Assignment #2- First Reading Response

I’m not sure anybody could truly argue the fact that digital technology has changed western civilization as we know it. It is a natural growth process to experiment with new things, and when they work, we use them, and continue experimenting so we can bring new inventions out of it. As artists, technology only expands our abilities to express ourselves. My personal favorite type of art is photography. While it certainly has not always been digital, the simple ability to capture a moment in time is fascinating to me. It gives people the ability to share a certain moment in their life with another person, visually and not just by storytelling.
Photo-montages can bring things together into one medium, when they normally would not be near each other. You can cut and paste multiple images to create a unified piece of art, without having to find those objects, place them together, and then take that photo of them, which sometimes is simply impossible. Adolph the Superman by John Heartfield is a classic example of anti-Nazi activism using photomontage, (Photo-Montages examples and explanation). Montages can create an alternate reality of illusion, or simply add intensity to the objects by being in an unusual setting. The Lia Fail of Waterford, Irelantis by Sean Hillen is a more modern example of the power of using photomontages. Digital manipulations have different purposes. Christiane Paul mentions Alexander Apostal and his windowless buildings, depicting modernist desolate city landscapes and creating alternate realities (pg 38).
Another cool thing about technology is the merging of mixed media into a piece of artwork. Christiane Paul also uses 2 example pieces by Casey Williams that are photographs of paintings and life to compose a single image. (Untitled).

Procrastinate now…don’t put it off

Says Ellen, in her stand-up DVD Here and Now.

I really hate homework. Especially when the teacher herself says that it will be really hard and some people will possibly not have the eye to do it. What’s the friggin’ point then? We get the general idea. Don’t waste my time, please. It’s very valuable!

Anyway, I am sitting on the couch watching HP & GoF instead of working on my homework that I could potentially spend hours working on, only to have my teacher tell me none of it is right.

So, I have been watching HP and surfing the net ALL morning. And what have I been looking at? Twilight and Harry Potter stuff After reading the wonderful Midnight Sun partial(and never to be finished…I’m devastated) draft, I have been desperately trying to hold off on reading Twilight again until right before the movie comes out. However, I think I am going to fail miserably. I cannot stop thinking about Edward and his wonderfulness lol I’m a dork, I know. And simply because GoF was on, I got into looking  at HP stuff. Getting super excited for the movie. Even though it’s a long ways away .

I should really do homework now…oh, wait, I have to work tonight…and all day tomorrow. oops Late night for Sasha tomorrow night. As usual. I have realized I work better under pressure anyway It’s all good

Assignment #1

Well, after working on my assignment in class and then losing it I started not even caring anymore. However, once I began working again, I realized that even without the same program, I could still kind of re-create my original idea. I used Microsoft Word instead of Excel Pro since I don’t have it on my computer. In Excel I had created bubbles with water droplets in them to create a ‘river’, with bubbled fish mixed in as though they were swimming in the water. In Word, I spelled out FISH in blue capitalized letters, row by row, repeatedly.  I broke up the word by adding in ‘a fish is a fish’ which stands out with the lowercase lettering as well as the spaces between the words. I then created fish into the water by changing the color of some letters to gold. Although I enjoyed my original, I still enjoy this re-creation in a different program.

A Fish is a Fish by Sasha Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Stress

Well, I think I’m getting sick now. surprise surprise!

My mom had surgery last year on her stomach/intestines and had parts removed. Well now she is having more complications. And of course she doesn’t have health insurance, so now that she’s trying to get it, nobody will take her because she has a pre-existing problem. He boyfriend’s job has health insurance and last I checked they had submitted an application to add her onto his plan. Hopefully it will go through so she can start getting things taken care of.

Then, my dad called me from the hospital and said he might have had a heart attack! I guess he has a flap in his heart. So, instead of the blood flowing normally, it swirls past the flap on it’s way out. Not so good.

Also, at work I added on Monday and Wednesday this week to work, since there’s no school. Well, I wasn’t really thinking because now I’m loaded up with homework, and I’m working a TON because of the DNC. They loaded up everybody and aren’t caring about over-time like they normally do.  

Last week I had worked on our Digital Art project and almost had it finished. I haven’t had the chance to pick up a flash drive yet, so I saved it and e-mailed it to myself. Only, it didn’t attach or something. So, I worked for 2 hours on it for no reason. Now, I have to completely start over on something else, because I have Excel, but not Excel Pro.

Needless to say, I’m super stressed out!

Bad news

So, the movie for Twilight comes out December 12th. Yay!

However, my big excitement before that was Harry Potter, which was originially supposed to come out November 21st. That meant two amazing movies so close to each other right before Christmas! It was like a wonderful Christmas present. Well, 2 days ago it was announced that it is being rescheduled to release July 17th of 2009!!! WTF? Harry Potter Bumped to Summer 2009

As excited as I am about Twilight, Harry Potter has been a longtime obsession of mine! lol. Warner Brother’s excuse for doing this was party because they believe it will sell more tickets in the summer months than during the Holiday season, which I find ridiculous. The other part, which I understand a LITTLE bit more, is that because the writer’s strike caused to many delays in the production of new movies, there would be a big gap in newly released movies. So Warner Brother’s is trying to fill that gap in. Such a stupid idea haha. Anyway, all the HP fans are in an uproar! We have had a pretty even distribution of the movies since they started coming out. About a year and  half in between. Now, this is going to mean 2 years, which is just plain silly. And I am very upset about it. The End.

PS I AM super excited about the fact that they are splitting Deathly Hallows in to two movies. But I think everybody would be sorely mistaken if they really thought they could put all that information into one movie.

PPS I also just read that because there is now that slot open for November 21st, Twilight is going to take over! I guess one good thing came of this

Hmm

Well, I’m trying to figure this stuff out. I’m sure it won’t take me long, but at the moment it’s a pain in the ass! And it’s just another thing that I have to update! lol

Ok, so school just started and I am preparing myself to get sick! I always seem to get sick within the first month because of stress. Let’s not have that happen this time! It will be nice to have that random week off because of the DNC. Although, maybe that will just delay it.

Over the summer I tried to take it low. I went to Minnesota for 2 weeks for my cousin’s graduation, and of course I went to South Dakota to the farm as well I also got to see my friend Christian which was awesome. I met him in Florida when I was nannying, but not until the week before I left! He then ended up going to Grad School in the cities, so I made it a point to see him a few times while I was there. Our whole friendship has basically been over then phone and e-mail however, so when we see each other in person it takes some getting used to!

Before I left for Minnesota I got completely hooked on reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. The fourth book just recently came out a few weeks ago, and I unpatiently waited all summer for it. Along with getting a few friends hooked on it as well! I’m such a horrible person