Work/Work/Work

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Click to Play

Title: Work/work/work

"Way too much work"

This is a bio video for my art 553 class. As it is right now the main idea is that its supposed to represent my current sate of mind. And that has been work. Recently all the classwork/graduation/job-search-work has been quite a stress for me. But, instead of depicting the stress, I worked on showing different perspectives of the same situation: the view of the outsider towards me and the work, my view towards the work, and the view of the works towards me.

Path to Enlightenment

Monday, March 10, 2008

Click to Play

Path to enlightenment is a video about the symbolism present in Budhist stupas.

Art and Tech exhibition

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Here you go friends and fellow blog readers, this here is the flyer of the Winter Art and Technology Exhibition where I will have my video in one of the reels.



I have a feeling that the artwork this quarter will be quite awesome so make sure to come early to get some of the free food before watching all of the artwork.

Update: More images

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Well the work is not coming out as fast as I had hoped for. But here we have two more images of 60 that need to be made, and animated in a space (yet to be made and animated itself) that I uploaded to Flickr.






I need food right now, so explanations will come later on.

Ps. If anyone out there has a time machine they would be willing to lend, please send an email to stupasinvideo@yahoo.com. I need to go back in time so I can either work in secret and finish the video, or I to kick my past self in the butt and tell him to get to work.

Old sketches and current state of work

Its Crunch time!

Indeed my friends and fellow readers, it's crunch time. The project is officially due next week and it needs to get done no matter what. Depression, anxiety, stress, life's problems can all go to wherever they're supposed to go because they can no longer stay here. This needs to get done. So what does that mean for you? Well, ironically, it means I have stuff to show you about my project.

Right now I've uploaded a series of sketches for the images that are going to be used in the video. Here's an example of one of the sketches (page 4)



As I found through my research, each level of a Tibetan stupa represents a series of practices that help you reach enlightenment (Bodhipakkhiya Dhamma or Shichika Sanjushichidohon). These are the sketches for these practices. On this page I have the images that represent the cattaro iddhipada, which are desire to act, effort, mind and investigation.

I also uploaded three of the finished images:



This is actually the third cattaro iddhipada: Thought.

Artist statement

Monday, February 25, 2008

Blue. Red. Green. Three colors we are all familiar with. Not only are we familiar with them but also we are familiar with what they may represent:

Blue – The sky, the sea, sadness, coldness.
Red – Fire, blood, warmth, passion.
Green – Nature, money, envy, hope.

As I grew up, I knew these meanings, but because the political parties back home in Puerto Rico used these colors to represent themselves, whenever I see the colors blue, red, and green next to each other I also think of politics. Personally, I find situations such as this one fascinating because it means that the way someone interprets the meaning of an object or image depends on their own experiences. It is as though the object changes depending on who is watching it. To me these three colors represent politics, fanaticism, insults and mudslinging. On the other hand if I didn’t have these experiences I would simply relate this combination of colors to color theory or television.

So I have dedicated my art to trying to understand this situation of multiple meanings behind an object, image or idea. For example, one of the concepts I have worked with is how our sense of identity is formed and what shapes it. I believe that as our identity or personality changes parts of them are in conflict with each other in a push and pull for dominance or balance. This struggle makes it difficult for an individual to explain who he/she really is. I dealt with this issue more clearly in my “Dos en Uno” video. The video deals with the idea of duality in my personality through the use of objects such as food, seasonings, books, etc. that act like symbols of the parts of my personality that are in conflict. Each object is paired with another one of a similar type (salt with adobo, art theory books with art manuals, etc.) and the movement between each object on the image would represent the coming and going between the two sides of my personality.

To me one of the most important aspects of art is the transmission of a concept to a viewer. However having to deal with this situation that a single image can have several meanings depending on who the viewer is makes the process of transmitting my idea much more complex. Because of this problem present in conveying a message I believe that I should use my art to instruct the viewer about how we perceive things. One of the things I do in my videos is to bring to the forefront aspects of their lives that people wouldn’t normally notice. For example the topic of my video “Details” is to present the sensation that when we are surrounded by an excess of information we lose sight of the details. The video consisted of showing a song and a piece of ice on the floor and as the view changes to a higher angle (where one should see more) the sound becomes more cacophonous and the image becomes overwhelmed by a stream of abstract geometric objects until the viewer can’t see or hear anything. By the end, the scene returns to the detail shot and the song all in focus.

I want my artwork to show people that our identity is fashioned of different aspects whose meanings change depending from which perspective we see them. I want my art to show that when it down comes to the images we see, their meaning go beyond what we can interpret from our own experiences. I want to let people grasp what they take no notice of.

Storyboards, Models, Videos: it's all interesting

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Well I'll say! That story board video is taking its time! The reason is that I have to fix each image so that it looks well on the video (yeah, yeah, I know people may say that I suck at drawing but that's really not the point here). So that's coming slowly.

But, I did start my work on the models of the three stupas I'm using on the video. I've already uploaded on Flickr two images of the first stupa I started working on.



This is the first render I made of the model of the Tibetan stupa. The reason it looks black and white is because it doesn't have any texture (or colored light for that matter). I find this image useful because it lets me see the lighting on it more easily. The lighting scheme is a three point lighting scene, with a main light on the front left (your left), a spot light on the back for highlights, and a filler light on the right.



This is the second render of the model. This one has a simple bump map texture with some color added. Even though you can see most of the shadows and highlights the previous one, it just doesn't feel right without some sort of texture on the model. I'm not planning on leaving the texture as it looks right now, though truth be told I don't know what approach I'll go with it. I think I can go either with a more cell shaded look or a more realistic texture for the model... ah options.

Actually there are several things I have to fix in the model itself to make it look more authentic. For example the spire needs a lot more work to get the curves and details in order (the curved pointy thing at the top is supposed to be a crescent moon... yeah I know... not there yet). But overall it looks pretty well for just two days of work. Actually I threw out the model I started yesterday and I started this one at 6:00 am today.

Right now I'm waiting for a flyby video of this model to render. For those of you who don't know, rendering is a lot like watching grass grow, only the grass is a video. So this post has been a welcome relief from the potential mental breakdown I might have from watching the render of my video.

So lets see what do I owe you? The storyboard video, the flyby and I think a post about computer modeling seems in order (specially after my "render" rant). If anyone out there has any doubts, questions, inquiries, or are just plain interested in anything about the project, the process of making a video or how I stay sane in a computer lab just leave a comment and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

Project proposal #1 introduction

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Note: This is the introduction to my project proposal for the first part of my project.

---For my independent-study project I plan to work on the first part of my project for my Senior exhibition. This piece will consist of representing the different symbols and imagery of a Buddhist stupa through a video-installation format while at the same time preserving their different meanings. The first part of the project will consist of making the video that will be projected on the installation and the second part will deal with the construction of the installation itself. Before I go any further I will explain what a stupa is and the reasons for making this installation.

Next part: more about stupas... tomorrow.