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Final Project + Artist Statement

https://transparentdonutdestiny.tumblr.com/ - LINK TO PORTFOLIO!

Hi, to avoid confusion there are over 10 pictures (13 obvious ones, 14 total) in my portfolio. I’ve decided stick them together into posts to show them off in a better way. I think some of the glitches present themselves better in groups.

- Hidden Identity Artist’s Statement -

           Hidden Identity is my personal commentary on ideas and symbols that people use to identify themselves. My goal was to take these ideas of identity and distort them through glitching and compositing them to form a new identity. The concept of identity should not be set in stone. People can change over time through different experiences or simple wardrobe changes.  Maybe someone picks up a new hobby and is seen differently. I also wanted to play around with the idea that we are all similar despite being unique. I decided to add chaos into the pictures in order to make them fit together. I have referred to symbols such as eyes, clothing, the environment we are raised in, what we do, and how we live.

            I have taken separate glitches and put them together, put photos together and glitched them, and uploaded standalone pictures. I wanted to show variety in the way I present my ideas to also represent how there’s various ways to define and view identity. Impressions can change overtime, and how these ideas present themselves change how we identify them. To me, the concept of identity is very abstract and obscure. Why not make it even more obscure? Even through all of the glitches, people can find their own way to represent their identity and come up with their own view of others. The titles my works/collections are in the captions. The captions are how I identified the pieces based on the symbol I thought of while taking the pictures.

           My works are a bit chaotic due to the nature of glitches. However, I feel that there is a sense of balance between the works based on their individual weight. I changed up the way I did the glitches to avoid having all of them look the same. Focusing on different subjects for my project makes each glitch look unique. Of course, that alone produces unique content, but glitches can make everything look the same if done in that fashion.

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Final Project WiP

This set is for concept of how some people identify people based on their clothes. I have not edited/glitched these pictures yet. I don’t think I’ll use all of pictures, I might pick four and glitch them and put them in a grid. I’m planning on using one picture (the first one most likely) and glitching it.

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Yoko Ono Lennon - Wish Tree

Yoko Ono Lennon is the artist I chose for my research paper. Her work is wildly different from what I’ve seen and heard of. Yoko’s methods are very risky and rebellious, but have mindful insight once you think about it. Her style as a conceptual artist throws away the material and focuses on the idea.

Wish Tree is one of the tamer works, where she request the audience to write their wishes to hang it on the tree. I like the duality of the Wish Tree and how the meaning can change based on the audience. When the people participate, we have a tree decorated in white paper with people’s wishes on them. The tree becomes a symbol of unity when people interact but once people stop, the tree can become barren and have a different meaning. What interest me is the audience interaction, or lack of, makes the art work eternal. Whether we interact with the Wish Tree or not keeps the idea alive, thus keeping the Wish Tree alive.

Despite the controversy surrounding her, I think her ideas are interesting and have some validity towards her art. She indirectly taught me to open up and check out the reasons and other ideas that represent her and others work. 

Of course everyone’s different and may not agree, but that’s a given.

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Project Proposal: Hidden Identity

For my project, I have decided to further work on photomanipulation and glitch art. I’m going to take conceptual pictures of identity and skew them. There are different ways people identify themselves and so I’m choosing to edit it pictures (by drawing over them, or glitching, or both), to add more anonymity to the picture. I’m going to make a new Tumblr blog to post the pictures on there. I haven’t really decided if I wanted to do side-by-side comparisons or just keep the edited pictures on the blog, but I’m leaning more towards having just the edited versions posted. I might have family members pose for some pictures, but I was also planning on recreating pictures of other people myself. I’m aiming for softer light in the pictures to make the glitches and edits brighter and pop more. I plan on alternating between black and white and color pictures. Every third post would be black and white. For some of my test shots, I decided to take a selfie and take a picture of me writing. There’s a saying about how the eyes express lots of emotion, so I made some edits concerning the eyes and other features that could show expression. As for writing, everyone has their own signature and their own way of writing. I decided to edit the selfie and try the writing one later.

