War on Christmas

This is the final project of the semester. I have chosen to do the Fox News War on Christmas. This project has not only fox news reporters putting their foot in their mouths in an out of context way, the video uses all kind of special effects and tools of war. Paul Stufkosky Artist's Statement: It is as no surprise that I do not like Fox News. Reporters are people who are supposed to report on situations around the world with out bias and opinion. Fox News doesn't do that, in fact they create their own news by taking little information they find and spinning it out of control. Fox News isn't they only News organization that does this such as MSNBC, CNN, and ABC news. Since tis the season, Fox News creates it's own news. They go so far as to create their own war. Their War on Christmas is a way to tell the viewers that White Christian Americans are under attack and are victims of liberalism and secularism. A war that was created by Bill O'Rielly and other Fox News "reporters", whom, when don't get their way Christian American's like them are victims, or if their religion isn't displayed in every corner of America they are under attack. Fox News will constantly take things out of context just to prove their point. This piece shows clips of Fox News out of context, like Fox News has done so many times in the past, as a way to say this is pointless and terrible way to tell the truth. Just like this "War on Christmas," it is pointless to make yourself a victim when you never were one. I use clips discussing the war on Christmas over and over again with the Christmas Classic The Nutcracker's "Trepak."I wanted to show that these "fears" are silly and in fact petty. That this "War" isn't a war at all, and calling it a war is insulting to the people who actually suffered and died in an actual war. Bill O'Rielly's campaign is a shallow and obtuse, trying to be a hero when he has only depicted him self as a villain. In the end Bill O'Rielly just reminds me of a Lex Luthor, creating an enemy out of fear and ignorance. Fox News says there is a "War on Christmas," but if it's anything like their slogan "Fair and Balanced," then this war is obviously a fairy tale.

Prospectives '12

Prospectives '12 a Combination of science and art. When I watched the presentations it felt more like a performance than any thing else. * My Favorite would have to be the first performer Zach Zubow. The use of high tech machinery with the use of simple cardboard boxes, Zach was able to perform tribal like music that went from calm to war like. It was interesting how his piece didn't break any of the cardboard boxes. He really got my blood pumping with the music he was making, and that is what music is supposed to do, give you some sort of reaction and Zach's gave me a positive one. * My Second favorite piece would have to be the one by David Simons the talking snow ball. This was really brilliant in using some sort of camera that responded to one color only. David took out the the tin foil made puppet that said "Hi" and moved it back and forward while the audience watched what the camera is seeing. What I saw was a black static, you could see movement but very little of it. When the tin foiled puppet appeared it was so bright. This also triggered a noise making response, which is seemed similar to a Geiger counter that reacts with noise to radiation. It seemed to me that the tin foil was able to reflect a fair amount of light to create such a reaction from the camera. This is was truley Science and Art smashed together.

Paul Demarinis

Paul Demarinis is a digital media artist that uses light that I have never seen before. From what I saw he had to have been and engineer or electrician, because the way he manipulated light was very intriguing. One that I saw was under a bridge in what looked like Italy and he set up lights that reacted to sound and placed them all the way down the tunnel. When sound would happen the lights would react to show people this is what sound looks like. He should that since you really can't see sound you can see what effect it makes when it happens. When he clapped down the tunnel, the lights would come back and forth like a wave. This was intriguing because it now seem to me the sound was almost like water at this point. The lights would show ripples of the sound waves. Another piece which was amazing to me was a laser machine that was making glow in the dark prints of a monkey. There must to have been something with the paper to make it glow like that and the attention to detail by the laser was perfect. Another one of my favorites was the laser that played a record, it amazed me to see how that light was able to create any sound at all. Paul's work shows a correlation of light and sound, how they can work together or work against each other.

Machinima Expo 2012

I watched the Machinima expo on the last day of the showing. From what I saw there was a lot of use of the second life avatars. The First Machinima I watched was by Josep Kwong. I didn't see the title because the the stream was having trouble setting up connection. It was using the digital map from the video game star wars rouge squadron and sprites from second life. There was one live actor and I believe that was Josep Kwong himself. It was pretty enjoyable except for the acting, I hold a standard to acting, and I feel the voice actors and Josep Kwong were lacking in their performance. As artist don't you want to show your best for your work? It's just a thought. Crash Cody: Conqures the Moon using second life, the credits went way to fast for me to tell who made this. This was about the misadventures of Crash Cody a space captain in the old 50's style scifi show. It was a comedy and the use of timing with the Second life, using off camera sound effects you can really tell these guys knew how to use the space accordingly and efficiently. The acting was better than the first movie but still lacking, though this was a comedy and I don't think they were going for an oscar nomination. The third and the last I'll talk about was The Melancholy resistance, by Edgar. I missed the rest of his name because the credits were still going to fast. This piece was using second life but in a surreal horror sense. It reminded me of a tim burton movie. Edgar uses a players perspective to tell his story, using imagery of death and war and decaying of people, Edgar narrates with text book knowledge of a cell reacting to a virus. I had to say this piece was an interesting way to look at war and famine with life and death.

