FMX 463 - Multimedia and Installation Art

If this installation were to be featured in a gallery, there would need to be specific instructions on how to set up this installation if I was not there. There are definitely some key components to this installation that would need to go right in order for this project to look correct. First of all, the two "Grave" pits would need to be placed down next to each other. You drop the two bins first, then gently lay the grave plots on top of the bins. They stay in place because of the front base. Next, you fill each grave with the designated props, each in their own bag with the year labeled (15, 16, 17, 18). After everything is in place, you put the projector in the taped off area and plug it in. Connect the projector to my computer and open Mad Mapper. Open "Final Installation" on the desktop and set the mirror display to full screen, and let it run baby!

All set up! I really love the way this final project turned out. I think it fits very well with my theme and what I wanted to try and get across. The only thing I wish I could have done better was make it bigger.

A plot of foam board to act as my graveyard topper. I have gathered all of my supplies for my graves and have also bought stakes to keep the graves in the foam board. I want this project to be more of a memorial than a creepy graveyard feel, so I am picking music to accompany my projection - possibly something from RENT :)

Response to Yayoi Kusama’s “Love is Calling”             I absolutely fell in love with this exhibit. Yayoi Kusama’s “Love is Calling” does such an amazing job at making you feel so small in a space that seems as if it goes on forever. The room could not have been bigger than an average bedroom, yet the bright colored sculptures and the infinity mirrors gave you a sense of something bigger, grandeur, and more than meets the day-to-day eye.             Kusama explains this piece has a representation between “mortals and the unknown expanse of the universe.” The polka dots on the sculptures represent being your own one dot, your own single life in the existence of a world, an infinite world that is much bigger than any of us can imagine. She believes that infinity cannot exist without human presence. This idea was very imminent in this installation because this entire exhib...

For my last artists research, I wanted to find an artist that brings projection mapping to life more than what we ever thought. I wanted to find an artist that could show me how projection mapping could be used outside of our projects, outside of just being in a gallery. I found an artist named Ricardo Rivera and he is most known for his piece called "Electric Desert." He uses projection mapping to portray an insane, dreamlike environment for his viewers in an actual desert. People are allowed to come, walk through the desert and experience a dream like place while they are awake. I was in complete and total awe when I saw it and I had to share because this piece brought meaning to my work. http://javamagaz.com/?p=5369

For my Final Project, I have already gathered my materials. I have 4 tombstones to symbolize my 4 years of college as well as 4 bins. The bins will act as graveyards and will be filled with items from each of my years here at the University Of Tampa. I am still figuring out how to attach the tombstones to the bins, but they will each symbolize the death of my time here. I am still working on gathering all videos and clips but it has been an enjoyable time going through my old camera rolls and taking a stroll down memory lane.

For my final project, I wanted to do an overall reflection of my time in college and how much I have grown and changed as a person since moving to Tampa from Chicago. Being that I left everything I ever knew to come to a new place where I knew no one, coming to Tampa to continue my education has been a completely life changing experience that I want to try and encapsulate. I want to use old videos from high school in a juxtaposition with videos from freshman year - senior year. I want to put them in a sort of timeline to show a growth from being young and in my home town, to now being 22 and about to graduate from College. I want to use motion graphics to show specific lessons that I've learned, key things that have changed for me personally, and an overall sense of what this experience means to me. As for projection, I want to project mainly on the walls so people can clearly see the progression of my story, but I want to use 4 specific videos, one from each year of college th...

Olafur Eliasson The piece that I chose for this artist research for this week is from artist Olafur Eliasson. The piece is titled "The New Planet" which was installed in 2014. I was originally very attracted to this piece because of the interesting chandelier type installation that is hanging in the middle of this room. What really made me love this piece is the light the comes from it, and the complete environment that it creates. Instead of it being a projection, the environment is created by light diffraction. I love how the focus of this piece is around the viewer's movement and relation to the constantly moving and spinning structure.  This reminded me a little of my concept because of the lights that this piece shows off reminds me of space and the type of feel/environment that I wanted to create. It has inspired me slightly to add something to me installation in place of a strobe light, to maybe have some type of diffracted light to create the scene of spa...

For my projected #3, I plan on working alone instead of in a group. The purpose of this project is to get a hold of the senses through the installation. The installation is supposed to have the viewer be completely engulfed within the installation. I want to try and show the feeling of blasting off into space. I want to get videos of stars and the galaxy as stills, as well as have videos of the stars and galaxy passing through quickly, as if you are flying through space. I want to create sounds of a blast off, wind blasting through you, strobe lights/lasers going off. I want to have a huge fan with adjusting speeds blasting at the people in the installation as if they are actually flying through the air. Timeline: Week of 10/29 - get videos and sound effects uploaded. Set up in mad mapper and gather materials for "spaceship"         Week of 11/5 - Practice set up in blackbox, run through simulation. MATERIALS: industrial fan, aluminum foil, laser/strobe l...

https://youtu.be/WW17SvuEQ3w This is my environment projection about my own experience with sexual assault. This is the first time in my entire art career that I have ever been uncomfortable showing, watching, and listening to my own piece. This has by far been the most vulnerable, authentic, and real I have ever been with myself through a piece of artwork. This piece is titled "These Phrases Do Not Define Me."  I was sexually assaulted when I was in middle school by someone who was very close to me and very close to my family. For quite sometime after this happened, I felt so empty, alone, and betrayed, which were very weird feelings to have at such a young age. It took me a long period of my life, almost until college, to come to terms and move on from what had happened to me. I used this projection project as a way to finally release my thoughts on it in an artistic way that would continue to help me heal through this process. I decided to perform in this piec...

