yikes

ally zhao's digital art and new media side blog aka the only online space where i don't shitpost

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I’ve invented ‘The Knife-Wielding Tentacle'👍

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blog report on youtube - past and present

When I look back to pre-Google YouTube, I think of independent content-makers filming videos in 360p in their rooms on tiny handheld point-and-shoot cameras and attachable computer webcams. I think of editing styles and transitions - hilariously awful 10 years later - and the early 2000's aesthetic. I think of users like Chris Crocker, Tay Zonday, Ryan Higa - users who posted videos that eventually went viral and achieved great fame for it. I think of niche category videos that somehow everyone had seen - Happy Tree Friends, salad fingers, etc. Early YouTube as I remember it was a mess, but it was genuine. When I think of YouTube in the years following it's acquisition by Google in 2006 almost two years after it's founding, I think of the idea of partnering with YouTube. Of making videos as a job - of views and likes and favorites as a source of income. I think of making millions based off of whether or not a stranger on the other side of a screen likes your internet personality. I think of the ads I've seen along the halls and traincars of the NYC metro system, or across billboards and buildings on Houston Street. I think of videos that - to my cynical mind - read as entirely disingenuous and try-hard. I think of a video by Phil Lester (AmazingPhil) that chronicles a day in the life of him and his roommate Dan (danisnotonfire) - how, in one scene of the video, Dan mentioned that they were outside of the Google office in London ("how corporate," says Dan) and how Phil jokingly goes to worship the Google overlords, or something along that vein. In other moments of the video, Dan references his own "brand" - that is, his personality as expressed through YouTube and social media. Of course YouTube's own employees know that they've essentially sold their souls to Google. At least, users like Dan and Phil seem to be hyper-aware. In the 21st century, users crave "the real." They crave genuine personalities on the internet. And there is always going to be a part of me that believes creative intent and artistic expression will outweigh corporate agendas for individual video-makers. But the rest of me has watched users sell out or fade out of the radar. The rest of me is still cynical whenever I see a Tyler Oakley advertisement on the side of a building on Crosby and Houston, for example, street telling me to "Dare to be YOU." I wonder what the consequences would be if YT employees followed that advice 100%.

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blog post on filter bubbles

In my "Brand Identity and Visual Communication" class - a Steinhardt design course that focuses on understanding, creating, and recreating brands - a recent project we have been working on is the rebranding of a company whose brand has fallen out of pace with contemporary culture. My group chose Yahoo!, and our approach was to reimagine Yahoo! as a platform that would allow for personalization of news sources and the services in general of the site. When we watched El Pariser's "Beware online 'filter bubbles'" TedTalk, I admit I was a bit horrified. It had never occurred to me in the entire process of rebranding Yahoo! that personalization of search results and news sources was actually widely considered a breach of online privacy and liberty, not to mention detrimental to the personal betterment of individuals who need to be exposed to more world views. To test things out, I googled a couple of key terms on both my and my roommate's laptops. I chose terms that have great potential to give me politically charged results; "Syria," "feminism," and "Ferguson" to begin with. I was surprised to see that we ended up getting identical results. I tried a few terms that were relevant to both of us and relatively innocuous - "new york city" and "anime" but still no changes between our screens. We checked the cookies on both of our chrome settings - both of which were enabled. So now I'm left to wonder (other than simply "am I doing something wrong?") are filter bubbles affecting everyone? Are they a true cyber-danger? Or am I just not clicking on enough politically charged articles that my Facebook friends share to be affected by the filter bubble?

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blog report on personal instagram travel photographers

