Digital Media spring 2015... the full boat!

Artist Statement Final Victoria Vallis April 29, 2015 Subject: 350S Art Title: Digital Media by Victoria Vallis During my adult life I have been experimental in approach to a love of art, especially Digital Media! ever trying to figure out the best way to display creativity, I produce projects with an unusual flair. The artistic outcome I seek should be pleasing, interesting, and unique with a possible slant toward marketable. I want to form a full cycle of imaginative possibilities with this art. Through an application of colorful wit to my own process combined with natural sources to form unusual viewpoints (my humorous use of a cartoonish three dimensional toe, people, bands, dogs and unique backgrounds). Pieces of each come together with a change of view and meaning to form mysterious and unusual very different images. A playful effect of bright colors and the unexpected emerges. My art is a trek into the fantasy world of what if? If all was perfect like a happy cartoon with no evil, then how would things be? The settings are a backdrop of pastoral peace with vast new possibilities into three dimensional art and video. Since i had never heard of Maya before my Digital Media class, I had a new program to discover. Wow three dimensional objects from drawings in this Maya program! A whole new world of creation presented itself to me. This Digital Media class has been a good way to learn new programs, uses of digital media and even Heideger’s theories.

Seniors need love too! Have you hugged a senior today?

skip blumberg video artist

Skip Blumberg, Still Alive and Ticking …. by Victoria Vallis Digital media 350s Blog Skip Blumberg is an Emmy award winning producer, director, journalist and filmmaker for the Manhattan based In Motions Productions. Known as a pioneer in independent documentary video making, he is one of the original video artists of the 1970s. Blumberg's energetic works and distinctive style lends a personal touch to global issues. His television work, experimental videos and documentaries about world culture have appeared on Showtime, PBS, The Learning Channel, National Geographic TV, Disney Channel and The Sci Fi Channel. Educational videos for NYC Outward Bound Center, the Aspiring Principals Program, Girls Inc and The Tibet Center are also well known. Blumberg has interviewed thousands of people for TV shows; including politicians, sports and TV stars, unique individuals, street people, children and senior citizens. The New York State Council on the Arts embraced video as a new art form and funded much of the work of the first generation of portable video gear artists in the 1970s."It's not like we caused a lot of the changes that happened," Blumberg said. Part of the early video collective of 1969, Blumberg was a cofounder of the countercultural Videofreex. This launched the first pirate station Lanesville TV as an artists' low power television in New York State. He was also a central participant in the pioneering television groups TVTV, Ant Farm, Image Union and Paper Tiger TV where he developed his characteristic personal interview style and informal, video techniques. In 1984 Blumberg was selected for Esquire magazine's register of "The Best of the New Generation. Blumberg has also produced and directed several hundred shows and shorts for PBS and cable network television series. Blumberg who lives in Tribeca, is a graduate of the State University of New York. He has been artist-in-residence at WNET/Thirteen, New York, WXXI (Rochester), WCNY (Syracuse) and the 1980 Winter Olympics. He produced and directed many programs for the Alive From Off Center series of KTCA TV, Minneapolis. He is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow and has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among others. Blumberg's tapes have been broadcast on public and network television, and have been exhibited widely at institutions and festivals including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; International Center of Photography, New York; American Film Institute National Video Festival, Los Angeles; Danish Video Festival, Copenhagen; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Museum of Television and Radio, New York; Museum of Broadcasting, Chicago; National Museum of the American Indian, New York; ILJU Art House Archive, Seoul, Korea; and retrospectives at the Rotterdam and Berlin Film festivals. Blumberg has won three Emmys as producer for Sesame Street (more than 150 shorts), Great Performances (700,000-plus online views), The National Geographic Explorer, and MyHero.com. He has also won awards for nonprofits, including the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity and the Twenty-First Century Foundation. Blumberg has been a US State Department cultural envoy in Senegal, Kosovo, Herzegovina, Slovakia, and other countries and a visiting filmmaker, artist-in-residence, and teacher at universities, schools, libraries, and media centers. Blumberg has taught at the University of Hawaii Summer Film and Video Institute, and Ohio Arts Council Summer Media Institute. He is currently is Special Professor in the MFA documentary program at Hofstra University School of Communication. He has also lead hundreds of production workshops, events, performances and in-person screenings in media centers, theaters, galleries, museums, schools, universities, and libraries around the world. Blumberg has been a significant influence to the evolution of the independent video documentary. His early work reflects exploration of graphics in video (JGLNG, 1976) to his recent documentaries about world culture global issues (Weekend in Moscow, 2002 and Return to Tibet, 2003) and performance videos (ConCreep, 2000). He has a distinctive, personal approach to the documentary form that, in his words, "warms up the cool medium of television." His work has been screened widely on television and at museums in permanent collections in the Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Centre Pompidou Paris and other museums, libraries, schools and universities around the world, as well as for clients’ educational, development and fundraising films. His video: Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show (1981) is considered a classic documentary video and was included in the Museum of Television and Radio's exhibition TV Critics' All-time Favorite Shows. His cultural documentaries and performance videos have been broadcast on PBS, National Geographic TV, Showtime, Bravo, Nickelodeon, among others. Blumberg's works give voice to the individual and the community, as he discovers the idiosyncratic and extraordinary in America's regions and subcultures. His recent independent experimental documentary (Growing Up Bonobo: Photographer Marian Brickner, 2015), and performance videos (On Dream Street..., 2012), show games, sports, music, dance and performance as celebrations of cultural expression. Works such as Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show (1981) and Flying Morning Glory (on fire) (1985) are considered classics. With hundreds of titles on-line, on Showtime, PBS, Disney Channel, National Geographic TV and other TV channels, Blumberg is very well known, with additional retrospectives in the Berlin Film Festival Videofest, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Dallas Video Festival. He is a member and current spokesperson for the production group, Videofreex, the subject of an upcoming retrospective at the Dorsky Museum of Art and of the feature documentary film, "Here Come the Videofreex" soon to be released in 2015. Blumberg remains an active digital producer, camcorder reporter, and video pioneer. Several hundred of Blumberg’s movies are online and in distribution for home viewing and for academic and public screenings through Electronic Arts Intermix, Video Data Bank, and In Motion Productions, Inc.

