Friday, October 23, 2009

Shu Lea Cheang

















Shu Lea Changs website "Brandon" is a study in the life of Teena Brandon. Brandon was a transvestite who was raped and murdered in Lincoln, Nebraska. *Wikipedia* The initial page features a flash animation of a morphing bathroom icon, switching between man and woman. The site takes a stance on human rights and uses art as a medium for education and to incite the liberation of those hampered the lack of social progress. The link on the homepage takes you to an animation of a road in the town where Brandon was killed and includes some of the geography as well. This includes links to different places illustrating a bit of history and description of transgenders. The site lays out almost like a game in which you search out different pieces of a puzzle that leads you through a narrative. The interaction of the piece engages the viewer and makes one dive into the story. Once becoming enmeshed in the plot line of the site you start to garner some empathy for Brandon and are instilled with compassion for a subject that is still taboo for many.

Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries







Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries is a two person operation that has one person from the United States and One Person from Seoul, Korea.The Type of web art they do is done almost completely in flash and presented in the Monaco font. They use sound in their videos which usually consists solely of jazz music. The piece "Halbeath" is a reference to a factory in Scotland that was closed down.This is a link project for one dead link made by failed globalization. Halbeath is located between Glasgow and Edinburgh Scotland. There's a closed microchip plant made by South Korean Company Hyundai & LG After they left Motorola tried to run the factory. But now the factory is closed again since they left in 2001

The site consists of a touchtone phone shown in a SWF file format that shows movement without the natural motion of video. There is jazz music that punctuates the movement giving it a life of its own.There is writing centered in the middle of the page show in different sizes but still centered to itself. The words give directions to Halbeath and give the destination a palpabilty that would otherwise be forgotten by the transient nature of modern society. The piece is nothing if not simplistic, but it communicates its point very well.

Arctic Circle Log


The Arctic Circle Log is a documentation of a travel to the North Pole. The web site includes video, various photographs and written blogs to map out a trip of an extremely dangerous terrain. The authors say that the project is an exploration of the two different kinds of loneliness. The first is the loneliness of not knowing anyone and being an anchor only to yourself in this completely saturated information environment. They also try to depict the loneliness of being trapped in a vast barren wilderness with no one else around. The project resonates with success as it probes the contradictory aspects of the same affliction. This piece is something that really could not be done with traditional forms of art. The inclusion of various types of imagery and the organization of information lays out a unique exploration of the possibility of art. In a fashion it presents art as information that when compiled and assimilated in a certain fashion can be as viable as any oil painting or pattern of graphite.

My B/F came back from the war.

"My Boyfriend Came Back From the War" is Olia Lialina's net-art piece about a couple and the things that transpire after the man returns from a war. Lialina, a Moscow artist, uses images with a threshhold filter assembled in different frames to chronologically lay out the interactions of an unnamed couple. The highly dramatic piece must be sifted through like a game as you try to figure out what images to pick that lead you to the next chapter of the story. The 1996 site leads the eye around the page and by the use of frames ( tables) compartmentalizes each new aspect of the story and engages the viewer anew. This piece seems so easy now with the automated programming of newer programs but the time and investment of energy that must have gone into it 13 years(?) ago is simply amazing. The struggle for the viability that every artist strives for seems especially difficult for net artists. The medium is saturated and cluttered with pre-fabricated cut-outs that make true craftsmanship seem rare.



Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Bomb Project

The Bomb Project tackles the issues of nuclear bombs and organizes them into easily digestible facts. The representation on the site of nuclear destruction is manifested is swf files and color schemes as well as various image slide shows. The color scheme is a predictable neon green, and the layout is cluttered, but this is a result of categorizing extreme amounts of information. The art is different from the traditional presentation of imagery because it spreads out in all directions like the root of a tree and finds us entangled in a maze of different pathways. The issue of time comes up as well. For someone to root through "The Bomb Project" and find EVERYTHING it takes up time. The traditional way of looking at an oil panting or photograph takes but a second to ingest and to process through. If after 2 seconds of looking you have seen enough you can move on and still have a general concept of what has transpired in the piece. The website , on the other end of the spectrum, engages a viewer and makes them interact through the use of time and the act of navigation. The Bomb Project has achieved social awareness through the art of the website and also integrated many forms into one easily digestible space.



Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Candy Factory

I chose the people of Candy Factory for their appreciation of the absurd. The flash videos they use to project a devilish society bent on consumption interests me. In the first page to their site we see a monstrous Snow White embracing a little girl. The picture which would look completely normal if it were static becomes abhorrent to the eye when tweaked with tiny repetitive motions. I plan on using this type of movement in my Project II. This site inspires my work by eschewing the normality we bypass and regurgitating to the viewer as a disease.




Candy Factory also has a very firm handle on the addition of sound into their web-art. The robotic voices included in their animations capture the audience and keep them held close as the repetitive motion does its job on the viewer.In summation, the use of the status quo to portray the violence inherent in the species is integral to the work of Candy Factory and also the main appeal for the viewer as well.