New Media Third Reading Response

Chapter 2 of New Media contains some fascinating musings about the nature of the screen, and how it functions as a window to virtual content. Virtual reality is also discussed as being somewhat different in that the human is turned into the mouse, or joystick. The discussion of the screen and virtual reality lead me to think of a few different things in terms of both the past and present nature of virtual worlds and how we connect to them in video games.

In terms of comparing a human to a joystick in existing virtual reality models, a virtual reality game that comes to mind is a game I saw in some kind of video arcade/playground establishment. It had a virtual reality game where the viewer, upon standing in the designated area, basically within a room with no ceiling, had their own image transposed into the virtual world, say underwater. Their actions are mimicked on screen and affect their movement, thrusting their arms upward resulted in upward movement. I remember being fascinated that your body could translate commands to the game, but being the critical adolescent gamer that I was, thinking the game was juvenile in scope, and story. Such interesting technology was being used, but all you could was float your body up and down arbitrarily collecting bits of underwater detritus.

Now, probably ten years later, such technology is available to the average human with some money to spend on a Ps3, or any other console. Playstation's eyetoy comes to mind. Similar technology where it 'sees' you and puts you in a game and you become the controller. However there is still the drawback of the screen separating you from the reality, the technology places your image in the game, but you don't actually get in it, and flailing your body around awkwardly in real life to virtual ends has proven to be rather unpopular. I don't know a single person that owns an eyetoy.

So the next logical step seems to be the abolishment of the screen, and in the reading it is hypothesized that we will end up with chips in our retina allowing us to carry around virtual space, becoming prisoners of always being in touch, connected. Then our eye, and the screen, according to the reading, become as one.

The page, the screen, I think are not as insurmountable as the reading might make me initially feel. Console developers are already hurtling towards new and exciting ways to get to the populace's dollars. The reading also mentions earlier in the chapter that the nature of perspective on screens is almost always linear, besides an artist that had experimented with other methods of perspective in some films, Tamas Waliczky. I think his ideas could have some interesting applications in methods of 'seeing' in videogames. As I try now to think of a game that I could say doesn't really have a linear perspective when it comes to imaging, I'm coming up short. When I think of one regarding that, or the lack of differentiation in videogame perspectives, I'll do a blog post on it.

played around with stuff and got that awesome blue stuff which i then promptly used in this..stuff.

A few days

A few days spent on making the first image, and these two other iterations of it. I'm interested in how enough manipulation leads to something that looks so far from the original photos, ,as in the third work.

Tuesday

An image for yesterday I guess.

Fears

sunday and tuesday are on the theme of fear, to coincide with a drawing project. they both represent a fear, the top one being "fear of zombies" and the 2nd one is "fear of toilet overflow"
the bottom is saturdays image.

friday past.

Fridays image...which i made friday...but forgot to upload, and just spontaneously changed from just black white and red to this.
so tired. the brushes I used in this were a pack called Artomatic industry, from an awesome website brusheezy.

Mouse Liberation Front

Because it's pouring on us this time of year.

Huge Maybe

In reality a tiny portion of my image, due to my own folly and failure in image sizing..

nov23

A mock up I made inresponse to an email today from a psych prof that wanted a very shitty stick man drawing turned cool for a psych journal. Unfortunately someone else got to her before I called her, and a cool 100 dollars slipped between my fingers. Drat. So I figured I'd post the funny little diagram.

Nov22

I want to start a website to discuss videogames in terms of their lack of respect in comparision to other mediums. Very open minded people suddenly shut down when it comes to even acknowledging video games to be on the same grounds as a book. IIIIIIIIIII want to be able to better talk about things like this, because I feel like I will have to defend my own views on video games till I die.

Realization

woops though I posted this yesterday but I left it open in the browser.

Weekend

The lower image is from yesterday, the upper image is done from a shot of amanda larner, and using her tablet which I borrowed =3

nov18

Tablet=love. Im def gonna have to spring for a mini one. It was so much easier to make this image, and it actually has the touch of my hand as opposed to previous entries in this project.

unknown proccesses

A revamped version of a narrative project to due with the process of iron ore, the original I traded away for another awesome painting. I plan to do a print of this so to submit to some exhibition, the future of work I think its called.

Nov16

A much better image to make up for yesterdays shit.

Nov.15th

Sunday.

