Digital Scribbles?

This week in Fundamentals of Digital Media, we were instructed to use three different applications that deal with Generative Art, a type of media that has been created by a source other than humans. This can range from music to visual art to even software art. For this assignment, we went in the direction of software art.

Application 1: Scribbler

Scribbler is an online application that gives you a blank canvas to draw on, followed by computer automated scribbles to complement your drawing. For the first image, I opted to draw a profile of some sort of face with black lines. I then clicked the "scribble" button and randomly changed the colors as the computer scribbled all over the face. The end result became an abstract sort of skull. The computer's work even made the skull look like some sort of bug is crawling in the mouth. This was unintended, but added a nice effect to the work.

For the second photo, I went in the direction of creating a spider. Following the initial minimal drawing, the computer proceeded to fill in the body and add what looks like webs in between the legs. I occasionally went back and forth from purple to black as the machine was drawing. The end result was a bit creepy, which fit perfectly with my feelings on spiders. Quite frankly, I am terrified of them due to the various encounters I've had with them, including finding one in my shoe after walking around with it for hours thinking it was a rock. Needless to say, there were many swear words shouted in that moment, and it only enhanced how creeped out I am by these creatures!

Application 2: Scribbler Too

Scribbler Too is a continuation of the aforementioned application (you don't say?). It is a little more advanced in composition - allowing you to save your work as a high quality file (versus taking a screenshot like you have to do with the original). The application also allows you to upload photos as a guideline to trace or mimic. Being the music lover that I am, of course I had to choose one of my favorite albums of all time to recreate using fuzz. For anyone that lives under a rock, (kidding... maybe) the above scribbles trace the outline of the prism from Pink Floyd's classic The Dark Side of the Moon album art. The original cover was designed by the late Storm Thorgerson. I enjoyed putting this together because the fuzz adds a whole new element to the album art: The Fuzzy Side of the Moon.

This piece is called Electric Eye. I've had "Moonage Daydream" stuck in my head for quite some time; so, initially drawing an eye, I moved on to add color to the sclera (white part). I chose red as the background because it seems to really make the eye pop. I could see this being the album art of some sort of weird experimental album released in the future. Maybe I just dream big!

Application 3: Flame

Flame is an online software that allows you to draw elements with different colors and textures of flame. I created the first piece in reminiscence of a dance party with crazy lights. The possibilities of creating abstract art with this application are nearly endless. The neon color of the fire really sparks an emotion of happiness for me, and makes me want to boogie down on the floor!

This second photo reminds me of a storm. I used different shades of blues and reds with Flame's gradient feature to attempt to create some sort of solar wind storm effect. This section of the assignment was even harder than the rest because there are so many possibilities with what you can do. It was very hard to try to come up with original and unique ideas.

Overall, I have been taken far out of my comfort zone using these applications. I am definitely not as proficient with using generative software as I am with other forms of digital art (video editing, audio editing, etc.). Coming up with ideas and using a computer mouse to draw were the most difficult parts of completing this assignment. I am quite terrible at drawing with my hands already, and with a mouse it wasn't much better. However, I hope I was able to create some digital art that is appealing to the eye. I definitely want to experiment even further with these applications in the future to improve my abilities.

Until next time, Peace & B Wild.

Video Trip!

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Welcome 2 Funktopia - Is This Original?

This week in my Fundamentals of Digital Media class, we had to create a mashup using the online Digital Audio Workstation, Soundation. The site, much like DAW software for computers, is built up of hundreds of loops for the user to click into the different audio tracks, add effects, and it even comes with a few virtual instruments for those of us that like working with them. Being a little knowledgeable on digital audio from previous classes and experimentation with writing my own music, (the best teacher) I opted to use a few loops from Soundation and import them into Acoustica Mixcraft 6 (which is installed on my system) to add a wider variety of loops and some virtual instruments. My intent was to only use one or two loops, and play the other instruments myself. However, this has been one of the most stressful weeks I've had this semester, so I didn't have time to go in the direction I wanted to. This mashup was arranged over the course of one night. The only instrument I played myself is 4 notes on a polysynth played via MIDI that is looped throughout various parts of the song. For the time that I had to complete it, I'd say it came out pretty well. Feel free to leave feedback and suggestions! I'll likely be working on this further in the future, since we will be using our songs in upcoming projects for the class.

Completing this project really opened my eyes to many different things. Generally, I do not consider mashups original music. Sampling a song and adding your own additional instrumentation and lyrics is a bit different. In that case, the artist is bringing something completely new and original to the work. However, using a computer to take various different songs, rearrange them, and mesh them together is not really original. In that case, the person did not compose an original song. They simply reconstructed other people's songs. This week, we also had to watch a documentary by Brett Gaylor titled RiP: A Remix Manifesto. In the film, the themes of copyright infringement, remixing, and creating mashups are discussed throughout. The film, in part, argues that mashups are in fact creative and original works. After all, the inspiration for a lot of modern music had to come from somewhere, right? The film also says that everything created today has been built from works of the past. This made me think a lot about my views on mashups. It's very true that in almost all aspects of art, we are building on prior art. This, in addition to arranging a mashup myself this week, has forced me to rethink how I look at mashup artists. Though it does not take as much time as composing and recording an original song does, the process itself is quite time consuming. There are decisions made. The person working on the song makes the choice of which sounds go where, even though they did not create the sounds themselves. In spite of all this, it remains difficult for me to see mashups as original pieces of work. After all, someone had to learn to play the sound that is being remixed and that same someone had to come up with the idea in their head, then transfer the sound to the instrument and record it. It takes a lot to do all of that. This week has given me lots to think about on this subject matter. I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot more research on it, and hopefully it will shape my views to be more open minded. It will be difficult, seeing as though my all of my favorite artists and bands are actual musicians that compose songs and play instruments. I look up to that. But if it's easier to click a mouse than to fret an F chord, (which it is) then maybe those that like to click shouldn't be totally left out of the overwhelming joy creating music entails.

What do you think? Can mashups really be considered original art? Why or why not? I'd love to have some feedback!

Until next time, Peace & B Wild.

Discos de Vinilo - A Typology

This week in my Fundamentals of Digital Media course, we learned about Typologies, inspired by the work of Hilla and Bernd Becher. As you can see, we were instructed to take 16 photos of the same thing, with each individual photo being unique. Being the vinyl head that I am, of course my first thought was to photograph records. I used my Nikon S6100 digital camera to take multiple photos of each record, chose the best of all of them, and then proceeded to adjust the levels and crop them into squares. I used the RGB Histogram within the online Pixlr application to adjust the levels for each photo. The photos were then to be put into a grid using the Pixlr editing application with a blank canvas and a 100x100 pixel spacer.

Overall, this was a very challenging and time-consuming assignment. One problem I ran into is not having the best camera. Nikon is a great brand, but I have been unable to invest in a DSLR camera. Handheld digital cameras can work a lot of the time, but this particular one could not produce satisfying images without using the flash, which, in turn, produced a glare across each record. However, with the resources that I had available to me, and being pressed on time, I think I was able to make it work out. After all, any opportunity to create is a great one.

Until next time, Peace & B Wild.

Toledo, OH - City of Dreams

This is a 30-second video comprised of the full set of Urban Landscape photos that I discussed in my last post. The video was created using the online application "Animoto". Prior to completing this assignment for my Digital Media course, I had never heard of Animoto. Whenever I compiled slideshows like this in the past, I always reverted to using a video-editing software such as Adobe Premiere or Magix Pro. Animoto is a nice application that is easy to use for people that don't know their way around other software. It's simple, all selections in terms of style are pre-determined and available as choices (in other words, there is little customization that you have to worry about), and it's also quite fast if you need to make a quick presentation. Seeing all of the photos compiled into one presentation really makes the ones that don't belong stand out. This entire project has certainly been a learning experience that I will take with me in future photography projects.
The song you hear in this video is Talking Heads' "City of Dreams". The song was one of only a few actual Talking Heads songs that appeared in the 1986 David Byrne film, True Stories. I would say the song fits with the theme of the project quite well. Toledo might not be the best place in the world for careers to take off, but it is definitely a city of dreams in lieu of all the art and inspiration that it has to offer.
Until next time, Peace & B Wild.

For Toledo and all its Beauty

It's very easy to miss how much character your city has when you've lived there for 19 years, in the same apartment, since you were born. You don't always stop to look at things as you would in a city that is foreign to you. Realizing how much this concept applies to my own life, when I received a photography class assignment dealing with an Urban Landscape theme, I knew what I had to do. 

