Nicole Cho

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 8 - Nicole Cho

Facial Recognition

Map of Ames

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ArtGR 522 Reading 08

 Silvio Lorusso's 'Learn to Code vs. Code to Learn'

I really enjoyed this week’s reading. There were parts where I related to and have experienced and there were also moments that made me ask myself questions about coding and design. In the beginning of the reading, Lorusso talks about the way the students who were women in her class stated how coding was not “their cup of tea.” In my undergrad when I took a number of coding classes, I also very much remember walking in the first day of class and only seeing a handful of women compared to the mass amount of men. The difference in ratio was overwhelming and I had thought to myself maybe this was a mistake for me to be taking this class. Over the semester as I had befriended the other women in the class, they had also expressed to me that they had the same exact thoughts when they came into class that first day. Those same women also ended up being super great at coding and now have great jobs and are successful in what they do. 

“...should designers have to be able to code?” Lorusso brings up great points from both points of view and talks about what others have to say about this question. This is what I think of Lorusso’s question. I think that although coding is very useful in the way that it can create an endless number of things in all sorts of industries, including design, I don’t think that designers have to be able to code. However, although I don’t think designers have to code, I think that if they have the opportunity to try, they should. That doesn’t only go for designers. I think everyone who has the opportunity to code should at least try it because not only can it be a useful skill, you can also learn a lot. Coding to learn and learning to code is such an easy idea, but I had very thought about it. I only ever thought about it as learning to code, but now that I read this reading, I realize that the only reason I learn how to code is to be able to code to learn other things. For this class, I learned how to code patterns, but now I am coding to learn more about what I can create and how I can make art and design. 

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 8 - Nicole Cho

This journal entry, I wanted to create a visual essay. This visual essay is a student's point of view and what they experience when the walk from the Student Innovation Center to the Southwest Recreation Center. This includes the buildings they walk past, the street they walk on, and some views of nature.

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ArtGR 522 Reading 07

Muriel Cooper's 'Computers and Design'

It was really interesting reading about the evolution of computers in the design world. Although I had some knowledge of this, I learned a lot about how much has changed from not that long ago. “It is not yet clear that the computer is changing the way people think about design…” This may sound very gen z of me, and although I can imagine life and school without computers, it is still insane to think about being in this program without being about to use computers. Rarely is it that we will be assigned an assignment or project that does not involve using our computers. The last time I was assigned something non digital was when I was in middle school. I think it is incredible what computers have done for us in terms of education, so being able to use technology for design is so beneficial and helps us tremendously. 

Although I think the use of technology and computers for design has helped us so much with making things efficiently and being able to mass produce things, I also think that being able to create things without technology and computers can create a different feeling to the creation. For example, in this class we create patterns and animated patterns by coding. We can even have our patterns interact with our mouse. However, I also think that creating animated patterns could be very fun and create a different feeling if we were to create them by drawing them on paper like a flip book. This could also apply to creating posters– instead of using software like InDesign, it would bring a different feeling to create a poster by cutting up pieces of paper and gluing them together on a poster board. Occasionally I find myself reminiscing about and missing the way I created art in elementary school or even middle school. 

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 8 - Nicole Cho

During our class last week, we watched a Nazi propaganda documentary called Triumph of the Wills. The overall meaning and message that this film was trying to convey was religion, power, and unity. When asked what propaganda was, someone in class brought up the idea that it was sort of like advertising in a way. According to Google, propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view” and its list of similar words include, but are not limited to, information, promotion, advertising, and advertisement. For this week's journal I wanted to focus on the theme of advertising and how sometimes it can be misleading.  

One product that I have seen being advertised so often, and especially by influencers online, is Bloom Greens & Superfoods. Bloom Nutrition’s Greens & Superfoods powder is a sweet alternative to grassy-tasting greens powders but lacks proven results and clinical research support. They are meant to supplement, or add to, your existing intake of greens and “superfoods” (foods that are naturally packed with ​​crucial nutrients) like berries or broccoli. However, the potency or the actual amount in a serving is not enough to really make much of a difference even though it is supposed to be an add to supplement. On its front label, Bloom Greens & Superfoods claims to aid in digestion, bloating and immunity, although acknowledges on the back label that these claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. From the amount of people advertising this product, I feel like even though this isn’t a terrible thing you can put into your body, a lot of people are just so influenced and automatically think they need it. Having influencers post videos and promotion content about how they need to drink this product everyday can be very misleading for many individuals.

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 7 - Nicole Cho

For this week’s journal entry, I wanted to talk about the visual essays that everyone did. I wanted to talk about them because of how cool and interesting everyone’s topic was and how different they all were. For this week’s journal entry theme, I want to focus on how things (could be literally anything) can be seen differently to everyone. While we were looking at everyone’s visual essays during class, there were some that the class did not fully understand right away or some that people had different ideas as to what they were about. 

The first one that I wanted to talk about was the one about the movie covers. There were various images of movie covers and the theme of them was that each movie shown was a series and the cover from the first movie to the second was drastically different. The first movie cover typically did not convey what the movie was about very well, while the second movie cover did a much better job at showing the viewer what the movie would be about. In the beginning I don’t think anyone really got it, but once it was explained to us, it really made sense. Someone in class brought up the idea that maybe the access and availability of technology really helped them in the second movie cover and I agree completely because I am sure during the time between each movie, the amount of technology that was used increased. Another visual essay that I wanted to talk about was the boy’s and girl’s disney shirts from Target. Everyone in the class understood the theme right away, but I really like how the more we talked about it, the more differences about the shirts were brought up. For example, we talked about the cup of the shirts and how the girl’s shirts curved in at the waistline and how the sleeves were shorter, while the boy’s shirts were the boxy cut (that we all like) and how they all had the same sleeve lengths. The last visual essay I wanted to talk about was the one about problematic artists. I don’t think anyone in the class was able to get the theme right away, but it was about the way we tend to ignore the things that artists have done and still praise their work. I think this topic was very interesting and unique because I don’t think I have ever heard anyone talk about the way we separate art from its artist. 

Overall, I think everyone had really great topics and it was really interesting to hear about them, why they chose the topic, and to learn more about different things. 

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ArtGR 522 Reading 06

Demien Conrad's interview with Zach Lieberman in Graphic Design in the Post-Digital Age.

I really enjoyed reading this interview with Zach Lieberman because of how much he has done in this life and the experiences he has been through. Lieberman talks about all of the different softwares and languages that he has used and written in, and how the popularity of technology such as AR and VR comes and goes in waves. “I think you’ll see a lot of students use technologies that are kind of magnetically related to what’s popular at the moment.” I think this is so true, and not even with technology because I think this can totally be applied to art in general and anything related to art. It was really interesting to read about Lieberman’s view on the order of technology and art and design. He states that “art and design be put first, and technology second. The things that you want to do, the stories you want to tell, or the experiments you want to create are important, and technology should be at the service of these ideas.” I haven’t really thought too much about this, but I think I would agree with him? I think it depends on the goal of what you want to do, tell, or create, but I would agree that it is important to think about the art and design of your creation before you bring technology into it. For example, when I was reading this part, I thought about the way we (our class) are asked to draw out what we want our pattern to look like and how we want it to interact with our mouse. Although I have the image in my head, I think it really helps to draw it out and visualize it in front of me because then I’ll be able to think about the art and design portion of it, which is quite important. 

Reading about the School for Poetic Computation was really awesome because I feel like the intention and morals of the school are good with the story behind why the school even started and how the school is so transparent and even to what and how they teach. When Lieberman was talking about how important experimentation is at the school, it really inspired me to want to think more like that– to be constantly making, and not overthinking. Lieberman also talks about how he makes his students print out code to then highlight it, write and mark up on it, and work with it on paper because it is a language. I think this style and way of thinking of teaching for every class that I’m taking right now would be so beneficial. I am more of a visual and kinesthetic learner so it really helps me to physically do things and be more hands-on. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this interview– it was surprisingly inspiring and really motivated me. 

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ArtGR 522 Reading 05

 Anni Albers's 'Designing as Visual Organization' in On Weaving

In the beginning of this chapter, I really liked how Albers talked about our experience and what we see when we look down from an airplane onto this earth. It put such a clear picture in my mind because whenever I looked out of a plane window, I always thought to myself how cool Iowa actually looked (I mean, big cities look cool too) from up above because of how straight the lines were and I just loved seeing the square patches of land. While reading this and knowing this chapter was about weaving, it made me think and imagine a blanket that had that same view, and how cute it would look. 