I fell down on the job this weekend, and didnt make friday's, nor saturday's images, but fear not, for I have made them all today =3.
Im not sure about the middle one. It intrigues but I dunno. filtering parts of images are fun.
I think prints are soon in order.

Nov11

Its remembrance day. I feel like holidays like this one make less of an impact on me when I don't have cable to yell about them to me. :S
Another image, I notice all the images ive created this far are similar in color scheme, maybe im in a phase.

Triumvirate

the following, from a gamespot article on the xbox360's Kinect "the gaming triumvirate has completed its transition into the world of motion controls" in reference to Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft now each having their own motion control hardware.

the preceding piece is thusly titled after the intriguing word ..triumvirate

Space Beer

New Media Second Reading.

Our prof has assigned some readings for us to wax philosophical over..

Here an excerpt from pg 49..
6. New media is interactive. In contrast to old media where the order of
presentation is fixed, the user can now interact with a media object. In the
process of interaction the user can choose which elements to display or which
paths to follow, thus generating a unique work. In this way the user becomes
the co-author of the work.

the point talks directly about gaming as new media, I have always felt that a defining difference between a videogame and a book or movie is that a book or movie you can consume from end to end with confident feelings that you have experienced everything it has to offer. Videogames differ vastly in that the user defines their own experience as the consume..

just recently I went to talk to the mech game man in 3d Game Dot Heroes to advance him developing his game, and due to my own error of failing to talk to him some other unknown time, i was greeting with a sign stating 'development cancelled'. Now I am deprived of the experience of a game developed by a sprite in the game. =0 To my chagrin, my game experience is thus far altered irreversibly. If I want to fix my mistake, I must make a new file, and invest in a large amount of hours to reach the point of my mistake. Needless to say I am filled with feelings of chagrin. The exploitation of the ability to vex players with unfixable mistakes is oft abused in gaming, and I myself harbor both ill feelings due to my own blunders, but I do embrace it as a unique part of gaming in that I must employ skill to experience whatever it is I desire.

Although there are choose your own adventure books. but still, whats there is there and just a page turn away.

I know its past one

I just don't have anything to textually say in this at
this
very
moment.
but there is the art.

Nov.7

Another day, another image.
this time I used some pics of my roommates..=3
I think I will work on this image again tomorrow, and add a different background to play with scale.

Saturday

About to sift through my images to edit another piece for today... And this is the result! Mixed together this photo from home, with some selection bits of a picture of rubble I took in pompei. Realizing that I have a lot of my own source photos for things like this, pictures I haven't had a second look at in a while.
And now from here to Amazon to trawl their buy 2 games get 1 free deal..
Ive been considering titling these pieces but the idea is daunting. Right now Im thinking of cheesy options regarding coldness, so I'll leave it untitled.

Nov.5th.

And so the.. 2nd entry
trying things

First Image

Just a colors study for a painting to start off my project. =3

Pro pro pro pro POSAL

Proposal for Digital Independent

My proposal for this independent project, is to do a primarily web-based work consisting of

photoshop images. My work is geared towards my eventual desire in life to create concept art for

video games, and thusly I need to be able to create many images quickly, with photoshop being

the medium I see as the most efficient for this. Therefor I would like to do a project where I

create a single photoshop image and corresponding blog post each day.
My blog however has a limited readership, and so for this project I would join the site

DeviantArt, and concurrently post each image daily to this site as well with the aim of garnering

as much feedback to improve my work as possible. I see this project as a means to start a

presence on the web, and begin working daily on photoshop. The works will have no set theme,

as in not all being pieces of concept art, but will explore a variety of themes related to real life,

the web, and video games. This project will evolve continually over the course, and potentially

expand into other online or digital artist collectives as a I discover them.

And so, here is a link to my so far blank profile http://gamingkage.deviantart.com/

Steam

So I've now become a member of the Steam community, the super program made by Valve that allows for the playing of awesome console games on computer, and even mac! shock and awe. Left for dead 2 can be played by moi thanks to the boon of this awesome program. There are 1,800,000 players online right now! I've got 2 games on my list to acquire, Braid, an atmospheric platformer that has gamers and critics falling over themselves with glee in being able to talk about the 'artisticness' of this game. I kind of digress, many many games achieve this, but I do need to play it and see for myself.
As well a game which seems amazing, the Polynomial, which has a concept that I have been practically just dreaming of. To quote the website,

