#command x

[joibittle]

[joibittle]

My video Occurrence at the Crawdad Pond (2014-2017) is now streaming and installed at Indiana University. SOUND ON! @Command-X

“State of Nature”

August 28 - November 18, 2020

Grunwald Gallery - Eskenazi School of Art + Architecture + Design - Bloomington, Indiana 

(The exhibition is open by appointment only).

Here’s the story (or The Rib):

A long time ago many humans believed there was a garden of paradise far away and that a single rib was taken from a man to create a woman. It was said that this woman was to be his companion. Somewhere else, a future of non-humans, indifferent to this story, took to the water, ground and air.

A group of paintings and video, together entitled “The Rib”, originated during a time 4 years ago somewhere in the far west permian desert. There, I came upon a small pond nestled in an ancient canyon. I spent many days peering through a telephoto lens in search of an endemic crayfish species. I saw tiny lifeforms shedding vortices on the water's surface, I heard singing voices in the trees and invisible rattlers on the ground. About this pond, then – as a player in this story, it becomes the site of our primeval muck, a world of multivalent origins and collapsed infinities. All things were existing in a world of flatlands without names or language, their lives tiny little circles, over and over and over. Some never left the thin line above or below the surface of the water and others were able to defy gravity, fly toward the zenith as they wish.

Well, I learned a lot there at the pond. An arc which bends far enough becomes a circle, and one short enough appears straight. Time is manipulated to emphasize the shallow focus of human perception. Think what a twitching blink of an insect eye our human presence in the world is!

I studied the minerals and rock beds closely and dreamt of an animal disguise with an electronic voice. I learn through painting, so I made 7 paintings of chosen birds in hopes to know more about them and become a passive watcher of things too. Composed of 7 segments, a human-size aquatic-air dummy- suit was planned to perhaps better articulate the physical movements of underwater creatures. Her internal organs painted and removed.

I left the pond and returned to Queens...from the mythology of origins (a garden of paradise) to techno-utopian deliverance (a post-biological subject), the whole schmear comes and goes in, like, a long weekend. In the end, it's really quite an open question whether a crayfish has a mind or not.

Joianne Bittle “The Rib”

[HD video with soundtrack by Command-X, 6 mins and 31 secs]

[lexybarraclough]

This is another entry for Command X and with this project, we had to design the cover and one spread of a magazine called “ENMU Muse” for the art department to give to prospective students. I chose to use a pantone color chip-like graphic thoughout the whole piece to give it unity. I also created one half of the spread with mostly images and the other half with mostly text to show a range of designs.

[hannamacek-blog]

Blog8: Command X

While watching the Command X presentations it became apparent that these students were not experienced presenters and some of them lacked any presenting skills at all. But I believe that if the students were given proper critics and their presentations they would certainly do better later one. The 5 top presentation techniques the students had:

Be confident in your work, the students who were confident about their work were the ones who presented better.

Make eye contact, the students that made eye contact engaged the audience more and made it seem more like they knew what they were talking about.

Keep it simple, don’t ad to much fluff to your presentation, just show the information that needs to be shown and nothing extra.

Speak clearly, if you speak in a clear and concise voice, people are more likely to pay attention.

Listen to what the judges say about your work, you may not agree but it will help you in the future.

The 5 worst presentation techniques the students had:

Don’t make excuses, “it didn’t export properly”, is not a good reason, take responsibility for your mistakes.

Not standing properly, looking at the ground, fiddling with your hands and just looking like you don’t want to be there.

Keep it simple, don’t ad to much fluff to your presentation, just show the information that needs to be shown and nothing extra.

Plan out your presentation, not having a closing statement is not acceptable when presenting.

Don’t just make up answers to questions you don’t know, just admit that you don’t know, other wise you risk looking like an idiot.

[flaxendream-blog]

Blog8: Command X

http://www.aiga.org/video-pivot-2011-commandx3-day1/

Command X was interesting for but one reason: it's inherent implication that there is no singular solution to a design "problem". Designers so often spout the idea that design is about "problem solving", but this is something I have always had a problem with because it implies that their solution is unarguably "correct", when we all know that this couldn't be further from the truth. Command X magnifies this. Each contestant designed a logo for American Idol based on their own interpretations of the show. What they submitted was what they thought was best. Sure, maybe it was evident that a few of the contestants were not as prepared or did not put as much effort into their "solutions", but who are we to tell them that they are wrong? We can't. The only people who can are the client, but even then, their response is still subjective. The only thing that can be determined is which "solution" people like the most, which doesn't make the other solutions wrong at all; just less popular. It also seemed slightly pretentious to me the way the host was criticizing the current/original logo. The basis for his criticism seemed to be largely based on the effects that were added onto the circle/text, which while I do agree are highly inane, still do not really affect the integrity of the logo or the brand and do not automatically necessitate a re-design. While I'm not an avid viewer or supporter of American Idol–or an admirer of the logo–myself, I do believe the show has been slightly successful over the past ten years, so perhaps the logo actually did do something right. I'd be much more quick to trust the general population that like to watch the show, than a group of designers at a design conference who seem to be judging based purely on the aesthetic merits of the logo in tandem with their outsider impressions of the program. Maybe it does need a re-design/brand–that's something that I could only determine by researching if there has been any major increase/decrease in viewership–but it was the way they talked about it that bugged me. As for the presentations by the designers themselves, I was surprised at the variance in how prepared each of them seemed to be. Many things were done well, but a number were done poorly as well. Here are my top five worst errors committed, and the top five best presentation techniques: Top 5 Errors: 5. Using your hands too much 4. Reading from your hands. 3. Saying "And that's about it" or "And … yeah! That's my logo!" to end your presentation. 2. Not having answers for why you did something. 1. Lack of confidence in your idea. Top 5 Techniques: 5. Making the audience laugh briefly without going too far off topic. 4. Making statements rather than suppositions. 3. Knowing how to respond to criticism. 2. Knowing what you're talking about (ie. your reasoning and the background information that helped lead you to your "solution") 1. Being able to BS answers on the spot.