Having a personal instagram photographer that is paid to follow you around while you vacation and photograph you for your instagram sounds like the definition of being a millennial, doesn’t it? I mean, think about it: there actual people in the world who created a service that is dependent on the fact that Generation Y is known to be so obsessed with our digital identities that we will hire an external individual to document the moments we want to remember. I can hear the protests from the baby boomers: cries about millennials not living in the moment and about the obsession with social media. There are interesting questions that are raised with the idea, though. On tumblr dot com, there are a small handful posts with a few hundred thousand notes (ie, user interactions) that profess the desire for a "photographer friend" - that is, a friend who always comes with a camera on hand and "will take artsy candid photos of me doing aesthetic things." Here's the thing: I am that friend. In all of my social circles, I am the resident photographer. I will almost always come to an event or hangout with some type of camera, even if the chances of using it are slim. And I can tell you - the reader - with certainty that I'm not bringing it to prove to my social media followers that I'm having a grand old artsy time. I don't want to get into the complex philosophies about photographing these moments, but the point stands. (This is going to sound pretentious, but-) Being a photographer is a lifestyle. You see everything through a viewfinder. You always want to capture it. All that being said, there's something about this Instagram photographer that rubs me the wrong way. There's something almost disingenuous about it. The exchange of money for the service of documenting treasured moments abroad with friends seems so strange. I mean, imagine having the time of your life across Europe but also trying to look good all the time because of the moments that are going to be captured for social media by some stranger you paid. Imagine sharing your vacation with that stranger. Imagine living every moment with the thought, "I hope this photo will look good for insta." That sounds exhausting. That sounds so, so fake. And the weirdest part is, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to having this job. Of course, being paid to travel and take photos is such an ideal. Of other people I don't know? Certainly less ideal but whatever pays the bills, right? Ultimately I have (admittedly, slightly pretentious?) reservations about the idea of participating in the act. And obviously no one is forcing me to. (And besides, if you're vacationing with me it's obviously not a necessary service.) But to be on the other end of the image? Not a terrible gig if you ask me.

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blog report on “the entire history of you”

It’s a widely acknowledged fact in brain and cognitive sciences that when we remember a memory, we’re not actually remembering the memory as it was, but rather an iteration of the last time we remembered it. It’s kind of awful to think about in context of the best memories. Even the worst ones.

“The Entire History Of You” terrified me in a lot of ways, but mostly in the fact that I can think of so many memories that I would never want to replay - and that power is literally at the characters’ fingertips. But there are also things that I fondly remember so often that I wonder if it even happened as I remembered them. In a lot of ways, memory is power. It has power over the course of present and future events, and it has power over our perception of the past and the people involved.

Of course there would be good applications for the grain - total honesty of witnesses in trials, for example. But I have so many questions about the smaller aspects of the grain. Other than lip-reading recreation, memory deletion, and replay, what other functions does the grain provide? Are there school mandates about how testing works if a student could just look at the answers and watch that memory? How has the grain changed laws?

In the end, however, I think that it’s probably for the best that this kind of technology doesn’t exist.

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blog report on laser forest (C)

I loved this piece. The visuals were gorgeous and exciting and the idea was so interesting. I think introducing audience participation is one of the best aspects of contemporary art. I was just absolutely floored by how much I loved this installation and how desperately I want to visit.

There are plenty of conversations to be had about creating interactive spaces like this - about how choreographing performances in such a space turns the laser forest into both a medium and a Place, and about how engaging the general public to participate in the creation of sound fits into the conversation about human and machine.

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blog report on drone orchestra (B)

I wish I had enjoyed the drone orchestra piece more. I thought the idea was fun (once again introducing machines into what is considered a very human expression), and while the execution was certainly interesting, I found the visuals to be lacking. I was just not impressed with the overall aesthetics of the drones. I can appreciate the intent to make them quirky and with personalities, it felt slightly too self-deprecating for me to enjoy or take as well as the creator intended.

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blog report on drone film fest (A)

Leave it to OK Go to do a wonderfully fun and choreograph-heavy music video. Whether it was just a lot of CG or if it was actual people is still unknown to me. There were points when I had to take a step back and remember, “This is being filmed by a drone. A drone is flying this high, unmanned.” I somehow came to care about the wellbeing of the drone as if it were a sentient creature.

The idea of having a machine filming an art piece dredges up the whole conversation that was had when photography was invented – about the machine taking away the human aspect of the art, which therefore takes away its legitimacy as art.

I thought that the video for architecture was a brilliant use of drone technology – possibly one of the best applications possible. To place a machine where humans can’t venture safely and create an art piece opens up incredible new options for exploration videos. All of this on top of the fact that it was visually captivating – I had to remind myself once again that this was all filmed by a machine.

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blog report on ken’s “third date”

I think Ken has an interesting line of thinking in his blog post titled “Third date,” but that type of thinking is a long way off in time, if ever possible. Modern society is so obsessed with the idea of the true self in terms of appearance. Magazines are shamed for airbrushing their models and “catfishing” (a term that originally meant creating an online profile for someone you are not in order to lure another person into meeting with you but has now taken on a meaning of posing / framing photos of yourself to look more attractive than you may be perceived to be) has become a point of caution for people meeting potential datemates online. I think, if anything, there will come to be technology that does the opposite of Ken’s idea – that shows one’s true physical self before anything.

