Media Forms

After reading Section 1 “Media Forms”, Chapters 1-6 in our text for our class was assigned to select one essay (section) from the chapter to analyze it to discuss with the class.

I choose chapter 5 entitled “Four Digital Media Art Practices: Moving Beyond Drawing and Painting on the Computer” By Ryan Shin

The essay by Shin is about breaking the misconceptions of digital artwork and getting students and teachers to see digital art made with computers as a new medium, not just something that tries to mimic the effects of traditional drawing and painting.

Shin found that students (and teachers alike) often see digital art as a joke, and that it is fake and artificial art, not bothering to give it a chance over using traditional media.

Many people when trying to create digital art think it takes no creative ability from the individual, and that all it is, is picking different pre-designed actions in a program. They focus too much on the “cool” effects, as the author puts it, and not enough on expressing an idea/concept in their piece.

Digital Art is about more than just drawing lines or making forms and filling them in.

Shin goes over four digital media practices/projects that he uses to try and change peoples misconceptions about Digital Art.

1. Visual-cultural Autobiography Beyond Self-portrait Collage

Having students make a digital collage about visual cultural images that have influenced themselves, that way the artwork has more meaning and students focus less on the “special effects” and more on expressing themselves in their artwork.

2. Visual Culture Analysis and Digital Collage

Students were assigned to take an image from popular visual culture and criticize it, to get their own opinions tied into their art. Looking at “visuals, sounds, music, time, motion, text, and words” the students were to make a visual representation of the critique over a span of multiple images. This also showed the students “art does not need to be confined to single picture frame” (Shin).

3. Digital Story Telling

Shin had his students create their own stories by using photos, scans, video clips, music, and their own voices for commentary. He had his students use iMovie, a video editing program by Apple for Mac products. He explains the program is very easy to use and is simple to implement into and art lesson plan for k-12 classes.

4. Narrative We Art: Dimonscapes (digital online artwork by Roz Dimon –>her website)

Shin focuses on the digital artist Roz Dimon’s work. Emphasizing the fact that artwork can be made specifically for viewing on the internet. Dimon’s works consist of images connected to hypertext in a written piece. You can autoplay the story, so the images change as the text is read to you by a computerized voice. Or you can select to go through the piece at your own pace scrolling over the hypertext and looking at the separate images as long as you want. Dimon’s artwork helps art students see a new way to put “poems, personal diaries, or essays” into their artwork (Shin).

Shin finishes off his essay with saying the best way to educate students about digital art and to see it as its own medium of art by encouraging it more in the classroom. And that one should focus more on putting their own mind into their artwork instead of just seeing the “cool” effects and simply drawing with a mouse.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses!

French Alternative Pop band Hold Your Horses! creates a music video with themselves posing as famous works of art, humorous and educational, and you get to guess the works of art yourself.

Couldn’t guess what all the paintings are, or want to know if you got them all right, go here –> Hold Your Horses: Name That Painting

Full list (scroll down)

And part of the same song again, with different imitations of paintings, this time only Impressionism. A promo for the brand new Waldemar Januszczak and ZCZ Films Documentary, The Impressionists, Painting & Revolution.

(*for more about the band –> Hold Your Horses!)

DVCAA + Digital Technologies in Arizona Public Schools

First official post reflecting topics discussed in ARED 281 course, all posts for this class are under the “Art Education in a Digital Visual Culture” category. (Not included by me is the personal digital narrative and notes about digital narrative network because I joined this course late.)

DVCAA

The Digital Visual Culture Artifact Analysis assignment (which there is a link to under “Assignments”) discuss’ a personal piece of digital technology to me, my i-pod, and everything I use it for typical or not (from listening to music on it to using its case as a wallet.)

Ex. Digital Artifact used in class by Dr. Sweeny, “Napoleon Dynamite” – Always & Forever  video on youtube, “Napoleon Dynamite Kids Wedding Song”

Influences in Culture ex. Why post song on youtube?, DVD – format, Tether Ball in schools,Vote For Pedro shirts and moon boots, Soundtrack from movie, Having “skills”

Kipp sings about loving technology, is this strange? Maybe some say they do because technology has become such a vital part of our lives in todays world.

We mapped out all our uses for our digital artifacts in class and laid them out for everyone to analyze as a class. We found that cell phones are the one piece of digital technology students use the most. They can be used for any number of things now like browsing the internet, taking videos or pictures, clock, alarm, flashlight, and on smart phones, which most had if their item was a cell phone, can download any number of different apps to things from playing games, finding sexual predators near you, locating anyone as long as you have their phone number, finding places to eat based on certain criteria, etc.

As far as their use for an art education teacher goes I am skeptical. Students could use the their phones to take pictures or videos, or use a specific app relating to what they are learning but these things are not vital to the learning process as can be learned from the articles about digital technology in Arizona public schools.

Digital Technologies in Arizona Public Schools

Digital Technologies in Arizona Public Schools –  “In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores” by Matt Richtel

Technology focused classrooms in the Kyrene School District in Chandler, Arizona “has invested roughly $33 million in such technologies.” The school district has made the push for advanced digital technology in their schools to saying it is “inspiring their students” and “helping them grow.” But even the superintendent David K. Schauer admits that adding so much tech. into the schools might just be jumping on the bandwagon and it might not actually help, but he hopes it does. The school district since it’s increse in new tech. has not shown much if any progress in it’s standardized test scores. But some people like Karen Cator say you cannot rely on standardized test scores to see if a child’s learning has improved because not because the tests don’t really measure what children learn with technology.

Being a student myself and using digital technology in a classroom to learn can sometimes be fun and they do add convenience most of the time. But schools should not switch over to over-using tech. devices because I do feel they can be distracting at times and cut out an intimacy of doing something the traditional method.

Sound Matrix

Just something fun to start out with. I found a cool digital application online called Sound Matrix. It works by clicking on the squares to create sound and have multiple square lit up to create a sequence, making music. It’s also very interesting to watch. Have fun!