toe jam @nma”

Blog 3d toe artist statement by Victoria vallis Since I had never heard of maya before my digital media class, I had a new program to discover. Wow three dimensional (3d) objects from drawings in this program! A whole new world of creation presented itself to me. As a beginner (newbie) to the format, I had to come up with something simple for my first project that was to be printed out in 3d. The first thing that came to mind was my cousin chris’s recently amputated toe, which used to be next to his big right toe. Well I had heard of 3d prosthetics being used in the medical world. I wondered if chris would appreciate a replacement toe. The idea of “toe Jam” popped into my head, since chris is a bass player with lots of jams jammed into his musical career. Okay so now my concept required research and I accumulated files of toe related images and jokes. Additionally I studied hours of maya format. Once at the drawing board the placement of a globe onto a cylinder was not too difficult with a little help from my friends. A toenail was added, along with some shaping for definition, and wala! The maya form was sent to the printer! Okay now the waiting process, like the birth of a new baby. At last… heaven and earth moves… creation!!! Clap clap, there was chris’s toe waiting to be sanded and painted. Flesh tone paint was easy to mix and a white toenail to stand out for definition. The toe had arrived and just in time for Nevada museum of art (nma) first Thursday, again Clap clap. So I loaded up the new appendage, proceeded to nma and began filming (after asking permission). This was fun, hand a person a toe and film their reaction. to move things along, I suggested they each say, “I got in a toe jam at nma.” As you may guess the more people that arrived and began partying, the livelier the result. This little piggy did not stay home and had a great party as an ode to cousin chris’s lost toe. After another ten hours of editing the raw film, “toe jam @nma” came into being. The ah ha moment ready for cousin chris to treasure as an ode to his lost toe from me, better than a get well card!?!

A topsy turvy spring in digital media 350 by victoria vallis

Black Survival Guide Terry Marshall by Victoria Vallis

Black Survival Guide Terry Marshall by Victoria Vallis On the University of Nevada, Reno campus, the Reno Justice Coalition, which formed in the fall of 2014, helps students to explore activism and community involvement. The most recent exhibition the Reno Justice Coalition presented was to bring awareness of persons whose deaths were attributed to police brutality, vigilantism, and hate crimes. The purpose of the Reno Justice Coalition is to have a voice on campus about racism and other forms of social injustice. It was created to have a forum to talk about these issues and do something about it, because there are students here who care about these things and want change. The “Week of ACTION” gave the Reno Justice Coalition the opportunity to bring in several individuals, including members of the American Civil Liberties Union and activist Terry Marshall, who has been working with the Black Lives Matter campaign, all in an effort to encourage the Reno community to commit to social change. During the Reno Justice Coalition's National week of action, Terry Marshall spoke on how social media and the arts influence activism against police brutality and racism. As a response to the current state of race relations in the U.S., he has designed a multimedia project called "The Black Body Survival Guide." This is a guide as the owner of a black body for surviving in the U.S. He believes that this is one of the best ways to expose Racial Injustice in America. This satirical guide is meant to comment on the violence against black people being perpetuated, and raise our consciousness about the drastic nature of racial relations in the United States. Hence, sparking a movement to change the perceptions of black bodies and to increase awareness of social injustice.

