New Media Art

It’s been an interesting day here at Matt’s PC… I’ve been messing about in Photoshop working on a New Media art piece. I could go into a really long and boring explanation about what “new media” art is but I’ll save you the headache. Basically it’s all those flash “experiments”, weird video pieces and other random art things that are mostly lumped together because of their use of technology. I don’t really like’em but for some reason I have to create one… so I did. Once Chip hops online and gives me a hand with some programming it’ll be a photo gallery of sorts. It’s based on a program/script/screen-saver for linux called VidWhacker. Basically it’s demonstrating a William Burroughs/George Orwell theory about non-linear work. They were talking about writing, I’m using it for images. For each image you click on, you view that image, altered, in a completely random fashion. The theory comes in as the debate over whether or not the pieces or manipulations are equal to the whole. Is the manipulated image better/worse/different/thought provoking/etc, more so than the original?

Like I said, this is usually applied to writing. William Burroughs used a “cut up” theory in his writing. He would write a normal page, cut in it sections, rearrange those sections and there you had it. This is a little simpler. It’s a “what you see isn’t always what you get” sort of thing.

Anyway, that’s nearly done. I’ll feed you guys a link tomorrow so you can check it out.

That’s it for the moment, I’m sure I’ll come up with something else later.

Thunderous Victory

Yup, the RedSox just crushed the Yanks 12-5. Jason Varitek and Manny Ramirez each representing with multi-run homers. Of course… since this is High Heat Baseball 2004, it’s obvious that the Sox were going to win… since I was the one doing the batting. Now, real life… that’s another story. The Sox got taken 4-2 yesterday. Hey, at least they won here in my bedroom right?

By the way, High Heat is fun. Much more so than MVP, in my opinion. MVP Baseball is a tad more “realistic” but I don’t really need a “sports simulation”. I just want to bitch smack the Yanks a little.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Said three times for emphasis even. Life is busy at this point. Lots of graduation preparations. Everyone’s family is coming in to town, plans need to be made for driving back, trying to finish up classes, etc. I’ve more or less decided that I’m finished with classes. Not that I’m actually finished, I’ve just decided it. For both Fashion and Personal Vision II I just have to narrow down my favorites from this semester and get them printed in their final versions. For History of Media I have a project left to do this weekend that Chip has been kind enough to collaborate on. We’ll be working on that Saturday so look for it Sunday (maybe). Other than that I’ve been trying to come up with plans for gainful employment. Keith actually offered to get in contact with people he knows in Boston for me and ask about web design jobs. At this point, so long as the job is creatively oriented, I’ll take just about anything so long as it’s worthwhile.

Day to day wise, not much going on. Just classes and the usual. Today I went into class for a mini-crit to narrow down my portfolio selection and then came home. Lauren came home around 6:00 and we went to the mall so she could find a dress for graduation. I have a funny story about retards in Learner NY to share at a later date.

Thats about it. Just trying to keep sain… no word on whether or not it’s working yet… or has ever worked. Blah.

Custom Toolbar Colaboration

Hey kids, check out the toolbar I had a hand in making…

I didn’t do much, just a little editing to help out someone on DT2, but I got a nod in the readme. Check out the post here, download Y’z Toolbar here and the custom toolbar here. Enjoy.

Reviews: The Matrix: Reloaded and Enter The Matrix

After seeing the Matrix the other day, I was left with a rather unfulfilled feeling deep down in my movie-reviewing heart. Disappointment is a bitter pill to swallow and getting indigestion afterward doesn’t help. This indigestion comes in the form of Enter the Matrix the video game which I’ll get to later. First I’d like to talk about the movie. Since I plan to do this at length, a convenient “read more” link is provided to ease the pain of an incredibly long post.
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