HW9.2 Scratch Experience and Classroom Connections

I enjoyed working with Scratch and I can see why an artist would be attracted to working with programming.  There are so many possibilities with the code if you know how to manipulate it correctly.

• Working with scratch can be summed up in three words: "trial and error."  I made many mistakes and had to replay my animation again and again to find where I had errors in the code.  Most of all, I needed time to work through the mistakes and teach myself.  Similarity, in an art classroom, students not only need instruction, materials, and motivation, they also need time to work with the medium and allow themselves to make mistakes.  This especially true when using new media materials because students will have less familiarity with them.  Giving students plenty of time to emerge themselves in the activity is essential for technology to work in the classroom.
• Although I did not choose to make a game while using Scratch, the ability to do so is a great application of the program.  I think it is a wonderful opportunity for artists to create interactive works of art, allowing their audience to truly be involved in the process.  Likewise, in a classroom it is important to remember that students will want to be a pert of the lesson.  Simply lecturing to a classroom will not inspire the same enthusiasm as creating a lesson that incorporates interactivity.  Allowing students to provide examples and ask questions during the instructional session will keep them attentive and add to their experience.

HW9.1 Scratch Project: Emoji Waltz

HW9.3.2 Programming Artist Research: Nick Briz

Nick Briz is an artist who uses programming to create algorithms for art and tear apart code in order to create glitches.  In his work, The Coldplay Song Generator, he used code to create an application which creates new songs based on the patterns and formulas of the band Coldplay.

The application can be downloaded on his website.

He also works with Glitch Art, which is a form of art that is interested in the visual results of mistakes and error in code.  Briz creates digital works that actively have "badly" written code in order to produce the glitches.  Because they are actively desired, the glitches cease to be seen as mistakes and become the focus of the work.  In order to make glitches appear in specific ways, the code must be written precisely, so although it is filled with "errors," it still requires extreme programming knowledge and skill.

From The Ground Up In Order, Embrace from Nick Briz on Vimeo.

Sources:

http://nickbriz.com/

http://artcopyright.interartive.org/coldplay-song-generator-copy-drive-sample-chest/

HW9.3.1 Programming Artist Research: Raven Kwok

Raven Kwok is a Chinese artist who uses programming to create works of art.  Kwok works with the programming software and language known as Processing.  Many of his works are studies on fractals and patterns, but others are playful uses of internet memes.

 
Sources:
http://www.creativeapplications.net/processing/115c8-and-edf0-by-raven-kwok-recursive-and-transforming/
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/07/14/if-you-like-programming-and-fine-art-you-will-love-raven-kwoks-work-made-with-processing/#gref

HW8.1 Sound Project

For this sound piece I recorded the sound of water running in the sink, myself eating crackers, drinking water, and pouring water into a cup.  I liked the sound of the crackers crunching and I looped them over and over as if I were eating a whole box of crackers.  The crackers made me thirsty so the rest of my project was associated with water and the fulfillment of thirst.

HW8.3 Sound Reflection

By observing the sounds around me, I have realized that sound is a constant stimuli and the brain has learned to ignore all but the most important noises.  As I type this blog post, my fingers are making tapping sounds on the keys of my computer and I can hear my desk shaking slightly with each sudden move.  These sounds are so common in my mind, that I have stopped noticing them except for the rare cases that I open my mind to them.

When I think of sound in the classroom, I am immediately reminded of the many tricks I have seen teachers use to quiet down a bustling group of students.  Teachers will begin to stage whisper, hoping their students will quiet in an effort to understand them or use the "If you can hear me clap once" tactic.  I have recently had a professor in a Teachers College class use a gong to call the attention of the class after a series of group discussions.  The gong was strange sound to hear in a classroom setting and it caught the attention of everyone in the room.  Teachers often use incongruous sounds to attract student attention, but there are so many sounds in the classroom that few of them can be seen as incongruous.  It is commonplace to hear air conditioners, heaters, footsteps in the hall, fire trucks and ambulances in the streets below, and construction workers on the sidewalks outside.  With so many sounds in the ears of a student, it is a miracle that any of them hear the teacher's lesson and remain attentive.

HW8.2.2 Sound Artist Research: Miya Masaoka

Miya Masaoka is a musician and performance artist who has worked with insects in some of her sound pieces.  From 1996 to 2001, Masaoka worked on The Bee Project.  She created a score that instructed how the sound in the work would be manipulated by a mixer.  The sound that she applied to the score, was the buzz of 3,000 live bees in a glass beehive on the stage of the performance space.  Distorting the sound of the bees in real time and projecting the result back into the room showcased the immediate power of sound work and highlighted the contrast between the wild, natural bees and the calculated, synthetic remix.

Masaoka continued to work with bees and created a short video, Adventures of the Solitary Bee.  In it, the sound of bees is overlaid with a musical score written by Masaoka and narration discussing the physical and philosophical life of bees.

Sources:
http://www.miyamasaoka.com/interdisciplinary/skin_insects/index.html