No Boundaries at the NMA by Victoria Vallis

No Boundaries at the NMA by Victoria Vallis Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting February 28, 2015 The Nevada Museum of Art is now displaying the works of Aboriginal artists. The paintings from the remote Paruku region of Western Australian desert of No Boundaries by Paddy Bedford, Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Tommy Mitchell, Ngarra, Boxer Milner Tjampitjin, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Tjumpo Tjapanangvka, Billy Joongoorra Thomas, and Midpul forge a new path in abstract images. These tribal leaders demonstrate a unique view of art defined by ancient beliefs. Visual traditions of these people are transformed into contemporary artworks that serve to broaden the possibilities of Aboriginal art. These revered Australian painters preserve the stories and cultural heritage of their people. The conservation of the work of Australian Aboriginal artists is important. The roots of their work reach back more than 50,000 years, and represent the oldest continuous cultural production in the world in which ancestral spirits exert a continuing presence in everyday life. I found the colorful designs and patterns to be intriguing and very modern looking. I am motivated to try some of these styles in my own artwork. Some of the resulting patterns reminded me of optical illusions or Op Art from posters of the sixties. The colorful dots were also interesting to observe.

art 350s digital media: Project 1 Steampunk Vixen an installation ...

Artist Statement of Victoria Vallis      
Spring, 2015

Title: Steampunk Vixen2 by
Victoria Vallis

      During my adult life I have been
experimental in approach to a love of art and creation. Ever trying to combine imagination
with possibilities, I have created “Steampunk Vixen2”.  This digital media installation forms a mysterious
and very different and eerie display. In the perception of continuity, gaps are
often filled in; the result can be fragmented, and paradoxical; without
apparent meaning.  “Steampunk Vixen2”becomes
an unpretentious, and dreamlike landscape of provocative aura and escapism. Steampunk
as an escape has leaked into the real world with costumes and working steam powered
machinery, resulting in a state of heightened perception. A moving doll carries
messages of light, shadow, movement and reflection. Through the use unusual
patterns displaying an array of oddly mystical images, one perceives an
emergence of illusion, similar to a glance from the corner of the eye.  Over the years, I have realized that my love
and admiration for certain things did not just crop up by random chance. Detailed
pattern, emphasizing form creates interest while producing abstraction between
reality and fiction, producing visual metaphors and purity of image.  

     Martin Heidegger wrote an essay, “The
Question Concerning Technology”, over fifty years ago, but his ideas about
modern technology are still extremely applicable. He says, “…Technology is the
fate of our age, where “fate” means the inevitableness of an unalterable
course” Heidegger maintained that our way of questioning defines our nature. He
argued that philosophy, Western Civilization's chief way of questioning, had
lost sight of the being it sought. As a solution to this condition, Heidegger
advocated a return to the practical being in the world, allowing it to reveal,
or "unconceal" itself as concealment. He is best known for his
existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of
Being". His best known book, Being and Time, is considered one of
the most important philosophical works of the 20th century.

      The
arguments about nostalgia for a time when we were closer to technology, and the
need to understand the past so we can imagine the future, are actually quite
compelling. My work reflects an evolution of objects of pleasure in Heidegger
fashion, as well as from original steam tools
to entirely aesthetic contraptions which are representations of useful things. My
question is, could steampunk, with an emphasis on technology  take part in ordering as a way of revealing?     Heidegger implies that people are not in
control of what they are developing, that it is fated and destined to happen,
and also mentions that knowledge to create technology was around much earlier
than it is actually created; the ideas were just waiting to be uncovered.

