a link here to the blog i created for class. feel free to check it out sometime
morevolume.blogspot.com
morevolume.blogspot.com
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