Final Short Project

Here it is!

Destabalize

I think that is one of many valid functions of art.  I keep thinking about Renee Magritte. The notion that a painting is a representation of somethings else, but is also paint, canvas, and image.  We accept that painting as a pipe.  Is it?  The destabilization, like the article is (I think) talking about is clearly present here.  I do think that there are other functions of art, and that in asking a question about identity, we cannot discount the answer that art has many identities as well.  Can art make people question their essential sense of self? Absolutely.  It can also reaffirm.  Or expand.  Or confound.

The author may be too exclusive when he states that the main purpose is to destabilize subjective experience and "not to author a new theoretical position, nor to illustrate an established argument".  Those aims can also be accomplished.  The experience should not be limited.      

Response to Short Projects

The feedback that I got was that the project isn't finished yet (which it isn't).  I know that the full meaning couldn't be clear without the final scene, but people did seem to get a sense of where I was going.  The last missing scene is the word "blossoms".  In that scene the plant will grow and the letters will pop out of the flower.  I hope that more meaning can be inferred with that addition.  I have had a trickier time trying to animate the way that a plant grows- I will have to keep playing with it for Thursday when the final draft is due. 

Finished Conversation!!

Here it is! Our Masterpiece!

Conversation!

We are having some troubles merging- but here is half of our conversation project!

Final Project Plan

I want to animate a short poem four different times and have the animations playing at the same time on a split screen.  I want this to explore how visual elements change and shape the interpretation of the a poem.  The four pieces would also play individually and I would like to set them to music.  I would need to learn how to do the split screen animation.  I'm sure that there will be plenty of questions that come up as this project gets rolling. :)       

Networking

            In the latest edition of the novel “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame Smith, Smith writes an introduction.  In this introduction, Smith tells the reader that he and his long-time editor have never met in person, but have exchanged thousands of e-mails over the course of the years.  I couldn’t help but think of this while reading the article (it might not be so much death of the author, as death of the editor, but still).  In that vein, I chose to write about networking.

            This section of the piece focuses on authorship and how newer modes of connectivity blur the lines of ownership because efforts are more communal, i.e. wikipedia.  I kept wondering if that communal effort has not been present for a long time, just less questioned.  Doesn’t every book written have an editor, a proofreader, someone who picks the font, designs the cover, does the binding, and so on.  Why are these boundaries any less obvious than the question of ownership over digital texts?  Why does that even matter?

            When I thought about my animation, I had to wonder, who designed the type face?  Do they, or the designer of the software, deserve less credit than I for using the tools they put at my disposal?  For the example that we saw in class of animated poetry, who owns the authorship for those, the writer, the animator, or the designer?  I can understand the complexities behind the legal logistics of copyright, but haven’t these issues always been there, just unquestioned?  The editor knows he will not have a byline on the cover, so it’s okay, apparently.                   

            Reading the blogs in this class give me an odd sense of ownership over the author.  Martha, for example, sits near me most every class period.  She is quiet, and we rarely have a chance to speak.  Since I read her blog, I have a misplaced intimacy with her.  I know that she is a writer and elaborates on academic texts in a profound but easy to follow manner.  It is the same way with facebook.  I often see people’s status updates without speaking to them.

            I could ask Hayley, “How was your trip?” without her mentioning it to me.  I own that experience as much as she does with little to no physical interaction.  That is a disconnected kind of relationship, one that has never had to be dealt with before the advent of social media or blogs.  Do we know these people, really?