The
fundamental distinguishing characteristic of steampunk is what might be termed
a radical desire for individual freedom. By this orientation, all of reality is
simply information presented to us by the mind, synthesized from the raw data
of experience.  Another question is, therefore
could steampunk combined with a moving doll reflect our changing society? A
playful effect of bright colors and the unexpected emerges. By using an
imaginative experimental approach to digital media, I have combined an
accumulation of objects into one coherent outcome. The backdrop is natural
setting of peaceful possibilities. Interpretation of the intricate
interaction of the doll to the observer is a moving symphony in progress for
the eyes. With meticulous attention to detail and observance of the elements
such as light, colors, textures and patterns, the elements of composition are explored.  It's an opportunity for close visual
observation of the details of a moving doll's face. Character and the personal
history that are written on it, as the artful digital media composition blooms
forth. Patterns of interest from clothing to soft fresh skin tones and textures,
facial expressions, take the mundane out of the doll, thus elevating her to an
art form of creation as an
artistic product that is pleasing, interesting, and unique. My art is a trek
into the fantasy world of what if? If all was perfect like dolls playing in a
happy cartoon with no evil; then how would things be?  This project has taught
me many things, the most important being that I have to always remember to
enjoy the little things.

art 350s digital media: Proposal for Project 1 Steampunk Vixen ...: Proposal for Project 1 Steampunk Vixen Digital Media 350s Victoria Vallis Spring 2015 List of Supplies or Toolbox: Elec...

..Nevada in Time: Photographs of a Changing Landscape and the Power of Observation.

Nevada in Time: Photographs of a Changing Landscape and
the Power of Observation

 February 12, 2015 by Victoria Vallis

Photographs of altered landscapes of
Northern Nevada are the subject of an exhibit at the Knowledge Center.
Landscapes,
made by nature or by man, which change daily, yearly, and generationaly, are
featured in this exhibit
exploring the dynamic and changing landscapes of northern Nevada and Lake Tahoe.

Among the
photographers whose works are featured are Stephen Davis with “Truckee Meadows
Open Lands Project;” Jack Hursh with photographs “Nevada Historic Barns and
Ranch Architecture;” Peter Goin, University of Nevada Reno Foundation Professor
with “Selected Images from Stopping Time: A Rephotographic Survey of Lake
Tahoe; Mark Klett with the “Rephotographic Survey” and Howard Goldbaum with
“American Flat.”



Three of
the photographers: Davis, Hursh and Goin, took part in a forum titled
“Photography, History and the Power of Observation” at the Wells Fargo
Auditorium inside the Knowledge Center. Stephanie Gibson, a writer with a focus
on contemporary photography, and arts administrator from Ottawa, Canada, who
now lives in Reno, moderated the discussion.



The
discussion was introduced by Kathy Ray Dean, and looked at the importance
of  photographs of a changing landscape
and difference between documenting history and family photographs which are a
visual bridge to the public.



 “Nevada in Time: Photographs of a Changing
Landscape,” tells the story of Northern Nevada and Lake Tahoe through images of
a landscape in flux. Using photographs from the University’s Special Collections
Department, combined with contemporary projects, it shows how the camera helps
define and record our surroundings.



 Kimberly Roberts, who is the photo curator for
the special collections department, said the photographs offer an unvarnished
look at various landscapes in the region along with the changing environment.
For example, one set illustrates the changing of Plumb Lane through the years from
largely open space to a cityscape.



 Her intent in the curation of this show is to
demonstrate that history is not something that is confined to the past or to
books, but is all around us and is happening now, especially with the Truckee
Meadows on the cusp of another major transformation as more industries move
into the area, explained Roberts.



The
University of Nevada Reno’s Archives at the Knowledge Center has many
historical photographs. The exhibit also includes many of these historic
photographs from Special Collections and from Reno Photo Service. Dozens of
photographs make up the exhibit, and are displayed on the second, third, and
fourth floor walls of the Knowledge Center. 




Reno,
Nevada is in a constant state of flux and change. Having grown up here, I have
personally witnessed many of the growth expansions discussed in this forum. I
watched medical centers, malls, schools and houses take over the vast cow
pastures I used to ride horses and bicycle through. I experienced firsthand the
construction of I-80 and then 395 and the spaghetti bowl with all of the
traffic that now congests its roadways. I am glad that these and other
photographers have documented the expansion, and that family albums prove how
it used to look here.



I used to
play at American Flats and even had a pottery class there with Fred Reid and
Bob Griffin, and now it is gone. Only a memory, like so much of my vanishing
past. As my two questions I asked the panel what they thought of the
disappearance of American Flats and the wild horses. The answers I heard ranged
from it’s too late,… to must be managed. Goin 
believes we are all part of history and would like to see a living park
built with the artifacts of American Flats. Hursh who photographs old barns
before they fall down with time, helped to preserve some old buildings which
have been moved to Bartley Ranch. Kudos go out to all who help to preserve the
past, because once it is gone, there is no replacing it.