           For the most part, this project helps me explore some of the techniques that interested me. I also find that identity is not something that everyone can agree upon. People will identify themselves with their own hobby or feature that they like, but not everyone will agree. Since identity is ambiguous, why not make it even more obscure?

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These Four Walls

At first whenever I wanted to take pictures of my personal experience of the quarantine, I wanted to have texture focused pictures to exhibit the objects that I closely associate this pandemic with and what I liked doing before it. I don’t think this pandemic will end soon based on the current trends in the US and with other people still thinking everything’s normal. I’ve heard stories of people still going to parties and I just wish for things to go back to normal.

For my process, I first decided to gather objects that related to what I liked that was affected by this experience. My table tennis paddle propped up by a ball symbolizes being away from the sport. That’s how I usually leave my stuff when I need to step away from the table for a bit. I think my crappy cutting job helps shows a more personal side to the first photo and it also helps show the different layers and textures on the paddle. I’m also currently not as active as I was before due to this pandemic. As for the picture of my headset and laptop, I’ve always been glued to my laptop, but in the context of this pandemic, I get sort of anxious around it since online classes started. But I like how the dust and fabric textures came out. For the third pic I took a picture of a homemade mask and another mask, purely for their texture differences. It didn’t come out to well, but I was just showing the difference between the two. I don’t have very many mask, but it is effective in slowing down the spread of the virus. The last picture is more abstract. Again, I have no idea what’s gonna happen next so I just have a pretty cheesy picture of me holding a lighter trying to find the good in things. There’s a light reflected against the black TV screen so there’s some bright side hopefully. Overall I do like how this picture came out.

When I started this assignment, I kind of knew what I’ve been missing from this pandemic so I wanted to capture that first. I later discovered that it was harder for me to decide what pictures to take because I don’t find anything too interesting at home since I’ve been living here for a while.

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Virtual Tour: Artists Talk - Alan Govenar

I decided to attend the Artists Talk Webex meeting. Not only was this my first Artists Talk event, this was my first one online. This was a great opportunity and I’m glad I woke up early enough to see the notification!

I did not know who Alan Govenar was before this, so I was interested to see what works he wanted to talk about. He showed us pictures from his time documenting the homeless. I think it’s admirable how he values human life and tries to give people a perspective of the homeless. The project/film is called “Stewpot”, which was the name of the homeless shelter. He filmed, took pictures, and interacted with the community there while making this documentary. He also discussed a different film he was a part of called “K2 Selling Death”, which was about the drug problem on the Dallas streets.

Whenever he was showing us some of the photos he took for the “Stewpot” project, it was interesting to see what he decided to take. Someone asked about his photography process, like what does he look for in a photo. He has in interest in color photography, giving his photos a more painterly feel. There was an example of a homeless person kneeling down with his hood up outside of an amphitheater. The person was wearing all camouflage except for his red hood. This struck Alan as an interesting picture and opportunity so he took it. My favorite conversation from this Webex meeting was the discussion over ethics. To sum it up, he puts human life first before the photo. He likes to interact and talk to with the people he takes pictures of to not only be an observer, but someone involved. When photographing and filming something as sensitive as homelessness, you would have to be mindful of who you’re filming. He also told us a story about a photographer who took pictures of a vulture that ended up killing a child. The photographer was too focused on the vulture and he could’ve saved the child. In the end, the photographer took his own life.

He also mentioned how dangerous it can be to film about topics like K2. The sellers obviously did not want to be recorded, and he had to be weary as the streets can be pretty dangerous.

As for his process, he talks about how the equipment itself can invoke a response in people. People might see the big camera and think “news” or “media” and become unwilling to participate. I did not think about how the equipment can affect people like this, but it makes perfect sense. If you look the part, people will probably just assume.

Some interesting tidbits are that he films a lot on his iPhone 11 max pro, which is amazing because I would not have thought he’d use that for some of his films. He also had some plumbing issues and the plumber came in around the time we were doing the meeting so it was a nice breather from the web meeting. His opinion of documentary films is that all of them are subjective work based on their framing. I agree since we choose what we want to show in videos, and how we present the information would definitely change how the viewer perceives our work.

