Short Study Assignments:

Pick 6 total from the list below (to be determined in personal meeting and signed contract with Professor)

(Series 1 of the first three short studies due by SEPT 27) and

(Series 2 of the first three short studies due by OCT 25)

Movement in Still Space

Sequential still imaging of movements – photograph or videotape some movement with a camera. (If on video - digitize it, bring it into an editing program such as Premiere or Final Cut and cut out the most important sequences in the movement.) Place all critical images on the same background in Photoshop and print a large strip 11” x 36” of all the composite images. What happens? How do you feel about the translation from motion to still imagery?

Or do the opposite – take a series of stills and animate them.

Memory Sensorium

After reading Kandinsky and his ideas on the sound of color, create 3 different interactive sense memories from your childhood using image, sound, scent, texture, and taste. Expanding the iEAR metaphor to include not only sight and sound, but also olfaction (scent or smell), touch, taste and perhaps even others. (There are cultures that believe that humans have over 200 senses.)

Simulation

After reading Baudrillard's Simulations, and other readings, create a simulation. (This could be a personal on line identity, a fictitious location, product, object, virtual world, avatar, etc.) Consider context & truth, the digital self - subverting identity: online communities, privacy, and sexuality on-line.

Context & Meaning

In this assignment you will explore how the meaning of images is altered by their context. The term context is defined by Webster's Dictionary as "the part of a discourse in which a word or passage occurs and which helps to explain the meaning of the word or passage." In other words, the meaning of a word changes depending on the sentence in which it is used. What constitutes context for a photograph? Some possibilities include the following: cropping: what is excluded and what is included juxtaposition: what other images are seen with it, what is the relationship between them.

Materials: how the nature of materials effect interpretation presentation: the method and location of showing text: the combination of visual and written language Give some serious thought to other possible factors that establish contexts for photographs. Add your own ideas to this list. Initially you will focus on cropping and juxtaposition as your primary tools for establishing context. Select one photograph to work with. It could be one of your own or a found image. Keep in mind that found images have already been seen in context. The original context of your own images is known only by you. First change the meaning of the image in as many different ways as you can by cropping it differently. Print the four most interesting studies with the laser printer. Then change the meaning by juxtaposing all or part of the original image with other images. Select and print the four most compelling images. You will then develop a group of four to six pieces based on these ideas. They should all be based on one initial photograph. You may use any materials and presentation method, and are encouraged to consider these carefully. The pieces may be presented in serial format or individually. You may use text if you feel it is appropriate, but try to make your image choices the most important factor in establishing meaning.

Montage & Veracity

In this project you will explore how issues of veracity are perceived and understood in photographs. You will also begin to question what is reality and draw upon the issues covered in class readings focusing on simulations and virtual environments found in contemporary culture. Webster's Dictionary defines veracity as "truthfulness, honesty, correctness, accuracy, precision," and truth as "Agreement with that which is represented, correspondence to reality, verisimilitude." Give some careful thought to how our culture evaluates the truthfulness of photographs. What kind of pictures do we expect to be truthful, to have some correspondence to reality? Which ones are not expected to be truthful? Is this a matter of photographic style, the context in which it is found, the authority or reputation of the photographer? What are some of the other factors that affect a viewer's expectation? Try to pay attention to al the contexts in which you see photographs (newspapers, billboard, gallery, advertisement, I.D. card, instruction manual, etc.) and think about what your expectations are.

Also, consider the ways in which the photographic process seems to represent reality while at the same time altering it. For example, the subject of a photograph may appear very real, but you have seen how cropping and context may change what we think is being represented. What about camera angle depth of field, black and whit or color? What are some of the other ways the photographic process alters reality? For this project you will use the montage techniques you have learned to alter or composite photographic images. Because the computer does this seamlessly, you can create extremely subtle or obvious montages. Your problem is to address questions of photographic reality and veracity using these techniques. Your ideas are the most important thing here. The techniques should be used to support the ideas. You should also think carefully about the most appropriate way to present your ideas, since presentation will affect viewers' interpretation.

Text & Image

In this assignment you will explore the communicative possibilities of two different, but related languages, text and photography. Start by thinking carefully about how these languages are customarily used and how meaning is understood through them. Look at many photographs and think about how you would express that idea in words. Then think about words or combinations of words, and how you would express those ideas in photographs. What happens when you put the two together? Is the meaning conveyed differently than it is by either language alone? Is it simpler, more complex, clearer, more ambiguous? Experiment with a few photographs, combining them with different kinds of words.