"The Polynomial is a 3D spaceflight music game with abstract, mathematically generated scenery and models which are set to the music of your choice. You fly around in a very strange universe, shoot the enemies, meet and protect the friends, collect bonuses, fly through wormholes, and so on, all while rocking out to the music. "

AWESOMENESS!! http://store.steampowered.com/app/67000/

Besides my excitement in those terms, I also feel elation in that my Scratch game project for this course has come to an end as of today, with critique imminent. I have to say it was an excruciation experience where by I had to scratch at a proverbial concrete wall trying to create what I had 'envisioned'. I'm happy with what I've learned and the little 'game' itself, and harbor interest both at continuing to create with it, and never looking at it ever again.

It could tie in to my idea for my independent project, which is to create a deviant art account and create a photoshop image a day. I want to practice both art and get involved in an online community that can be a very good source of feedback. I may add each image to the game until it gets massively long. Also Im going to make a blog post a day. I use a computer every day, so i should make myself do something productive.

gaming

I want to make the konami code cause something to happen at this blog. probably beyond my facilities.

Game is going well now, kind of cutesy exploration..either way, it opens the door for me to make mucho more awesome things. And the door being slightly open is much better to my underwater feelings in this course for the past month.

Experiencing tablet desire.
and macbook charger anger.

"I Don't know what this shit be valued at"

Emily in response to the critiquing of personal artworks.
Critquing can be like pulling teeth in the various studio classes, and we recently had to use crit sheets for drawing.

return to quasi sketchbook blogging

Realized I am supposed to be still blogging.. and i waited way too long to make my first entry!!

Anyway, I read an intriguing article on video games and art in the exclamation magazine, which also reviews a single game. The article basically had this dude saying things that I have been thinking so much since next gen gaming began... how games have been racing towards photorealism because its possible, but why be photorealist when the potential is there to create something NOT possible in real life, oor in a photo. More and more game developers are realizing this and creating strangely styled games that arent photorealistic at all. Like Limbo, which was reviewed in the article.. echochrome, littlebigplanet..the pixeljunk series. I want to see things in video games that are not possible in the real world.

no comment

ITS THE FINAL BLOG
fuck yeaaaa

Ive successfully printed a three prints, all of which are super great for what they are
improvements could be made but the third one is really the best, but took the least amount of time to create. It seems like the best photoshop things take the least amount of time somehow, almost like a rule

now to create a website, i think a gallery wouldnt go astray

this is very inspiring

http://www.victortaba.com/

To EMily

In response to the continueing adventures of the cactus


"Look! You've given life to so many creatures that you can't possibly support!
just like the octomom I saw on T.V. today, who when asked how she would support her fourteen children after there were no more interviews, could give no straight answer because she seems bat shit crazy.
And you have the equivvalent of 32 children
way to go emily
an adventure in irresponsibility"

ag

thing i stumbled before i passed out that will baker mightt find useful

http://www.thephotoargus.com/resources/helpful-photography-cheat-sheets-to-make-you-life-easier/

I'm calling bullshit

So im so enraged, I was trying to sleep, and all I could think about was the things I wanted to say in critique today.

Basically this girl did this great mario fan art, it was all this silhouette mario imagery creatively arranged on a piece of acetate, and barb decided for this piece that instead of the artist explaining it us to go down the line and everyone say one thing about it first. Which is all well and good, except for that someone who basically was bitter about a critique in another class decided to make a comment, and then blood was basically scented in the air.
It was simultaneously a dig at my work, which I didnt really give a crap about, but something vague about what is she trying to do but showing pop culture, anyway nothing good. Then a girl said they would like to see her do something original. Then last of all a guy was all oh your obviously gonna get grilled for copying imagery yadda yadda. some unimportant but negative shit. geez like this was a great work for this particular girl to make I thought, it was so different from the stuff she usually makes.
So clearly the girl explains the work seems quite upset about it, because the work represented feelings she had when together with her boyfriend who she gave the most recent mario game to, and them playing it together. Not to mention the work was immaculately well cut out, and well done in general.
Barb and everyone had a bit of pontificating over it and then before we moved on I made I thought a pretty good rebuttal
But im just still fuming over it, and it wasnt even mine. I dont even understand how you can call it copying, copying a mario game would be getting on your computer and writing a friggin level or some crap, if you wanna call using a pre-existing image copying than fuck everything is copying. Looking at a landscape and painting it is copying, every other fucking piece that was on the wall was copying. Being influenced by a landscape, or some piece of fine fucking art is no different than being inspired by a video game. Or people that make book or movie inspired art. It's clearly fucking valid and there is a broad audience for fan art.
In a school where we are taught to accept artists shit in a can literally as art, crazy abstract crap, people banging drums, knitting, all as art, why is video game imagery such a hard pill to swallow.

