Example of Contemporary New Media Art #2

Example of Contemporary New Media Art #2

My second example of contemporary new media art is titled “Abundance”. It was a temporary public installation created by Camille Utterback in 2007. It was commissioned for the City of San Jose in California. It was commissioned by ZER01, the Art and Technology Network. It is a night time installation and spectators interact with this art form in the city hall plaza. Part of “Abundance” includes a video camera at a high point and it captures the spectators moving around. An animation of what the video camera picks up is projected onto the 3 story rotunda. Besides the silhouettes of the spectators, Camille Utterback adds other elements to his projections. I like this form of contemporary new media art because it gives life to the San Jose City Hall. It beautifies the city hall and gives the spectators a sense of creativity and also gives them something to do in.

A link to “Abundance” by Camille Utterback is located below:

http://www.camilleutterback.com/abundance.html

Example of Contemporary New Media Art #1

Example of Contemporary New Media Art #1

My first example of contemporary new media art is titled “Under Scan”. It is a large-scale public art project by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. The Installation was done at Trafalgar Square in November of 2008. The Public Portraits were at the Tate Modern Seminar Room in of September 2008. This involves hundreds of video-portraits projected onto the ground in Trafalgar Square. Anyone who was interested could have participated in this artwork by contributing their video portrait from September 19 to 21, 2008 at Tate Modern. The portraits were shot from above, as members of the public lie beneath a suspended camera. Each person could portray themselves any way they wanted to. I found this type of contemporary new media art very intriguing and I find it to be the next revolution in art.

A link to "Under Scan" and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is located below:

http://www.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/underscan.htm

Summary of Sections X-XV

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

By Walter Benjamin

Summary of Sections X-XV

The actors performance in front of the camera is pretty much everything to his or her career. Whether it is an actual film camera used to create a film or even news cameras used to report on the news. The actor is self-conscience at all times in front of whichever camera as to their performance in front of a viewing audience. Evan though the audience isn’t a live audience like in theater, the impact of the audience in the world of film and television is just as large or even larger.

Walter Benjamin looks at how a painter would compare to a camera man. Mr. Benjamin discusses that a painter distances himself from reality whereas a camera man jumps right into the realm of reality. From my understanding of it, it seems as if Mr. Benjamin is saying that a camera man has a better grip on recreating reality because of the technological advancement he has to work with. When art is mechanically reproduced it changes people’s reaction towards it. The world of film brings a large glimpse of the world and everything in it right into our living rooms. The meaning and effects of art changes through one medium to the next. How a painting is perceived in a museum may be perceived diferenty if it were displayed on the internet, in a magazine or even on a cereal carton

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

by Walter Benjamin

I have read this essay before in prior classes and the concept of "aura" has always intrigued me the most. I think that what Mr. Benjamin is talking about is that when we look at a certain object or even a piece of artwork we get a different sensation from it or aura if it were displayed through a different medium or period in time. For example, when looking at the Mona Lisa painting in a magazine versus actually looking at it while on a tour of the Louvre Museum you get a totally different feeling. When looking at the actual painting in the museum it evokes a different emotion and feeling all together. You would also have a different feeling towards it if you were looking right at the painting during the 16th century and standing right next to Leonardo da Vinci after he finished painting it.

That happed to me once when I went on a tour of the Art Institute of Chicago. While there I was able to see many famous paintings. One in particular was "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper. I have a poster of this painting at home and have seen it numerous times in magazines and on the internet. It was a different aura entirely when looking at the real thing versus looking at the generic version of it in some magazine or the internet. Also, when looking at a generic version of something the image itself tends to change somewhat. The quality may not be as good as the original or it might have been enhanced to look better than the original. Also the original itself tends to change as time goes by do to weathering and also restoration as well.