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blog report on grace hopper

I appreciate Grace Hopper’s contributions to computer science and the strides she has helped computer programming make, but there was one thing that did not sit well with me at all in the documentary we watched about her.

Hopper was a highly influential, highly accomplished woman in programming. Her legacy has inspired and continues to inspire young girls across the world to get involved in STEM related fields. The fact that a woman accomplished so much is alone a huge motivator to these young girls who don’t believe that science is for them simply because of their gender. Yet, in the documentary, it was stated that Hopper didn’t care about the fact that she was a woman. It was stated that she believed that “anyone can accomplish what she has, they just have to work as hard and believe in themselves.” This statement just rubbed me the wrong way. It comes from a hugely privileged position – of course a white woman with a college education who served as Rear Admiral in the United States Navy could be of the opinion that anything is possible if you work hard at it.

People in positions of privilege aren’t often aware of their privilege until someone brings it up. I understand that Hopper is likely part of that category. I just don’t want any young girl to ever think that it isn’t a great thing that she’s a girl pursuing science.

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Anyone who is friends with me on snapchat knows when I go to art galleries and museums because whenever I find a mirror in these spaces (which is almost every time thus far), I’ll take a selfie in it and post it to my story.

With this project, I’m all about myself. I’m going to keep looking for mirrors in galleries and take photos of myself in them and posting them to snapchat (add me @ allyzhao ayy). Call it millennial narcissism if you want. A lot of my work is rooted in ideas about self-perception and (in this case, quite literally), self-reflection.

I currently have around 10 from the galleries and art spaces I’ve been to this semester, and I hope to display them in a way that is reflective of the viewer.

Tools needed: snapchat

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trends for 10/9

toxel http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2015/09/27/classic-art-cakes/

the creator’s project http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/artists-take-polaroids-of-the-digital-world

PSFK http://www.psfk.com/2015/10/apple-harry-potter-ibooks-store-enhanced-editions.html

boingboing http://boingboing.net/2015/10/07/michael-pollan-discusses-how-t.html

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blog report 10/9

On Kaleidoscope VR Film Fest

There's something peculiar about watching everything around you - even yourself - in real time, 360 degree virtual reality image-stitching. There are the classmates (weirdly distorted), there's me (does the back of my head really look like that??), and there's the rest of the VR film festival - all through a lens that is reminiscent of glitch-art. It's reminded me of that prank where, when someone goes on vacation, you move everything in their house 5 inches to the left so that when they return everything is slightly off. I could reach out and try to touch something, but where my hand met what I was looking for in VR, I only met empty space. I could call out to a friend in the space that I saw them in, but their voice came to me in a different direction. On the other hand, Ken Perlin's wireless VR was fairly accurate in object tracking. I was only a few inches off from being able to touch Jason's arm when we put the headsets and trackers on. It's incredible that Ken's studio is the only one to have figured out wireless VR. The second film I watched was a bear video that came from a wide selection of nature videos (I believe it was called Condition One?). As someone who has a deep love and appreciation for bears and their ridiculous and majestic movements, I thought this video was perfect. The scene changed a few times, but the video followed a brown bear walking through a woodsy area. I may or may not have been crying because I just love bears so much. The third film I saw was Colosse - an incredible 5-minute animated experience in a universe of fantastical giant creatures and the people who lived among them. The colors and movement of the film were incredibly beautiful. Colosse reminded me of the Disney movie "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" and the Jak and Daxter video game franchise from Naughty Dog all at once.

Strangely enough, when I think back on the whole experience, I am reminded of that Disney Channel Original Movie "Smart House." The premise is that it's basically a house from the future, and there are a few scenes where the house turns one of the walls into what is essentially a virtual reality screen. The occupants of the house felt that they were in the scenes that they saw - they could smell the ocean and feel the spray of water on their faces. They felt real fear when they thought an animal was charging at them. In that movie, the VR screen was truly reality. That movie was made in 1999, and the technology they created for that movie was considered groundbreaking and futuristic. Today, we're not far off from that reality. When we visited Ken's lab, we talked about bringing all of the senses into a VR experience - candles? Fans to simulate wind? As cheesy and obvious as it sounds, there are just so many possibilities.