To say that work was unoriginal, that it was copying, thats fuckin bullshit.

observe the beautiful concept art for Final Fantasy twelve


So I discovered while on my blog
if you click next blog it brings you to a blog about promotional porn passwords.

hehehehehehehhehehehehehe

BLOGGING FOR GRADES

SO MY ARTWORK
IS GOOD YA





So digital is still goin swellll, I'm pretty happy with the completion of this assignment but I need to add more because I in fact have like 30 more screen shots...

Sculpture is cool. Im making a ramshackle table adjoined with various random ramshackley implements like little circles with bent over nails, and randomly placed hinges, and little metal bits cut up with holes in dem. It's gonna rest on 4 lambs liquor bottles, one of which may still contain alcohol depending on how this weekend goes. That'll kinda turn it into a strange metaphor for the rickety and unstable surface that alcoholism maintains
not like i know anything about alcoholism

drawing blows. i dont wanna cut paper, paper can go..

FINAL FANTASY

Final Fantasy XIII is coming out in a mere two days. It's gonna look amazing ridiculously freaking awesomely amazing with next gen graphics.. Look at those articulating fingers in the above pic! gone are the days of plastic looking hands with the fingers looking glued together . And those days were only as far away as FFX. I cant handle the suspenseeeeeee
Square Enix is my dream company to work for..
However they've made a dubious choice in choosing a pre-existing song by Leona Lewis of all friggin people for the sort of love song of the game. I'm guessing it will only play once in the whole game so that's a plus. But this video set to the song is a better trailer than the actual trailer.

yeah

so found this little video on how to take a few pictures of something with people in them and remove them with a few steps. like you want a picture of a fountain, in the tutorial, but people are always walking by or some crap. here.

Digital is probably the only class not pissing me off right now.
drawing is lame projects until the end of the year, I wanna actually draw shit, not cut paper and make 3d crap out of it. I have no idea what to do with myself in sculpture, and sociology is ripping my brain apart. religious studies just doesnt count. for anything.
much love for digital right now is all i can say

this is some cool shit
http://www.escapemotions.com/experiments/flame/index.html#top

another

Just realized that Jason Derulo "whatcha say" is big fat sample of Imogen Heaps, Hide and Seek.meeeh

Had a sculpture critique today filled with awkward silences, as critiques perhaps besides digital usually are
I dont know how well my work was responded to buuuut Im really happy with my crazy moving chain sculpture.
Im really interested in moving turning articulating interactive things, and just when I get more interesting ideas, poof, the section is over
oh wellll maybe Ill buy some more metal, seens how my small and thicker rods are both GONE, stolen! well the thicker rod might not be, I never looked that hard for that one.
I find taking sculpture and digital is friggin weird, they are such different ways of working

my creativity is being stifled by certain lame-o losers that sit next to me in digital
critisizing my one sentence posts

makin animationssssss
I feel like I wanna make something different now.

blah

Im so sick. =( I cant even sleep my nose is all stuffed up. Ive been having nightmares for a few days and theres too much stuff on my mind I think.
I did however just find an amaaaaaazing website with a shitload of different little flash gadgets. Each one has different effects, this guy really knows his flash I guess ha.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2peDwB/www.actionscript.cl/
number 19 is very intriguing. And the very last one makes me feel sick.

Im hungry and I want bacon but its so early that I feel the sound of frying bacon would sound atrociously loud considering how quiet it is right now..

my bellyyyyy

I got dosed by you
closer than most to you
what am I sposed to do
take it away I never had it anyway

workin on art
all ze timeeeeeeee

Banging metal on an anvil at eight thirty is so un-fun when open mic is the night before

animaaaaaaaaaaaation
i need more pictures, I need to go on a picture taking adventure

.

It occured to me all I do these days is abstraction in school
except for in digital. I've been making abstract drawings and water colors flat out, and I have only stuck together odd pieces in abstract ways in sculpture yet.

abstractionabstractionabstraction

Are you ready to
RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE