HW14.4 Brushbot

For my robot, I decided to attach my motor to a tube of chapstick.  I am always in need of chapstick and I like the idea of creating a tube that could follow me around and always be at my disposal.

3 Credit Project

Besides doing extra artist research throughout the semester, I completed an additional project to earn an extra credit for this class.  My project focussed on the relationship between digital embroidery and hand embroidery.  First, I used a digital embroidery machine to make the original design.  I chose to only use designs that are inherently available on the machine.  Digital embroidery gives you the option to create your own designs on Illustrator and then upload them to the machine, but I wanted to focus on the machine as much as possible during this step and not bring my own creative process into it.  I used two flower designs that are available in the machine's factory settings.  I decided to use warm tones of thread in the pink and red family.  I used the same flower design multiple times, but changed the size and placement.  The machine was interesting to use and its speed was incredible.

This is a time-lapse video

Once I was done using the digital embroidery machine, I was left with a rather plain looking hoop, so I began to to imagine how I would add hand embroidery to the project.  

I accidentally cut the fabric and had to superglue it together, therefore there is a glue stain towards the top 

I wanted to distinguish the digital and hand embroidery as much as possible so I decided to use bright green threads of different hues.  To contrast the organic images of the flowers, I chose to create geometric shapes with my hand embroidery.  I also think it is slightly ironic that the machine was used for the organic aspects of the work and my hands were used for the more manufactured features. 

HW14.2 Final Project

For my final project, I used Photoshop to design my own origami paper.  The paper is a mandala of children at play and children's toys.  I found the images online and cropped them of their backgrounds.  I used Photoshop to flip and mirror them in different ways.  I made one version of the paper with a black background and one version with a white background.  The mandala was meant to focus on the physical and childlike aspects of the theme, play.  

I then used the paper to make an origami chess set.  I used the origami deigns of Joseph Wu, which can be found at http://www.josephwu.com/Files/PDF/chess.pdf.  There were six distinct piece designs for the king, queen, rook, knight, bishop, and pawn.  The paper design with the white background was used for the white pieces and the paper design with the black background was used for the black pieces.  The result is a usable chess set.  I chose to make a chess set because it represents the strategical, cerebral aspects of play. 

Joseph Wu's designs

Details of the Knight piece

HW14.3 Class Review

Looking back on this class, I have learned many practical and theoretical things about new media art.  The class discussions allowed me to build my opinions of new media based off of the ideas and experiences of my classmates.  I especially enjoyed the hands-on studio aspects of the class that allowed us to be creative with the materials and tools that we were learning about.  I can see myself returning to many of the projects we did this semester as inspiration in the future. I think that new media art techniques are an interesting addition to the art classroom and allow students to explore different ways of making.

As for my personal learning objectives for the semester, through the artist research and hands-on work I have become more aware of the benefits of new media materials for artists.  The possibilities are endless when it comes to new media art and different artists can use the same materials to create vastly different projects.  Digital technology also allows new media artists to display their art in more ways than traditional mediums.

The projects in this class have also helped me accomplish my second learning objective.  I have learned to combine different art mediums especially through the final project and my extra credit project.  Combining machine embroidery and hand embroidery was an explorative project due to their extreme similarities and major differences.