The central theme of the Remix project was Pop culture play
on the ordinary. The project guidelines specified a type of mix of media and
mediums. I wanted to produce a piece that showed just that in that it would
play with elements that were polar opposite to one another. These elements
played on the idea of mixing that of analogue photography with digital
graphics, using color and black and white, and taking an ordinary subject
matter and placing them into an iconic context. What drove me to create this piece
was the fact that I wanted to play on opposites and see what could be produced
from it. What inspired me also was the works of Andy Warhol and elements of pop
culture and advertisement. In a sense, I intended to take an ordinary figure
and make them an extraordinary or even marketable piece.
The process unfolded once I learned how to develop film in
the dark room and how to use a negative film scanner. I knew that I wanted my
subject to be a person and who seemed to have some type of story or history to
them. So I chose the photograph of an older gentleman in what appears to be a
dimmed lit kitchen. Using various tools in Photoshop, I was able to cut
what I wanted from the original, balance its hue, saturation, and lighting as
well make it black and white. I then used shapes and a bright
color palette to create the background and duplicated the image of
the older man. This is where Warhol had definitely come into play. To heighten
the contrasts even further, I border the piece with thick black borders and
white text which made the piece a more "poppy" or pop-like.
My working habits for this project were effective in that I
was actively manipulating what I could in both the analog and digital realms. I
spent a number of hours working on this project yet I believe I could have put
more time into this piece. Stepping back from this piece, it looks as though
not a great deal of effort was put in although it is visually appealing. If I
could revisit this piece I would play more on color and contrast as well as create
more replications. Overall, if I were to grade myself, I would give myself a B
because although the piece is colorful and eye-catching, more could have been
done to take it to the next level.
The central theme of my Alternative Printing project was the
interactive body. I wanted to feature three systems (skeletal, muscular, and
augmentary systems) of the body and make them interactive for the public. Just
as our bodies are constantly active and interacting with forces around us, I
wanted to switch this idea around and have my audience interact with these
active body parts though it is actually inactive or immobile as an art piece.
Also I wanted to utilize different techniques for alternatively printing as
well as different surfaces to heighten the effect of each piece and its
interactive nature. What drove me to create this series was the fact that I
am fascinated by the inner workings of the human body and how it
functions multiple tasks every second, every day. So what I intended was to
have a series of pieces based off of the human body that both utilized
different methods of printing and had different interactive qualities.
The
process for this project unfolded when I decided that I wanted to focus on body
systems and interaction. I began by deciding the methods of printing I wanted
to take on. After retrieving a mirror, I knew that I wanted to play on
reflection with reflective surfaces. So I used super sauce transfer to print a
translucent image of a skeleton onto the mirror, so that when displayed,
viewers can look into the mirror and see both their reflection and the
reflection of the skeleton over their reflection. The next type of printing
that I wanted to experiment with was printing on fabric. I then decided that I
wanted to create a wearable item which is where the inspiration for the
“muscle” shirt came (a shirt displaying the muscular system). Finally, I came
across temporary tattoo paper online which inspired me to print on the skin
which also represents the augmentary system.
My
work habits I would say were very consistent and engaged. Because I was working
with a subject matter that I expressed full interest in, I found that I was
fully engaged and working diligently for hours. During this process as well, I
was pleased to have learned how to use super sauce transfer and make custom
temporary tattoos. Unlike the remix project, I find that I put great effort and
more time into this project because it involved things that I have never done
before. Stepping back from this piece, I would say that there is a clear
connection between the play on the skeletal system and the play on the muscular
system as well as the motive behind each. Yet with the temporary tattoos, there
seems to be a disconnect because the tattoos themselves don’t seem to have a
connection to a body system nor with one another because they are all so
different. So if I were able to revisit this piece, an idea that I could
utilize would be to have tattoo designs of body parts or bones which I believe
would communicate a type of connection to the augmentary system as well as
connect it with the other displayed systems. Overall, I believe that my grade
for the project is between an A- to a B+ because the effort is evident and the
piece explores many different elements (body systems, interactions, and
printing methods) as well as attempts to connect them all into one cohesive
series.
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