Golan Levin

Golan Levin's AMA video is fascinating.  He is an extremely intelligent man and I love his use of experimental 3D Cinema on himself as he is answering questions about technology and life.  I thoroughly enjoyed the part of the video when the camera angle changed to looking up at his chin starting at his hands.  The distortion of his detail as a human made the video and what he was saying more powerful.  Levin's ideas about open source government are pretty interesting and insightful.  I loved when he was discussing neurons and the entire atmosphere being connected, as a distortion himself.  Levin really enhanced himself as a person using 3D effects, making what he was saying even more interesting.  The idea of all of our kinetics being interconnected is proven in this video.  The grid lines and black out spots represent us as figures in space.  I am going to recommend this video to others and research more about several topics Levin discussed.   

Musical Artists

DISCO:
Diana Ross is one of my favorite artists, especially.  As a kid I grew up listening to a variety of older music rather than listening to what my generation was producing.  Ross's music videos uses special effects that resemble experiments with a program similar to iMovie with the transitions and such.  In other videos of hers she utilized gray scale and experimented with older camera footage incorporation.  


PUNK:
The Vandals utilize a great deal of technology in their music videos.  They even have a performance art piece for their song "Don't Stop Me Now".  There are special effects, such as cars being thrown through the air.  Many effects were done to skew the normal world using black and white scale, giving the video a very static look.   


NINETIES:
Fountains of Wayne use of technology is also geared in their music videos.  One video in particular is for the song, "Stacy's Mom".  This video is interesting because they project the band playing the song onto books and the television screen, having the actors interact with it.  The video of the band members is scaled to be purple, almost resembling them being drawn with a pencil and colored in.


TECHNO:
Robert Babicz-Babiczmi uses technology to create all of his music.  Everything he creates is using pre recorded sounds from synthesizers.  His music has no lyrics, but the beats and rhythms are his own and they are pretty rad! 


ELECTRONIC:
Amon Tobin-Bricolage uses technology to create different sounds and beats using other music.  There are sirens that go off and drum beats that are repeated and are constant.  Using technology, his sound machines, he can increase the volume of certain parts of his music, utilizing crescendos, but without worrying about specific individual band performers ignoring the symbols and cues. 

Performance Art

The theme for this performance art is happiness. Therefore, I incorporated my love for drumming, being outside, and being around the cats I volunteer with into the performance. I utilized environmental tools as a way to make sound on my wooden cajun drum (the tree sticks and flowers). My greatest happiness comes from caring for the environment around me and admiring the beauty of the organic and inorganic matter that defines the quality of our surrounding ecosystem.  I hoped to inspire others to take the time to stop and appreciate the life around them and dance to their own beat.  The best thing about life, is you define your own path and can create your own rhythm.

Xerox Project

For my project I was portraying the feeling of trying to break through struggles I have encountered throughout my life. When you fall through a frozen lake or ocean, resurfacing is difficult, especially when the hole you fell through originally cannot be found. My face and hands in the center of the collage represents the constant pushing and fighting I have to do to accomplish my goals against the solid, clear surface. As much as I try, mistakes are continuously being made. All of my features surrounding the center face and hands create a rippling effect that water creates when a rock is thrown into it. The rippling of water represents the motion of life and how, even if I need to stop, hopefully I can get back into the current to continue living and enjoying myself while learning. A crack starting at the top left corner extends to the left hand in the center. This crack shows that there is always a way to solve a problem or exceed expectations, with just a little hard work and dedication, the crack can be broken and I can resurface again.

Grid Art

I created my grid art based on the greatest inspiration in my life, Sassyfrass. This cougar has enriched my life, showing me how to forgive and love the simple things. Spending time trying to recreate his handsome face was an absolute pleasure. Featured is the photograph I used to create my grid art. This grid certainly does not do his wonderful face and teeth justice, but his goofiness is definitely perceived.

Video Games

As a child I was involved with many sports starting at the age of two. Playing video games and watching the television were not a priority and I never had much time. Although, when my family and I would travel across the country in our RV, my siblings' and my favorite game, other than looking out the window for punch buggy cars, was to play our Sega Genesis console. Our favorite games included: Sonic the Hedgehog, Aladdin, The Lion King, and a tennis game. I can still remember the video game music and its ability to create suspense at specific points. I also love when different sounds are used to emphasis certain characters and events within the game. Growing up as the youngest of five, I learned how to play a variety of video games, but all of these started out on our old desktop PC computer. I had a game that consisted of this elaborate baking console that connected to the keyboard. You could practice rolling dough, mixing, and using different baking ingredients. The console was connected to the computer, therefore, if you performed the wrong step, the batter would turn out incorrectly. My brother Chris, sister Katie and me would go to our cousins house and we would play Mario Party together, enjoying every minute of spending time together. Mario Party was and still is my all time favorite video game. The duels and the adventures that game lets the gamer experience amongst other players sitting next to them was an ingenious idea. As I got older, my family loved Guitar Hero. My other sisters Anna and Heather, Katie, Chris and I would battle each other. Our mom even played with us. I enjoyed pretending to be a rock star who could actually play music. Guitar Hero is actually where I learned about music, exposing me to my favorite songs and bands. One game that my brother and I loved and would always play together is Gears of War. My brother and I would play for several days, hours on end until we defeated all the levels. Sometimes we would get frustrated with each other, but my brother appreciated having someone in the family who would play games with him and didn't mind wasting the day away. These moments I shared with my family are priceless and irreversible, thanks to video games.

Flip Book Animation

My animations represent certain aspects of my life that have helped define me as a person. I start out with the love of my life, Terk. She was an eleven year old bearded dragon when she passed away in February 2015. I have put my heart and soul into her health and her beauty was extremely hard to capture on paper. She fades into a sunset, which represents her ability to brighten my life, even though she is gone. Spaceships have always fascinated me and the thought of being able to explore and travel is thrilling. The book moves into a green bouncy ball. I collected bouncy balls when I was a kid. I would bowl every week and I would collect change to ensure a new bouncy ball of all different colors. My brother and I bonded while playing games with each other because he would teach me all of the new tricks, whether they were video games, board games, or outside activities. Next, orcas are magnificent and I am infatuated with their ways of communicating and living as the top predators in the ocean. I listen to Christmas music year round, it brings me true joy and happiness-I am able to bring smiles to people's faces with kind cards just to wish them a happy life and a great thank you for their friendship. My favorite nintendo character is Toad, so I made a small mushroom cap to represent one of my favorite games when I was a child. I end the book with a calculus problem. Calculus is my favorite subject. I thoroughly enjoy learning the material and I never have stress while doing my homework.