Digital Media thoughts and reflections @sofiadigitalmedia - Tumblr Blog

Brighton Bomb (2006) is a collage by artist Dexter Dalwood. When I look at it, it does not really make sense to me - but I honestly love this feeling and it makes the experience of looking at it feel even more playful and engaging for me. It looks simple, but the more I look at it, the more I get lost in it because there are so many different textures and sources of fabric/material/color.

Laid Up (2020) is a silk screen print by artist Christina Quarles. I am in love with the simple colors and basic shading, as well as the layered lines across the composition. I think it is really simple, and in this piece, the simplicity works really well. I also really appreciate the white background - I often forget that leaving parts of the canvas/material blank is an option!

What I find captivating about Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work is how the different shapes and objects seem to be formed by patterns and textures. Instead of collaging an actual floor or wall, the pieces of the composition are made through the shaping of patterns. I would love to work in this style and will definitely keep her in mind as I continue my projects.

Recently I have been very inspired by David Hockney. He is one artist that I find myself looking back at every once and a while as I study art at Cornell, as various projects that I have worked on remind me of his work. Recently in my painting class, we did a project on distorted perspective, which reminded me of this piece, Interior with Blue Terrace and Garden. This is something I may incorporate into my final project as I continue to work on it, so having his work as a reference point is very helpful.

American Artist

As I listened to the class presentation on American Artist, I found myself really considering what it means to change ones name, as they did. I read a quote that they said, which said “If I make that my name, then I am it.” Does making their name American Artist really make them an American artist? Does it make them anymore American and anymore of an artist? This line of thinking reminded me of how when I tell people my name, I am usually asked where I am from as people are curious to know my roots and what my ethnicity/identity is. I suppose if American Artist introduces themselves as so, then people have nothing to question - everything is in the name already. There is no room for confusion, and they can not be identified as anything different. In a way, it strips them from their identity of literally anything else, and makes their existence solely one of an American Artist - just as they said. I do not think I would ever want to do this as an artist, as for me, I like to reference all the different aspects of my identity in my artwork. That being said, I really admire American Artist for changing their name and for being confident in their identity.

#americanartist #identity

PostCommodity

As I looked through the PostCommodity website to see more work in depth, one artwork that I could not get out of my mind was The Point of Final Collapse, a sound installation created in 2019. I am fascinated by how the movement of the Millennium Tower was used to create ASMR audio that can make people feel relaxed. I have not heard much of sound art in a long time - the last time I heard much about it was in high school when I met with a London based sound artist and brought her into school to speak to my club about her profession. Since then I have not come across much sound art - I definitely think it is an underrated medium. What blows my mind is how sound can mask something that is scary and overwhelming, and can make an experience the complete opposite - calming and welcoming. It makes me think about things like social media and industries in general, as I assume many bad things are masked by things that comfort us. In a way that is scary to think about, because there must be so much of life that is masked by the media that I may never see unmasked.

#postcommodity #media

I really love the work of Lola Dupre. Her work is so textured. It seems really simple, yet the distortion of her body makes it intriguing. Lola Dupre is a collage artist and illustrator from Scotland. The quality of her images makes makes it difficult for me to figure out if the image is from a photograph or if it was created entirely on the computer - but this makes the experience playful and really keeps me drawn in.

These are images of digital collages created by UK artist James Dawe, which completely blow my mind. Seeing collages like this make me want to create something similar right this second. I really love how there is so much negative space in the background, while the foreground is absolutely insane. I think it creates a really lovely balance of chaos and stillness.

Moving Images Project - Reflection

Working on this project definitely helped me gain experience in not only using Premier, but also in exploring the themes of body image, gender performance, and personal experience in relation to the two. I have never touched upon these themes in any of my work before, across any medium, so although doing so was intimidating at first, I feel like I developed my perspective and am glad that I chose to approach the project in this way. I enjoyed brainstorming ideas for this project and then pursuing my chosen idea, as gender performance is something I think about a lot as I live as a young woman trying to meet the criteria that society sets for me. If anything, it was therapeutic to directly connect my experience of presenting my body as a female ballet dancer to Judith Butler’s thorough and succinct ideas.

I just LOVE the work by artist Koby Martin. I am in love with the texture of the tracksuits in this work, and really enjoy how the tracksuits sort of blend with the busses in the background. I honestly love everything about the image, including the funky border around the bottom half of the page. It really feels like you are stepping into a completely different universe.

I just discovered Moses Adesanya, a London-based artist. I really like how his work has a lot of room to breathe. They seem simple, yet there is enough to look at so it feels like a really calming balance.

Moving Images project progress

For this project, I am going to be using the book Judith Butler : sexual politics, social change and the power of the performative by Gill Jagger. My plan was to put together various paragraphs that I resonate with, and perhaps change some wording so that the lines flow nicely. I really enjoyed sifting through the text and finding parts to use, as gender performance is something that intrigues me and that I want to learn more about. I have never explored this concept in my artwork before, so I am also excited to see how this project will go. I have figured out what parts to use, and am now working on producing the images that will go with the text.

I think Filippo Marinetti is another great artist to look at when finding inspiration for collages. I forgot that I can find inspiration for collages from artists that are known for their paintings, instead of just limiting myself to collage artists. I really enjoy his fonts as they all seem unique but also have a sense of familiarity. I also think the placements of the letters are really well structured as it creates a sense of movement of the eye as I look at the composition.

I really like how Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings use a photoshop element, as she places a skull above a landscape. It seems really random and out of place, yet it also fits into the environment through its colors and texture. I think this is something to look back at when finding inspiration for collages and future photoshop projects.

In the Blink of an Eye

One thing that made me laugh while reading In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch was when he said that many people think being an editor is simply cutting out the bad parts of a video. I found it kind of funny because I encounter a similar way of thinking when I tell people I am a B.F.A major. They think I spend all of my time drawing and painting when in reality it is much more than that - I spend a lot of my time studying artists, exposing myself to different ways of thinking, etc. Things people do not know much about get dumbed down in a way, and I realized when the topic is one that does not really apply to their daily life, they are not very interested in bettering their knowledge of it and are happily accepting the generalization they have come to.

To speak on the rest of the reading, one thing that I am kind of struggling with is part of “The Rule of 6.” I understand his list, in which he prioritizes emotion and story over other smaller, more technical aspects of the film. However, what is bothering me is his use of percentages within the list. For example, he said a cut should satisfy 51% emotion, and then 23% story, and so on. What on earth does this even mean and how would anybody actually work with these percentages when working with film? I see it as another artist trying to present a complex theory that is slightly overdone, in an attempt to distinguish himself, the artist, from the general public. I feel that I have seen this a lot when studying artists - they write in a way that makes it difficult for the general public to understand, even though the whole point of their writing is to GET the general public to understand… I guess to me it seemed a bit silly, but I definitely do admire his list and the order that he placed the different qualities in. I will keep this list in mind while I create my next project.

When researching artists to find inspiration for the collage project, I also looked into Richard Hamilton. I find the way he sets up architecture/space to be really intriguing. It reminds me of the project I am currently working on in my Intro to Painting class, in which we are painting distorted space. I think it is really fun to look at and would love to incorporate this in my future work.

I am quite happy with my final product for this collage project, as I feel that every element I included has significance and contributes to the overall concept that I was trying to express. This is something I struggled with in past projects, as I was not used to fully considering the purpose of every detail in my compositions. I now feel much more confident in this way of thinking. I also really enjoyed hearing my classmates’ interpretations of the work, and was glad that they were able to identify my idea before I told them what it was.

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Digital Media thoughts and reflections