TECCS Gala and Silent Auction
Richard J. McCormack/For The Jersey Journal
This week I was very pleased to participate in a silent art auction organized by art critic Carly Berwick for the TECCS (The Ethical Community Charter School) Gala honoring Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop. The piece sold, a good time was had by all, and apparently the Mayor checked out all the art!
Carly wrote this nice blurb about the piece. I should work this William Eggleston connection.
Stevens’ photographs are found landscapes, reminiscent of William Eggleston’s color-saturated photographs of American vernacular scenes. Drive-in was taken in upstate New York, near the town Massena, on the border with Canada. Its seeming casualness belies the deep formalism of the image, with its repeating rectangles in the marquee, screen, and numbered posts. The sun-streaked outdoor cinema references vacation postcards yet replaces crowds and vibrancy with a sense of absence and decay. The leftover landscape becomes an accidental collage.
Foundations of Digital Art and Design (+ Oyster City)
If I were teaching a foundations digital media course right now I would use this great new book by Xtine Burrough, Foundations of Digital Art and Design, published by Peachpit Press/Pearson. The book, which “combines lessons in Bauhaus-inspired design principles and theories with histories and examples of digital art for learners using Adobe Creative Cloud” leads the learner on a path that gracefully traverses conceptual and art thinking while developing technical skills. It is easy to get lost in the how-to and wow of software when you are learning, so I greatly appreciate this take on the process. And I am proud that Oyster City, our AR walking tour and game about the history and future of oysters in NYC, is included in the introduction. Here’s xtine’s blog, DesignEducator.info.
LMCC Bldg. 110 Open Studios
Player finds a location and approaches
Next weekend we’ll be participating in LMCC’s open studios as the culmination of our lovely residency. My collaborator Meredith Drum and I have been working hard on Oyster City, designing and building the interfaces and working on the Governors Island site of the five site project.
Swing Space Residency Open Studios
Saturday and Sunday, July 13 & 14, 12-6 PM
Building 110: LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
Many thanks to LMCC for the fantastic opportunity to have access to the island during the week, for the studio with a view and for the community of artists.
Everyone Can Be Web-Native
Last semester I taught a web projects class in Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts MFA program that, in addition to covering some CSS/HTML and web design production basics, focused on web native storytelling. The students in the program are mostly already kick-ass non-fiction media makers and so I was excited to see what they would do when confronted with a web-based platform. Two of the newest and most user friendly tools we looked at that allow for nearly instant web-native gratification are Zeega (still in alpha) and Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker (a GUI for working with their popcorn.js library). A few folks tried out Zeega. Here are just three of the great projects that came together in class (best viewed in Chrome or Safari):
Camilla: An Interactive Fairytale by Ryan Daniels
An observational, interactive story about a girl who grew up in an upper class household in Brasil and is confronted with her complex identity.
The Egg Trade by Laura Hadden
Audio interviews reflecting different perspectives on the egg donor industry.
The Haitian Situation by Tennessee Watson
A painting made as a gift is an animated interface for an interview with an American Colonel who was responsible for Haitian refugees at Guantánamo Bay in the early 90s. The non-interactive version can be seen at the Guantánamo Public Memory Project.
Oyster City in Residence on Governors Island
Building 110, Governors Island
Oyster City (Meredith Drum and Rachel Stevens) will be in residence in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Building 110 on Governors Island from March through July as a participant in the 2013 Swing Space Residency. We’ll be developing Oyster City, our AR walking tour and game about oysters in NYC, in situ, as one of our sites is on Governors Island, just a minutes long boat ride from Manhattan. The nearby NY Harbor School has been cultivating oyster beds there, reflecting a recent trend in exploring oyster cultivation as a counter to environmental ills such as polluted water and eroding coastlines (and hurricanes). Some recent articles in the NYTimes are here in my Oysters, Cities and Systems Storify stream.