i was surprised at the amount and quality of graffiti all over puerto rico. there were a lot of abandoned and hollowed out buildings that provided plenty of space. i especially liked this stencil. here are a few more that caught my eye

graffiti 04

translation top left corner (thanks to nina):
this has not been fixed
with photoshop
i found a synonym
for government:
petshop

graffiti 02

graffiti 03

graffiti 05

i really like this cat character. its so simple and yet, kind of disgusting.

graffiti 06

this was too strange a scene. photographed from inside an abandoned classroom. a large cross, a weird cat character and two piles of shit?

graffiti 08

michael jackson?

graffiti 07

while in north carolina, i took the opportunity to check out raleigh’s art scene, specifically Lump Gallery… the original to Michael Salter’s Lump West.

i really enjoyed the above triptych by rachel herrick. the texture on the mixed media paintings made the decay on the architectural forms feel very visceral. in addition, they were painted on old wooden advertisements.

jacob cooley

these landscapes were really smooth and almost surreal. the grass had no texture and the colors popped. like a long exposure photograph.

linda ruth dickenson

lump gallery

and finally lump gallery

tree mural

a cool mural in which each “pixel” moved in the wind. cool shimmering effect, especially at sunset.

tree mural

some interesting sights around town…

parking garage

a sealed up parking garage

bookstore

a bookstore with books lining the exterior facade…even after closing.

i recently became aware of the incredibly blurred line between museum exhibit and art installation while visiting the Museum of Life and Science in Durham NC while on vacation. here are some photos of artistically relevant exhibits at the museum.


glam-o-matic

in the first gallery of the museum was an exhibit by Steve Gerberich. its purpose was to show the power of sprockets, gears and other analogue devices. it was fascinating to look at and obviously educational. it, however, reminded me of the kinetic sculptures of Mark Zirpel displayed at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon last fall. the only thing separating the two was context. while Steve’s pieces were quite kitschy, there was some reference to something much larger. his pieces glam-o-matic and cookie monster (missed actual titles) referenced our disposable, image based culture. it could be argued whether the aim of his pieces was purely for the enjoyment and education of small children or to create a culturally charged piece, but the interpretation is largely influenced by the fact that it is in a children’s science museum.

cookie monster

“particle rain”

another piece that made me aware of this blurred line was this imitation of Camille Utterback’s Text Rain. a projector displays falling particles which interact with the shadow of the user. in this case, the exhibit lacked specific content or emotional reaction; it was purely to demonstrate a technology and entertain small children. but i was stunned that it was so similar to such a famous piece of art and yet it seemed so far removed sitting in an exhibit in a corner of a children’s science museum.

“particle rain” 2

sound experiment

the final exhibit used cameras to track the movements of people within a room and played sounds according to their location and movement. this was very similar to David Rokeby’s piece, a very nervous system. this piece varied a bit from Rokeby’s original form, but the technology was the same.

while the leap from art installation to science exhibit is hardly surprising in any of these cases as they demonstrate many principles of science, it is interesting how different they seem based on context and slight tweaks in content.

sound experiment 2

i took a walk around my neighborhood for some inspiration for my next illustration/animation. in the process, i found some street art in the area. here is some of it.


graffiti character

graffiti character detail

tiffany stencil

now that I have graduated I can create without having to justify what I make all the time. sometimes I just feel like illustrating, like this illustration of a photo I took this summer. But, inevitably, I always come to a point of questioning and justifying to myself and thus I developed the following illustration.

beautiful garbage 2

This illustration explores the style I’ve developed over the last couple of years through the urban spaces projects. I’ve realized that this style is pretty unique and really explores the beauty of architectural forms, the beauty of implied spaces and the beauty of the everyday, mundane and banal by equalizing everything in shades of white. I’ve also realized that I tend to be more interested in micro spaces of the inner city/industrial areas and urban decay.
I plan to create an animated duration piece similar to a collaborated animated duration piece by Colin Williams and myself of a storefront. This time, the piece will be done in my illustration style.

original photo

I have created a photo blog using Flash which makes it really easy to post photos; just upload a photo to my ftp and add the information to an xml file, the rest is done dynamically. It’s not terribly complex for those who program frequently, but I was excited to get Flash to talk to xml and to create a site that could be updated easily.

chain

After a few months break, I have a lot of blogging to catch up on. First, a sound experiment done in Processing a few months ago. The piece takes sounds captured through your computer’s microphone, analyzes it and plays back the loudest frequency.

sound02

This piece is really exciting to me because of its implications and uses. Since the piece plays the most prominent frequency at any given moment, it essentially picks out the melody of any sound. When I play music, the piece pulls out the melody and plays it back in real time. In addition to playing back the most prominent frequency, it also does it at the correct volume level. It is fairly accurate, but there is so much extraneous noise involved with microphone capture that it does add extra notes to the melody for an interesting effect. I am interested in using this at a gallery opening or in a space which generates a lot of conversation noise it can pick out the melody of various conversations. I think it would provide an interesting soundtrack.

It is my first real attempt at sound art, which I have been trying to incorporate into my practice since I changed from a music major to a digital art major. The piece is posted online here. It is naturally a little temperamental because if the microphone and speaker are too close you’ll end up in a feed back loop.

2 years ago i created an animation that informs a lot of my current work with implied urban spaces. the animation was based on an abandoned building in nw portland. the building was made of brick and beautifully decaying in an area of portland that was rapidly changing. i didn’t think the building would be around much longer and sure enough, it has disapeared. unfortunately, it is being replaced by a parking garage. here are some before and after shots after the jump.

before

after

before

before

the bfa show was a great success. we had a large turn out on thursday. here are some of the photos of my exhibit.

incomplete space

incomplete spaces

my review

my portfolio also came back from risd. here are a few photos.

cover page

sample 3