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PASSAGE

Passage is meant to be abstract, general, vague. My idea of passage is that it is a variable. It can be slow or fast, but is always part of a beginning and end. I decided to use water as a theme for passage because it can flow, it can freeze, and it can be gone. Like time, some people don’t consider how much we have left because we assume we might have enough. Like time, we will eventually run out of water. Like a passage, there is an end. 

I saw a part of Bill Viola’s “Inner Passage” and after reading about his video “Passage”, I decided to incorporate slow motion to let people see the finer details of certain ways water interacts and flows. The first part of the video, which is the majority of it, shows a more slower and detailed form of passage, while the end is comically abrupt. I “censor” the end of the first death, but I show the second as a brief “surprise”. It also refers to how life is fragile. There is no guarantee that we live “X” amount of years, but it will end some way. For audio, I just used whatever sounds were happening with the water.

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Video Art

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HjR1X0a4e4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuWozY8NIS0

Tony Oursler casts projections onto other objects to create odd scenarios and pieces that seem uncomfortable. His process of thinking in flow charts interests me because of how methodical it is in comparison to how his art feels. At the same time, his art also seems like an abstraction of human thoughts and form. I think his personal understanding of people shows in his artwork.

Comparing Oursler and Nam June Paik, they both have a unique take on video art and expand on what video art can be in terms of a physical medium. The way we can view videos is beyond just the screen or a screen. Paik’s reason to create is a bit different form Oursler, as Paik likes to show case history or history in the making.

One of my personal favorite videos from this topic is Jørgen Leth’s Andy Warhol video. A tribute to Warhol himself, with Warhol himself. I kind of like memey weird content that can be uncomfortable. It’s like being part of an inside joke and knowing the irony behind the video. What’s even better is that I also ran into an article about Burger King re-purposing the video for an ad. https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/burger-king-andy-warhol-super-bowl-ad/316498

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Constructive Narrative: Urban Legends and Nightmares

This time I decided to go with a more horror based theme.

The first picture is based on the nightmare or myth of having a monster in your closet. This was shot in the perspective of the monster creeping out of the closet to check on their victim. I tried to warp the monster’s view by using a translucent blue cologne bottle. It added a little bit of blur and bluish tint to the image that I liked. Other creatures do not view the world the way we do, so changing the way the monster saw the victim was important. I was aiming to frame the picture to where the monster was fixated on the victim by using the closet door. I wanted more darkness to make it more unsettling.

The second picture is based on the urban legend Slender Man. Slender Man is a faceless humanoid creature who where’s a black suit. This one is more of a recreation based on the stabbing of a 12 year old girl. Slender Man is known to be a tall lanky monster, but this could just be the victim’s point of view. Slender Man could probably just be a murderer hiding their face, which I portrayed him as such. I tried to use perspective to make him feel taller and the lighting makes the monster more realistic and human-like rather than fantasied. Potentially, if people didn’t treat him as supernatural there would not be as many peoples spreading the tale and believing it.

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Instagram Project Blog Post: Another Day

My goal of the project was to go take a snippet of my day through a manipulated view. However, I decided to only do non-digital manipulations, so no filters or photoshop for any of my pictures. I aimed for all of my pictures to be different than regular selfies or pictures of my surroundings. They’re common photos, such as selfies and sky pictures, but they’re filtered through the use of lighting at different angles, windows, or maybe seen through a shadow instead of the actual object. Choosing to call my project “Another Day” ties in with he concept of naturally occuring events, but just in a different view.

As a whole, the photos that did the best are the pictures that attracted people outside of the project. If I was aiming towards more likes and followers, I should have followed more people within and outside of the project. I learned about the importance of proper and plentiful tagging, as it is a good way to get your pictures out there. However, a good portion of my pictures are too plain to really be noticed within a populated tag. Maybe choosing more colorful scenery or having more variance from other post would help, but I’m pretty sure my inactivity in terms of following and liking other posts also affected my numbers.