Pico Pico!

The Pico project was another chance to use Adobe Flash. I originally made it too big and had to size it down which took hours. Even then the animation is no longer in the right places it was supposed to be. Any ways I wanted to explore certain negative space that people often ignore. So I chose the corner of a bill board, and often when I was a child I would drag my fingers in the negative space to imitate a little mans movements in such space. What should have done was make the final background black so that I could adjust it any way I wanted but it standing alone it makes for a good sight to see. One is for certain I will zoom in for a better view next time.

Diptych Video

The Diptych video that I created was much bigger than I originally conceived. Most of the video got corrupted so I had a new challenge to up hold. So I took the remaining video of me randomly running around, or choreographing incidents in costume. I used the Canon Camera which had so many settings that I played with it to get some thing new. Along with our previous work I added train noises to my one minute sound piece. I also added me beat boxing and changes the levels and tweaked the pitches that they were set. I wanted to show the chaos I can do with just a camera and so little scenes.

Animation Perspectives 012

I decided to use Flash animation for my project. I wanted to make the model more than just a statue. I wanted to see life. I also wanted to use Adobe Flash because I never used it before. I originally thought that the model was holding an orb but it was a cup. So I just went with an orb. I was hoping to use an after effects program with this but it wouldn't combine successfully.

Noisy Plant

Final stage of the record junk player project.

Taking three records I made a flower petal shape. Then Mounting it on my found fake head and paste the scraps of records to the side like a leaf off the stem of the plant. Then taking a small motor fan and other parts of fan to mount the motor, I pasted cones with needles attached to them to the blades of the fan. Then I added a some new wiring to the fan and motor so I could control the speed the fan with a dimmer switch. Sadly the dimmer switch can't work with such a weak motor, so to slow the fan down I use the cones and cardboard to weigh it down. Doing so made the project a success and I call it NOISEY PLANT! Artist Statement: Noisy Plant By Paul Stufkosky Directions: 1: Make sure it is plugged in to a electric socket. 2: on the right side of the fan motor there is a tan switch that moves to three settings. Down is off, Mid section is on, Top is lowest power setting. Flip the switch to the middle position. 3: The fan will not move unless there is a jump start. Twist the fan in a quick motion clockwise to jump start the fan. 4: Repeat 2 and 3 if it does not move on it's own. 5: Enjoy Statement: I wanted to create a plant that actually made noise. Noisy Plant is a compilation of ideas of Tinguely and Marclay. Tinguely using records to make sculptures, along with found items, and use them other than their normal means. Marclay using records and the record player in ways where the record is making a different sound than what was originally intended. Making Noisy Plant is supposed to be that combination of ideas. By using items that I found and records I bought, I thought the most pleasing creation would be a plant. The plant was chosen because plants obviously don't make sounds. When the creation of the sculpture was in place, sound was the next. I wanted something that I could have technology mimic nature. So I bought a low priced fan to not just make noise, but to mimic the wind that would move a flower. Noisy Plant shows this mimicry and creates an illusion that records are grown from mother earth. If such a plant were to exists, I believe this is what it would look like and the sound it would make.

Animation Projection

these are my story bored ideas for the flash animation. One I have the woman walking and the camera following her movements to her presenting the logo.

My 2nd Idea will have a black screen and a shine of light that then disappears then followed by a huge explosion of light that leaves the shine symbol like on the woman's torso, zooming out to the logo.

Trashy Record

So I have an old mannequin head that was left to me by my former roommate. He said he stole it from walmart years ago, I think he just found it in the dumpster. I want to center my piece around my mannequin head and make a heavy head set walkmen. it's like a what if we did carry around records before kasset tapes. So here are my Ideas through sketches.

Basically this idea isn't a headset that is mobile, its just a what if the needle moved instead of the record. And here is my other Idea.

So this is more easier and mobile, but it would be very uncomfortable. But really thats the whole point and it wouldn't make a very good sound, but I'm not trying to make a very good sound in the first place. Both ideas has the fan as a main rotor and things attached to it. The mannequin head just adds the human to the piece.

Sound and Image Project Audacity Ambient!