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trend report 10/3

Scenario In The Shade by Jonah Freeman, Justin Lowe and Jennifer Herrema is a multimedia exhibition at Red Bull Studios NYC that takes the audience through a multi-room, multi-level aesthetic experience. The exhibit includes a film, sound pieces, and architectural experiences among others. Red Bull Studios NYC website states, "Scenario in the Shade explores the history of youth subcultures of the San San International through a mise-en-scène of objects, architectural environments, and a 30 minute faux-ethnographic science fiction film, presented in the artist’s signature labyrinth of immersive interiors." I wish I had known this going into the exhibit because while I enjoyed it overall, I had a difficult time understanding the experience as a whole. Confusion aside, I did really enjoy the exhibit. It was wonderfully playful and immersive as well as visually engaging. I particularly liked the room that could be entered through hole in the wall through a wardrobe - I felt that bit of architecture was particularly wonderful, despite being so simple in concept. Other rooms I enjoyed were the basement (whose door was a port-a-potty) where the courtroom setup had 80's porn magazines behind the judges table, the shelf with all of the relabeled pill bottles, and the broken down recording studio with the audio track playing. I found all of these to be witty and fun. I even found places like the yellow hallway and the aggressively monochromatic bathrooms to be appealing. Thinking about the exhibit in relation to remix aesthetics, I'm interested in the specifics of the exhibit that the artists might have remixed from other artists - especially in rooms like the lounge with the Narnia-esque entrance, the wall of pill bottles, and the film that was playing. I wish I had more context for the works and the exhibit as a whole to be able to more fully understand how remix aesthetics were used here.

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trends for 10/2

boingboing http://boingboing.net/2015/10/01/mesmerizing-slow-motion-beauty.html

PSFK http://boingboing.net/2015/10/01/mesmerizing-slow-motion-beauty.html

the creator’s project http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/when-first-and-final-frames-tell-a-films-entire-story

atlas obscura http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mount-moriah-cemetery

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trend report 9/25

September 19, 2015 on The Creator's Project "How To Draw Your Selfie-Portrait" by Annie Armstrong Carla Gannis is an artist who is using selfies that she takes on her iPhone, iPad, or laptop camera to create what she calls a selfie-portrait. After taking the selfie, her process usually includes drawing over the image digitally and adding narrative elements to it. Through her selfie-portraits, she addresses ideas about the self in the broader context of the 21st century with consideration of corporate and brand identity, surveillance culture, and digital persona. Her images stray from conventional representation of people - she often portrays herself with unnatural skin, hair, and eye colors in strange and abstracted settings. Furthermore, some pieces include multiple iterations of her visage in the same work.I'm really excited about Carla Gannis' selfie-portraits. 

Though the visual language and general aesthetic is not my cup of tea, I love her concepts and I love the words she has said about the subject. As someone who makes a lot of art through self portraiture (whether I'm illustrating a selfie I took or controlling my DSLR with a remote from 10 feet away, or even making performative gestures on social media with concepts of the self), I love seeing other artists' perspectives on selfies and presentation of the self. aThe selfie is a particularly interesting subject of artistic consideration. When we take selfies, we tend to work with our most flattering angles and the best lighting we can get with careful consideration of how to conceal or draw attention away from blemishes and imperfections. We are literally creating an idealized image of ourselves. Our selfies are the truest version of how we see ourselves, and as a generation that sees and experiences everything through a smartphone screen, the idea of the gaze through the digital is holds a particularly interesting weight. 

I love Gannis' statement, "I am the original photographic source for all of the selfies...However, as I work on them, they become less "me" and more about a human actor or avator set within numerous contexts: imagine, cope, and finding virtual escape in the 21st century." I'm really interested in the idea that [what I believe is] the most intimate and personal perception of the self can become depersonalized and abstracted from the self and come to represent an icon of contemporary personhood. I think a lot about the argument that Gannis addresses - that "we, as humans, lay claim to our lives, our identities, and desire to imprint something of ourselves on the walls and pages of communication networks." I look to this article (and similar artistic endeavors) in the formulation of my final project.

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trends for 9/25

song exploder http://songexploder.net/the-album-leaf

art of the title http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/hannibal/

brainpickings https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/23/margaret-atwood-future-of-storytelling-drew-christie/ the verge http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9369991/samsung-serif-tv boingboing http://boingboing.net/2015/09/24/ginat-snapping-turtle-vs-pine.html PSFK http://www.psfk.com/2015/09/3d-printed-outfits-university-of-southern-california-behnaz-farahi.html toxel http://www.toxel.com/tech/2015/05/13/flying-selfie-camera/ the creator’s project http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/how-to-draw-your-selfie-portrait