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Reading Assignment 4: Tableau Photography

Tableau photography comes from created scenes that appear candid or natural in the sense that the people pretend they are not aware of the camera. This reading was interesting since I haven’t created scenes for pictures where people pretend not to notice me. Whenever I take random pictures, they’re usually candid and on the spot.

With tableau photography you can create references and narratives with your set up. The meaning behind the photos can relate to the location as well as the people and scene. Tableau photography seems powerful in terms of showing people a story. Purposefully setting up pictures with conflicting emotions and themes to throw off the viewer or to have the audience come to a realization themselves is why tableau photography is an important concept to understand.

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Cross Post

As far as the project was running, it was kind of difficult to keep it up with the initial idea I had in mind. I decided to slightly bend the criteria I placed for myself and I’m sure it was for the better. No comments, likes were pretty low, and follows were also low. I did get some random likes off of having popular tags.

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SA: Symbols

The first picture has contrasting body language. The foreground and most obvious figure has body language showing he’s happy. However, in the middle ground to the right of him and beyond, their bodies show a more relaxed or bored state. The person in the hoodie appears more observant, but having a closer look at his facial expression, maybe he’s bored and uninterested.

The second picture is a fence with grass and trees on the other side. This symbolizes the saying, “the grass is always greener on the other side”. From a perspective view that’s probably true since the grass behind me was also pretty green. The fence can also be a form of censorship or symbolize protection based on it’s functionality.

The third photo symbolizes my fear of heights. From a bird’s eye view, I typically feel nervous. With his angle it shows someone looking down rather than completely on top. However, if I put my foot there, it’s like I'm approaching the edge. Having two feet there would cause even more alarm since it would further imply a suicidal image. However, the same imagery can also be more daring if the context was under a parkour video.

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New Meaning Through G̴l̸i̴t̷c̴h̴ (Glitch)

The new meaning for the first picture is that ball boy is being used in an offensive way. The glitch is supposed to make the character saying ball boy be more derogatory by distorting his facial expression to appear less definitive. With the original image, you can get a sense of determination and pride when he says ball boy compared to the glitch.

As for the second picture, the glitch makes this scene less confrontational than it is. The character in the foreground’s eyes are untouched to stand out of the noise to make his anger stand out. But instead of looking like he’ll talk back, the glitch makes it seem like he’ll walk away as the background starts to fade into the foreground. Also the afterimage of the character in the front makes it seem like he’ll keep walking based on the direction of the body. In the original scene, he talks about how he’s not the same person as before and cannot redeem himself. He believes that his body will continue to deteriorate and so he cannot improve. Here it makes him seem more headstrong and determined to keep moving. The glitch helps cover the original focal point that is in the opposite direction (far back down the road).

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Reading 3: Gaze and Self-Portraiture

The girl gaze movement empowers women to take control of their own image rather than letting others decide what it should be. The examples shown on this article go against the stereotypical norms of what society considers as beauty. Although more recently, this message is becoming stronger as people become more outspoken. One worry I have for this movement would be the conflicting views about what they define as beauty among themselves.

Ever since selfies became more of a norm, I think it’s become easier to accept self-portraiture. When the article mentions Instagram’s censorship policies, there are some groups of people that can see them as flawed like other forms of automated reporting. Spamming or using the “TMI” method to avoid attention is counter intuitive, but I can see how it works. Someone would think that more pictures means more chances for people to look, but sometimes having too much can be a deterrent. What makes this method better is that you can upload more of what you want and worry less about what people think.

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Instagram Project Midterm

For my Instagram Project, I want to post a series of pictures that show naturally manipulated pictures such as reflections or shadows. I just want to show how different life can be from different perspectives/lenses. We live off of what we’ve know and personally experienced, so I thought it’d be neat to show distortions of what I see. https://www.instagram.com/evanlieu6/

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SA04: Photomontage

The significance of the words is supposed to appear misleading. Maybe at a first glance the message seems negative, but the exclamation mark is there as a negation symbol. Really the objects are subtle nods to my interests, while leaving a more positive message in a negative looking photo or situation. Self-Control, worth, and knowing that you are not trash are the main ideas. The fading in and out represents the process of a developing person. There’s also some personal reference to my interest in tech.