This new project requires me to take 20 seconds of ambient sound that is about me or defines me in such a way and make it a new in audacity. Our of all the Projects I have ever done I never felt so at home with this one. Here is the sound file in it's original form. This is just people talking, but it's unfocused and hard to really understand what people are saying. This is like me in a way, hard to understand and unfocused. Now here is the file made in to a minute long file done with audacity. I took what I thought was me in a public setting and how it reflected me in a certain way and remade it too something more like what I want to be. I wanted to be an impact to people this song is what I mean.

Screening Culture Jam

Culture Jam is about a group of artists that go to billboards at night and alter them to be more truthful than they are. Not just bill boards but performers would also spread the word of how companies can be the route of all suffering when they are profiting off of it. Each group had their own story to tell. One Group Bill Board liberation front, refused to show their faces to camera in fear of being sued or charged for the damages that they did. People begin to take notice of their actions and start sending emails to see if they can join, the BBLF refused them but encouraged them to take action themselves are start making their own social groups.There was reactions of the populous thanks to reverend billy against the Disney store, one woman was upset that her shopping was disturbed while another older lady at the same time was appalled to hear that Disney Store uses sweat shops. The reaction of the public really makes this documentary the icing on the cake. Hearing so many points of views and at the same time hearing ones I never expect to hear made this very interesting to watch. Though there are some points I disagree with the artists on some things in the end I feel we have the same ideals where as companies should be telling the truth about their product instead of trying to distract us from it.

JoAnne Northrup Lecture 2

JoAnne was the curator of the next gallery expo showing students submitted digital media works. Before we went to the exhibit, she spoke of her life becoming a curator. She was finishing grad school for her art degree and really wanted to start curating. The problem was that it is really difficult to get in to that kind of work. She would get survival jobs and continue to submit her self to galleries to get work. Eventually she was able to be an assistant at a gallery and she climbed her way up to her goal. She selected my groups work to be shown in the exhibit she had placed in the Shephards gallery thanks to Joe Delappe for submitting our work. She discussed how much she enjoyed the new technology creating art. She liked it so much she gave Me Sam and David an award for our Machinima World of OZ. I was the only one there to receive the award and to be congratulated on our work. JoAnne said that our work was like a remaking of the original, bringing an old style classic and making it Modern. I was more than happy how our work was viewed by JoAnne and makes me think what else I can do for the next project.

Kiel Johnson Lecture 1

This artist probably speaks the most to me when it comes to his work. His attention to things isn't that sporadic as I thought but more of a memorial of his past work. His drawings on every single thing that he owned was his way, to me, saying hey remember my past work? But he did it in such a way that it wasn't over emphasizing every single piece but that as a whole. When he moved on to box cameras I felt like a child or something small moving in to a bigger world. Thanks to Kiel I feel like a kid again be surrounded by large cameras and wondering how do they work. His ideas moving on to Box Robots shows that he too listens to his inner child, and getting younger students to put so much effort into their work shows how much charisma this man has. To inspire so many students to put so much work and imagination in to their final product is just so inspiring to see. Kiel never seem to skip on the details, if he was remolding some thing out of cardboard and the original object had a flaw, you bet he would put that in to his work. It's good to know that he is willing to accept the flaws in some thing and try to remake it, doing so makes him seem like a down to earth kind of guy and a master artist if he can repeat what was originally done by accident. Kiel Johnson is an inspirational artist, he gains every one's attention and pulls their inner child to come out and play.

Critical Play 381 GameMaker- "Truth" Tagger

In Truth Tagger the objective is to get to different add's and build boards and tag the supposed truth on to them. The Character let's call it "Tagger" for my level has to avoid the Men in Green who hurt Tagger if they touch him. Tagger can avoid the Men in Green by jumping and flying with his to spray cans or Tagger can whip out his pepper spray and render them useless. Through out the level Tagger will have to find advertisements and add the truth with it altering the image. Each image will be altered with facts or thoughts on the advertisement. The Idea is to get people to think for themselves instead of having the advertisements do the thinking for them. Yes, some advertisements aren't that bad, but there are some that use scare tactics to sway the public's opinion, or to sell product with out telling what it does.

Box War Critical Play 381

For my avatar I wish to do one of two characters.

Super Mario but with some kind of Power up Suit. I was thinking more Retro and put in the Hammer Bros Power up instead. The thing is it's easy to mario as it is, I have the costume and it wouldn't be very fun doing mario regularly. I was also thinking of the Tanooki Suit Mario as well. As for my second idea, I don't have the body type for this character but it would be fun too. MegaMan

There are so many different types of MegaMan armor it would be fun to make. The Reason I Chose these 2 characters is because I wanted to make sure people would recognize the characters so that they know it's a video game character box war, not just some box war.