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Digital Media 350s Joel Swanson visiting Lecture By Victoria Vallis Spring 2015 Have you ever looked at a word and pondered what it means backwards? Joel Swanson does just that, as he explores double word meanings and palindromes, only in large artistic format as neo gothic digital narratives. His art work is motivated by literary theory and exists as a series of installations, both real and virtual, that explore the nature of language through his concept art boot camp. Swanson visited the University of Nevada at Reno recently with a very inspiring look at his art, which investigates the indexicality and role of language. Swanson’s major influence came from Joseph Cosuth’s 1 & 3 Chairs. Based on this work, Swanson wrote the code for a 3-d chair and thus placing the chair into a new realm or paradigm. As an artist and writer who is the Director of the Technology, Arts & Media Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Swanson teaches courses on digital art, media theory, and the history of design. He received his MFA in digital art at the University of California, San Diego, with a specialty in Computing and the Arts. Quirks and glitches run our world both in the analog and digital realm. Another of Swanson’s mentors was Sol Lewitt and his 35 phrases. Linguistic and literary theory form his work, which ranges from digital art to sculpture to interactive installation. His work explores the technologies of language, their materials, and their significance. He revisits the questions posed by the Conceptual language artists of the 1960’s and 1970’s, but in light of contemporary digital technologies. He is particularly drawn to the complexities, glitches and quirks within linguistic systems. By analyzing sentence diagramming, he focuses on those spaces where language breaks down by lineating text. Swanson's work attempts to be made accessible to the public and has been shown in various national and international venues. His playful artwork which uses Led lights as words has been exhibited nationally and internationally including a recent solo show at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, The Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery of Toronto, the North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art and the Orange Country Museum of Contemporary Art. He frequently uses adverbs or prepositions to define the percentages as meanings in language change. In 2011, Swanson's topic was words and their meanings, as he displayed “Here, there, this ‘n that” in neon, describing the way English is read. He orchestrates an array of materials, including ink, aluminum, steel, neon and various photographic and digital techniques, to expound on his ideas. Whether his art is a large word of 13 feet reading “Sincerely”, a blinking computer screen, or a “Speak ‘n see” sign using Christmas lights, he explores the technology of language. Another work that mustered much attention is his wallpaper of ampersands. The conceptual artist Swanson’s Denver-based show begins with a wall that's been covered with 25,000 hand-drawn ampersands. It took Swanson, using a pen, a ladder and a laser level, five days to do it, something that adds a performance aspect to the show. The results are hypnotic and thought-provoking, and winds up as abstract conceptualism. As with much of his conceptual work from flattening boxes to study their basic patterns, to diagramming airports, his works are a cultural commentary. This impression of forcing the viewer to think more is reinforced by one of his simplistic hanging sculptures, "Logic Only Works in Two Dimensions", a three-dimensional rendition of the mathematical inequality symbol for less/greater than, finished in black monochromatic paint. Similar to his other 3-d palindromes, such as “Radar”, he presents a large in your face social commentary about his fascination with language, be it French, English or any other from around the world. “Wish you were here”… The questions I asked at his lecture were… Who makes your neon creations? (subcontracted) How do you change twitter feed to Morse code? (programming)

Proposal for Project 1 Steampunk Vixen Digital Media 350s Victoria Vallis Spring 2015 List of Supplies or Toolbox: Electric two foot doll Black light String of colored lights Toilet roll card board circles String Glove Sock Glow paints Stuffed animals, toys Fan Glass bottles Card board box, apx. 4x4x4’ Process: Research other steampunk dolls for brainstorming ideas. Sew a new cape for doll and change her hair attempt to steampunk her look from that of a Christmas doll. Surround her with stuffed animals and objects. Hang circles cut from toilet rolls and painted in top of box for moving stars. Place fan and lights where effective. Experiment with things that glow with black light and place them into the scene. The desired effect is a moving scene that is eerie, ephemeral and intriguing. I am way too old to play with dolls but it is still fun. I always try to insert playful humor and nonsense into my artwork. Now how to tie ‘ol Heidegger and his cronies into the mix? I agree with Waddington about the dense fog of navigation through the heavy reading of Heidegger’s genius. Tech is human activity. A doll that plugs in and moves is mesmerizing and strange to behold. She emulates human activity, and plays the actress in this small stage I will create. Her light inside the glove points out at the viewer reminiscent of ET pointing as he said “phone home”.The cause and effect is that the doll moves, as will other parts of the background on the stage through the fan’s wind and vibration. The piece will not be stagnate but rotating similar to the earth turning, never stopping (unless the power source is omitted). The doll becomes the Gestell or framework around which the stage is set. She is the “Thing”. I will call her Steampunk Vixen, her power is in her innocence, and extraordinary intrigue.