So I have finished mapping out and video recording my projection. I had to change around how I was going to execute this project so many times because the ideas I had in my head were not translating well enough in the space that I had. I also couldn't use many of my original videos due to the fact that they were not fitting/translating well into my bedroom. That is one of the many things about being an artist...trial and error. I was very frustrated that I almost had to reconstruct my entire idea. However, I am really pleased with the outcome because I turned it more into a performance piece than I originally had intended. The faces around me symbolize the different types of emotions that I had after my sexual assault. My assaulter had taken away my identity, who I thought I was, and replaced it with a mask, thus the pillowcase over my face. The words on my body represent the main things that I thought about years after. "Why" "Fucking Stupid" and "My O...

This Chapter 4 reading was definitely a tedious read, but really opened my eyes to the true purpose of what installation art is supposed to do. I really connected with the idea of the "Activation and Decentring." This explanation of what installation art's purpose is for the viewer is much more clear and concise now. I liked the idea of "activating" the viewing subject into the art because its makes senes that the viewer would get a more more intense, sensory experience because they are becoming immersed in the artwork instead of just simply looking at it. The need to walk through and immerse oneself into the projection brings the idea so much more to life. Projection artists can use this idea of activating a viewer to relay important and deep rooted messages about serious topics. This relates almost to my project 2 if I were to let people walk into my room during my projection. The idea becomes more real once you're immersed in it and the message will sti...

I feel like I have made great strides towards this project so far. I have shot most of videos in my room and have mapped out where I am putting each video in my sketch book already. I might reshoot some of them because I want to have multiple options to work with. I have tweaked around with multiple different ideas and everything will come more to terms with my mind when I upload my videos into mad mapper. I even started writing a little piece that I might voice over or read out loud during the projection to act as a performance while I record. A part of me wants to use color tones in my videos to make them more cohesive. Maybe use tones of reds and blues but thats it. I want it to be very linear and clear to the viewers. I need to find a video or shoot a video that symbolizes a dungeon to shoot overcast in my room. I want it to show that your bedroom can turn into a dungeon after a sexual assault and it traps you in a place you thought was safe.

For project 2, I wanted to go on a little bit more of serious route with my projection mapping. Considering we are using space as one of the main aspects of this installation, I wanted to find something that reaches deep on the most simple levels. For this project, I plan to use my bedroom for my environment and focus on the idea of rape and sexual assault prevention. This is a topic that I hold very dear to my heart that I feel people like to put on the back burner because it makes them uncomfortable. I want this project to make people feel a certain way and to start a conversation about sexual assault prevention. I want to map out my bedroom as a sort of dungeon, juxtaposing the ideas of safe space and a dangerous space. I want it to symbolize how the safest place, like your bedroom, can instantly become a nightmare due to being sexually assaulted there. I want to use videos of what represent the before, the during, and after sexual assault. TIMELINE WEEK OF OCT 1 - Film/Collec...

For the last 6 years, I have been in love with music festivals. My Junior year of high school is when I fell in love with the feeling I got when in attendance of a festival called Lollapalooza. I never understood the pure joy and unbelievable energy that flows through these festivals and the people that attend there. Since my junior year, I have now attended 14 music festivals across the country, ranging from camping festivals, to day festivals, to even just night shows. I have come to know that these festivals have become my happy place. For my first installation project, I wanted to try and portray what type of events happen during these festivals and how intense the feelings are that go along with them. I believe that being immersed in the music while letting your body be open to do what it wants to do while you're around people you love who also love the same thing as you is extremely freeing. I wanted to portray these emotions and this type of feeling so people can understan...

For this artist research assignment, I wanted to find an artists that had a style similar to what my first project will be like. I searched for a while until I came across Camille Utterback's installation titled "Light Field." This piece focuses on combined custom made, hand-blown glass pieces with digital projection mapping. The whole purpose of this piece is that when the background is blacked out, the light that is projected onto the glass is floating, embedded in glass chips. This piece was very fascinating to me because through all of my artistic life, I have always been in love with lighting. I used a Pixel Stick in my AP 2D-Design class in high school and focused on the projection of self within light. I have used light shows in my coding work and now will be using light shows in my projection work. I think that amazing, authentic lighting is the key to making bold art with vibrant color, strong meaning, and force. Light can be used to depict so many different fe...