Critical Game Play 381 Games from the web

http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/the-arcade-wire-airport-security/ This is the game I chose to play and discuss. This Game is basically a Fast paced game where you strip people while they are in the metal detector. You take away items that appear in the box in the left hand corner and you make sure all those items are confiscated before you let them on board. While this is happening the line gets longer and you have to get faster. You take too long it's game over. This Game plays on the fears of post 9/11 and how much we as individuals are being striped away of our privacy for the sake of being kept safe.

Video Game Concept 381 Critical Play

Our current project is to make a game and here was my first thought on the what characters we could use.

Since the idea was a child, I made four possible candidates. Now the idea has shifted to a more unisex character

This is my Uni sexed Character design for the Critical Game Play video game. This character shows mystery to who he/she is, I chose this look more for my benefit for my level. I wanted to make a suspicious look so it goes well with my level of tagging advertisements. My Level is a side scroller like Megaman, and I even used one of the Megaman backgrounds to bring more depth. The front of where the character will be walking is all made by me. I plan to make it with more shadows but I wanted to show the basic idea of what I am trying to do.

This is it as a whole so far, I will add shadows and texture later. The red boxes are where the signs that will be tagged by the player. I wanted to make more than one route and be able to back track to other parts of the level. Certain area's will have to be reached by Flying, that will be done with spray cans propelling the character up ward for a limited time, similar to Super Mario's cape or Tanooki Tail. I want the player to have fun with this so there will be enemies all over the place, the player will spray them with pepper spray like the cop from the UC Davis incident. I also will make the end of the level available to the player any time he reaches it so he can move on to the next level.

Wizard Of WoW

Sam Sorenson, David Tilley, and Paul Stufkosky present Wizard of WoW: Entrance of the Cowardly Lion. We used WoW model viewer and vegas pro to create this piece. The model viewer would not work unless you had a fully updated world of warcraft loaded on my computer. It was a difficult especially with green screen being so new to all of us. We then used Vegas Pro to place the characters in their proper areas and edit where they stood as to make it look like they are traveling across the background. This Project was a very tasking one but all three of us are glad its over.

381 Warcraft of OZ test

Our group has decided to place the setting in Darnassuss. Because the area is more colorful than stranglethorn. We've Compiled a few seconds to show how we use WoW Model viewer and video editing software. Here is an example of how we would create walking in a scene. The shot of the character isn't moving forward but the camera on that character is actually zooming in and out to create distance and movement. Here is where the characters first converse, each character is preloaded with a certain type of movement then added to the background, we take out the green screen and it looks like they are there with other characters. we can even add the same back ground in to the model viewer and shoot close up shots, but not with shots with multiple characters.

Class 381 project 1 Machinima reenactment The Wizard Of OZ, Because because because of all the wonderful things it does!

Team David, Samantha, and Paul are Using World of Warcraft to reenact The Wizard of Oz The Enter the Cowardly lion. The Area we plan to use is Stranglethorn Jungle. It seemed to act as the closest we could get in scenery. I searched every where the World of Warcraft looking for a suitable place and the only other place that came close was Darnassuss (a place where the night elves roamed).

I was able to get myself a demo verison of world of war craft and retrieve my Level 76 Orc Shaman to place camera man, I was able to film while flying. It made things a little bit harder though because the controls were too quick or too slow.

Final Work Second Life

Please forgive me for the lateness of the artist's notes but I feel I should post it any ways for people to see. This is not for the grade because I missed the cut off date. This is for my and for any one who is curious about what I made. The first was my real me put in to 2nd Life, it was a difficult matter due to my goatee and the placement of the light.

I wanted not just to get my face but get my face's skeleton structure right, leaving me with a little chin a sloping fore head. I wanted to keep the shadow under the chin to make my face stand out but there was too much shadow leaving this face too look like a mask if anything. My body structure I did not want to lie, I'm short and chubby and miss shaped in some areas. In the end, for a world for the fantastic looking people I would stand out more than any of the fantasy people, which is really wired considering how this is program was made to unique yet being you is the most unique of all.

My second part was the fantasy me, I wanted to depict myself as who I wanted to be. I always wanted a monkey tail and spiky hair, my favorite colors being red an blue, I made my self more masculine and even gave my self a stronger chin. The blue clothing and the tail were custom made and I kept my face. I wanted to put my self in a post apocolyptic fantasy era so I gave myself old weapons as well as new, and accessories.

Overall the experience was a tough one but rewarding one at that.