Some possibilities include: caption: words function to explain or elaborate what is shown in the photograph, to clarify title: words may explain as in a caption, or may allude to larger concepts parallel text: words may be used in a way that does not explain directly, but creates a parallel meaning image: a word or words may be used as part of the image, or for visual effect Think about different kinds of texts, and how the style and character of the text is used. How is a scientific text different from poetry, or a diary entry different from a political slogan? Make a list of other kinds of texts. When you have explored some of these possibilities, develop an idea for your project. The only requirements are that you use your own photographs (existing or new ones) and that you combine them in some way with words. The content is entirely up to you. I encourage you to look at many examples of contemporary artists (not just photographers) who work with words and images in the library.

Website Study

Create a Website based on the information learned in class which incorporates some of your images and work as an artist. There are many examples on the web of artist websites. Yours could be a particular project or an on-line portfolio of your work. Experiment and try various creative approaches.

Animate

Remember, "to animate" means to "give life to. Think about velocity, impact, and the physics of materials in motion. You can consider the various techniques of animation including in-betweening, real time recording, etc. to move an image from point a to point b. Your project could be a multimedia memory. Our memories are often multisensory multimedia phenomena. Make a multimedia memory come alive with a combination of images, text and sound. How can the play of media help to draw the viewer/user into the experience?

Interact

Create a short study in Director where a viewer/user interacts with something. (Remember the ideas learned from cognitive psychologist, Don Norman here about action and reaction, the visual and audio design of interactive prompts, etc.) You could use images or animates which you have previously created as the basis to this study.

Iconography

Text to Image, a Miniature Self Portrait In this assignment you will create your own icon. Webster's Dictionary defines the word icon as, "an image, figure, representation, picture." Icons are abundant in our culture and range from the images of men and women on rest room doors to the representations of the tools we use to interact with computers. Your mission here is to create an icon within a 47 pixel by 47 pixel space and incorporate it into your working environment as either your personalized disk icon or for later use as a directory icon for your web page for the World Wide Web exhibition. It can have a graphic feel or a photographic look, but it must be your miniature self portrait all within 47 pixels square. Think about the different kinds of icons you see within the scope of a day. Icons can be very powerful in directing attention, solving language problems and in communicating ideas, concepts, objects or activities.

Virtual Environment

Build a virtual environment, record a path through it, create different viewpoints. What kinds of spatial and perceptual ideas are created, which ones are broken? Make it an interactive multimedia experience with sound, movie clips, textures, etc.

Text

A lost art or a new form- eBooks, ePublishing, Historical, Hypertext, email art, books in action - text on the run: physical installations, poetry in motion (animated poetics, immaterial poems, interactive poems, 3dimentional poems, Text & Images/ Text & Sound

Perception: Fooling The Mind's Eye with Scale

Take two different photographs (these can be from any source) composite and scale them unusually so that new meanings emerge which challenge our perception of the accepted world. Color- selectively recolor specific aspects of this image for emphasis.

Identity: Interior & Exterior (in 4 parts)

id Tag - For this study you will create an original id tag for your computer case that truly sets it apart from others and identifies it uniquely as yours. You may use text as well.

Tattoo - You will create a tattoo (at least on paper that is) and wrap it digitally around a photograph or a scan of the body part you would consider having it placed on.

The Art of Masking - electronic masks/physical masks - fabrication of self, create an original, wearable mask using printing techniques and digital imaging skills (such as masking, montage/collage, "local & global touch", etc.) used in class.

Memory, Vision & 3D Space: Making the past come to life -create an original Stereoscopic image based on an image from your past, your present or you future.

Internet Landscape: Physical/Ideal

Earth Art ideation - create an original website using original photographs of real or digital landscapes and ideate an Earth Art work. The setting of this work can be as unappealing as a sewage treatment plant or as bucolic as a country meadow. Make a web page that is entirely different from most. One that illuminates the location in terms of what you want to reconstruct in it.

Public Art /Art & Activism: Walk-by, Drive by - Art Delivery System

Activating public spaces with digital images This is a two part project: Part 1 is a digital ideograph of your art delivery system in action. Part 2 is the actual idea manifested as an original (billboard, large poster series, drive by car art, aerial art, photo projection, data projection, etc.) art system device that carries your message to those who may not have the opportunity to see your work inside the normal gallery environment. It must be realized physically.