“Any material, any working procedure, and any method of production, manual or industrial, can serve an end that may be art.” I really liked this quote because I feel like it just opens up what art is and how many things can be seen as art, and how “designing can become art.” The chapter then talks about the process of designing and how important it is, in the example that was shared, to understand how to create something and to know the process of how to design it. I felt like this concept could be related back into coding because of the importance of knowing how the process world and where to even start. In coding, I feel like the first step is to know what the goal of what you want to create even is. It is important to picture and to identify what you’ll need to create or solve. Once you know what you need, I feel like it is pretty much just starting big and plugging in smaller and more detailed adjustments to create your finished product. Seeing all of the different types of looms, methods of weaving, techniques, and patterns just makes me think of how you can create the same thing with code by writing different code. As it has been said, working code is working code. 

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 6 - Nicole Cho

Something I found interesting from The Politics of Design was ‘The Data Face’ in the Information Graphics chapter. I do not think we talked about this yet, but the idea of image technology and the amount of data and information that is being taken is honestly quite scary if you really think about it. “Your face will not be able to hide anything.” With automatic face recognition, it is the process of identifying or verifying the identity of a person using their face. It captures, analyzes, and compares patterns based on the person's facial details. Although this can be useful for some security purposes such as finding a bad guy, it can also connect people to their social media accounts, medical history, and even to information about friends and family. As many people with phones that have facial recognition experience, while you have your mask on, your phone was not able to recognize who you were and would not unlock your phone. This is also common if you wear sunglasses or any other item that blocks a big part of your facial features.

As an artistic solution, Adam Harvey created Cv Dazzle which was designed to break machine vision systems while still remaining perceptible to human observers. Different hair styling and makeup was used to break up key facial features and made this change into a fashion statement. I thought this was such a creative and interesting way to go around and evade automatic face recognition.

More about this project is found here: https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle/

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ArtGR 522 Reading 04

Tim Ingold's 'The textility of making'

When I first read this, I do not think I understood it completely. Even after reading it a second time, I am still not sure if I totally get it, so if I say things that are completely out of pocket, I apologize. In this article, Tim Ingold reflects on the relationship between maker and material and how form is obtained. In the beginning Ingold shares other artists’ ideas, and mentions how Paul Klee wrote, “Form is the end, death” and “Form-giving is life.” He also says “Art does not reproduce the visible but makes visible.” I feel like Klee’s idea is suggesting that art should not reproduce what we are seeing, but that it should make and form what we see. 

Ingold then mentions that the ultimate aim of this article is that “with Deleuze and Guattari it is to overthrow the model itself and to replace it with an ontology that assigns primacy to the processes of formation as against their final products, and to the flows and transformations of materials as against states of matter.” Deleuze and Guattari are arguing that the relationship is between materials and forces, and how materials are mixed with one another. I liked when Ingold states how practitioners have the “ability to find the grain of the world’s becoming and follow its course while bending it to follow their evolving purpose.” HE then explained in more detail and I was able to really picture splitting the timber with an axe and how the blade entered the grain of the wood. 

I really liked the illustration of sawing through a plank of wood Ingold put in my head when trying to explain the difference between iteration and itineration. “Sawing a plank is like going for a walk.” Each movement or step is not connected in the way we think, but it is more developed and prepared before the next step. Although the action may all be the same, the action required to take the next step is altered slightly each time. For some reason, this reminded me of coding and how with coding, we can create the same thing over and over again and keep repeating the same pattern or the same output and result of the code. However, the process and code may be altered to make it more efficient or simpler. I think this can also just be applied to any type of repetition in art in general. We may try and create the same piece of artwork, but the process or steps that we take to achieve our goal may be slightly different from the way we did it the first time. 

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 5 - Nicole Cho

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ArtGR 522 Reading 03

Rob Giampietro's 'I AM A HANDLE'

At first, I wasn’t sure what I thought when reading this. It almost felt like I was reading a robotic-styled poem. I didn’t fully understand what the reading was trying to say, but after reading it again, I somewhat understood it and what the significance of talking about metaphors was about. I thought it was interesting how the way poems are written with all the metaphors was tied back into software and the way they somewhat relate. “Reach, of course, is something that, as a handle, I know a thing or two about… we handles facilitate manipulation, asking the manipulator to operate at a distance.” Again, the comparison to Shakespeare’s poem is being brought up again, and I feel like this is talking about how handles don’t have that type of limitation of being so far out of reach. I also thought it was very interesting to think about resting new icons as “metaphor shopping” as Susan Kare describes it and how a virtual pencil is pretty much a metaphor of a real pencil. 

