Digital Media

Blackout Apologies, The Fight, and the Future

| Mac

I’m sorry. It was probably wrong of me to publish a new post which was Virtual Novel Writing Studio – Scrivener on the same day that I was planning to participate in the internet blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA. What can I say… I lost track of the details… I missed that this protest and the next blog post were scheduled for the same date.

Apologies aside, I’d like us all to reflect on the fact that freedom of speech, collage, and mashup are central to art, digital art, and cultural discourse. Art, whether it’s a movie, a song, or a book, is not merely a vehicle for collecting wealth, it is also a cultural artefact. That said artists need to make a living. Irrespective of the grey area in my non-expert opinion this proposed legislation has gone much too far. Here’s a great video –

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31100268]

If you’d like to know what you can do to join the fight, click the black “Stop Censorship” ribbon in the top right corner of Exploring-Art.com. I am pleased to hear that the largest online protest in history has had some results. As always consider the fight far from over until the legislation is abandoned. Again I’m sorry for the outage but it was important to me.

I have lots of great things planned for Exploring-Art.com, which you will hear about in the near future so stay tuned!

Mac

A Tribe Called Red

| Mac

If your into the Canadian underground electronic scene then this is probably old news for you… but I hadn’t seen it before we were shown it in Visual Arts 150 last Tuesday… and I found it extremely interesting…

Here’s the best write up I could find on A Tribe Called Red:

http://2011.newformsfestival.com/2011/07/08/a-tribe-called-red/

A Tribe Called Red are a collective of 3 Native American DJ’s who are remixing tribal sounds and re-apporpriating western imagery of their people… In one way it’s very cool to see creative fusion like this, in another way I’m sure members of their culture, Elders in particular might not be happy about it… the term that might come up is sacrilegious… In addition I can’t help but feel concern about retransmitting imagery full of bigotry… like the uncomfortable feeling you get with Mickey Rooney’s part in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Alas the world of art has always been strewn with politics, power struggles, and angry stakeholders. Despite the fireworks of thoughts regarding what it all means, I have to say, I like it. It has a hypnotic beat, and the mashup is satisfyingly solid.

If you like it too check out their Facebook page and their Soundcloud page.

Creative Challenge: Logo / Graphic Design

| Mac

Creative Challenge Number 3

This week’s creative challenge, design a logo or graphic for yourself, your neighbour, your business, your dream business, your baseball team, your secret super hero identity.

Here’s mine for Exploring-Art.com:

In addition to the weekly participation call; to create one yourself and post it online to share with us, I will also review the process I went through to create this graphic, utilizing the creative process outlined in Monday’s post.

Phase 1: Initial Idea
My super-concious returned the idea for a logo or graphic, in response to two loosely coupled asynchronous queries… A topic for a weekly challenge, and a graphic for T-shirts and business cards for shameless self promotion…

Once I had decided to design a graphic, where was I to start? Again my super-concious answered. Remember those coloured bars on old, analog, CRT televisions when there was no signal? That was the seed from which my graphic emerged.

Phase 2: Discernment
I googled for images of “no TV signal” to refresh my memory of what they looked like… I counted the number of coloured bars and sketched a layout in my unlined notebook. I had originally imagined the pictures on top of the colour bars but quickly realized that it would be better underneath. I was originally thinking there would be space for the URL as well as the name but quickly saw that would be far too cluttered.

I also wanted to soften the colours from the no signal graphics, going back to my notion of creatio collegiate, I wanted the colours to be more welcoming than abrasive.

I recognized the need for block letters to make the .com name readable, striking and similar to the current theme used on the WordPress site.

A one man search through recent photos for photos that would blend into the coloured bar above them…

Can you feel it? The fabulously fantastic frenzy of being in the flow of the creative process? If you don’t do this regularly you really ought to try it… If a graphic is too intimidating try the pen name, or poetic snapshot challenge. Look for a new Creative Challenge every week a exploring-art.com.

Phase 3: Refinement
I had to fix the white black space. I tried a dozen different fonts, switched photos in and out… reiterate, iterate, reiterate.

Phase 4: Completion
I got that warm happy feeling, and I was done.