I am not sure if this is the same concept as the reading or if this even counts as a metaphor, but when the reading was talking about trying to describe a horse to someone built on the experience of automobiles, it reminded me of class. Coding is definitely not the most easy thing to learn and hold grasp of, but in class we are explained in a way that makes it easier for us to understand. For example, when we would be learning about the way arcs are drawn, Maurice would explain it to us with handles because we are all familiar and have experienced using handles. In the quote ‘objects don’t just allow actions but suggest them, the suggestive power of a bicycle is that of speed, progress, and the power of human beings to conquer boundaries,” it made me understand the key elements of an object’s existence, and also made me think of objects having different roles and possibilities that expand its meaning. I thought overall this reading was an interesting and fun way to think about software.

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 4 - Nicole Cho

In class, we presented and viewed many different maps that our classmates made. It was very cool and interesting to see how everyone in class decided to execute the assignment and add their own personal twist or style. I think since this assignment was to break the rules and to do something different, the theme of this week’s journal entry is to embrace and learn from other’s differences and to be open to the fact that not everyone thinks the same.

I am comparing my map with Hannah Dong’s ‘Life Explore Map’ that graphically depicts one’s development and experiences. Her map included many icons and images throughout the map while mine did not have any icons or images. The icons and images within the map were explained to have a lot of symbolic meaning. The design components that were included in the map were dream life, love life, happy life, struggle life, and sustainable life. In her map, it was pretty clear what icons and images were corresponding to each design component as we discussed in class. While there were a lot of colors incorporated into the map, the colors did not seem to have only one meaning. She had mentioned that there was a lot of red and yellow to make it seem related to Iowa State University. In my map, each color, or ranges within a color, meant a different year, so it made color more important. This map represents a lot of different stages in life and has a lot of visuals. Comparing her map to mine, mine did not have a lot of information and did not tell the viewers a lot. A viewer can more easily understand the meaning or components in Hannah’s map compared to mine because mine does not have anything for the viewers to get information about. Both of our maps did not have any words on it, which I really liked because it can make the viewer look more, especially in Hannah’s map because there is much more to see. Contrasting to Hannah’s map where it showed a lot of different components, mine was a lot more personal and only showed my experiences. However, both of our maps showed places, her map being in Ames and my map being in Iowa City.

Overall I think there were more differences between our map than similarities, which I really liked. It made me think about how she thought of the assignment and how she would execute it. Although having more clear boundaries within the assignment description would have made it a little easier to execute, I think it was more interesting at the end to see all the similarities and differences between my map and my classmates. 

Pictured below: my map (top) and Hannah’s map (bottom)

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ArtGR 522 Assignment 5

Inspired by Ben Barry's One Hundred Pattern #92

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ArtGR 522 Assignment 4

Inspired by Ben Barry's One Hundred Pattern #92

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ArtGR 520 Journal Entry 3 - Nicole Cho

In class, we did a visual analysis activity with the cover of Donald Trump on Time’s Person of the Year magazine. I liked this activity because I got to hear what other people thought about the cover and what stood out to them the most. It was interesting to see similarities and differences between what stood out and what my opinions were of the cover versus my classmates. After reading the Symbols and Icons chapter in The Politics of Design, it made me think about all of the other things we see in our daily life and how we can all think of them differently. For this reason I want to make the theme of this week’s journal entry about visual communication, especially with images and icons. 

In the chapters that I read in The Politics of Design, it included a lot of great examples of visual communication and how important it is to know who you are designing for and why we should always be thinking about them when we want to create designs that will be understandable to them. The example that I liked was the image of the thunder and trees. I feel like using such a simple image can tell you a lot about your audience because like the book explains, some people may read the image left to right which will make them think the thunder is going towards the trees while people who read the image right to left will think the thunder is moving away from the trees. 

Although visual communication can heavily rely on where someone is from, I think it also just depends on the individual’s own opinions and how they view things, and also what existing knowledge they have. This makes me think back to the first reading of The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck because for me, someone who knew absolutely nothing about any of the iconography of symbols within the artwork, my thoughts and feelings would be totally different from someone who has knowledge about the important symbols and their meanings in the artwork. How one person perceives something can be entirely different from another’s perception just based on what they know. In episode 2 of Ways of Seeing, John Berger and a group of women discuss the nude paintings and photographs of women that were shown in the film. I think this could also be a good example of how artwork like paintings and photographs can be seen differently and mean different things depending on one's own opinions and existing knowledge. 

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ArtGR 522 Assignment 3

Inspired by Ben Barry's One Hundred Pattern #92