Not having a vehicle at the time, I took the local TARTA bus to downtown Toledo, walked around for a few hours, and tried to find beauty in the buildings and other sights that generally wouldn't be considered beautiful. Per the assignment guidelines, I took about 25 photos with my cell phone and edited twenty of them with an online application titled Pixlr Express. The LG Optimus F6 phone I used (when set at the highest resolution) has a total of 5 Megapixels on the back facing camera. The phone takes photos that are sized at 2560 x 1920 pixels, equaling a total of 4,915,200 pixels. The resolution is not the greatest in the world, but it worked for the context of the assignment. The photo above, aptly titled "Fire Escape", is my favorite of all the photos taken. The rest can be found here on my Flickr account. This building really stuck out to me in my walk downtown. The slight ruins of the building, coupled with apparent unsteadiness of the fire escape is what really moved me to take the photo. The editing process with Pixlr allowed me to tell a story with this photo that was initially unintended. The first move I made was to crop the photo, getting rid of the unnecessary cars and sky in the first image. Next, I enhanced saturation and contrast, which really brought warmth and great color to the image. Then I decreased the exposure just a bit, giving a darker tone to the photo. The last thing I did was an effect called "Splash". This made the entire photo black and white, and gave me a brush to highlight any area I wanted color in. Discovering this, I highlighted the fire escape itself, which almost gives it a look as if it's actually on fire, when normally the building would be. I ultimately loved the irony of the end result, making this my favorite image among all of them that I took.

I'm really happy that I received this assignment because it allowed me to see how beautiful Toledo really is. Of course there are some amazing artists that create amazing art in this city, and I know many of them personally. Sometimes, however, you just have to stop and look at the city itself to understand how there can be so much elegance in the inelegance.

Until next time, Peace & B Wild.

If you think Purple Rain is the Preeminent Prince Album, Here are 7 More You Need to Hear

Purple Rain (1984)

But first, let's talk about how important Purple Rain is.

30 years ago, one of the most culturally significant albums in popular culture was released. Prince & the Revolution's legendary Purple Rain, the soundtrack to the film of the same name, hit shelves on June 25th, 1984. It was preceded by the equally revolutionary lead single "When Doves Cry," the final song recorded for the album. In constructing the now classic tune, Prince made a radical decision that had all of his personnel scratching their heads.

He removed the bass line from the track.

This, in turn, gave the song a minimalist funk kind of sound, which was panned by the people around him. They just knew it wouldn't be a success. However, when the song was finally released in the middle of May in 1984, it was a worldwide smash-becoming Prince's first American number one single and the biggest selling single of the whole year. And that was just the beginning. The album went on to yield another number one with the infectious "Let's Go Crazy" and two top ten singles with "I Would Die 4 U" and the title track. The film, released a month after the soundtrack, was also released to much critical acclaim and grossed over $80 Million at the box office from a $7.2 Million budget. Prince went on to win two Grammy awards for the album and an Oscar for best original score. During the year of 1984, Prince had the number one single, album, and movie all at the same time-a feat that was only ever achieved by The Beatles previously, and has not been achieved by anyone since.

Okay, now that we've got those facts and achievements out of the way and blah blah blah, let's talk about the real importance of this whole era.

Purple Rain was raw. It was nasty. It was Prince. This was nothing new if one takes a look at the 5 albums that preceded it. However, with the huge commercial success that the whole project held, this was the project that catapulted Prince into super stardom. It was also the first time the world got to hear Prince & the Revolution live on a record. The basics for "I Would Die 4 U", "Baby I'm a Star", and "Purple Rain" were recorded live at a Minnesota benefit concert in 1983 (which marked the first appearance of Wendy Melvoin), and later edited and overdubbed in the studio. "Purple Rain" was initially a 16-minute song with extra verses and guitar solos, but it was edited down to 8 minutes for the final configuration of the album. However, if you talk to Prince, I have not seen this unreleased concert, I don't know you, and I was never here.

Though the lyrical content was nothing surprising considering Prince's nature, the fact that the album and film became so popular and commercially successful certainly impacted popular culture in huge ways. Prince became the prime example of being young, wild, and free. He represented being who you are, going all the way to the edge, and even going completely off the edge. No one else was writing songs about a sex fiend named Nikki who somehow thought it was okay to masturbate in a hotel lobby. Or fusing rock, new wave, pop, and funk with jams like "Let's Go Crazy" and "Computer Blue." It was cool. It was different. Oh, and not to mention using letters and numbers in the place of words (I Would Die 4 U). With the age of texting and tweeting with this language on a rise, it had to come from somewhere, right?

But as wildly important that Purple Rain is both culturally and aesthetically, most people whom are not huge Prince fans don't realize that he jumped into the music business with the same "rude boy" attitude, and continued with it 30+ albums later into today. Don't believe me? Go to your local record store or eBay account and pick up a copy of For You, Prince's debut album released in 1978. You'll hear elements of funk, disco, acoustic rock, soft, tender soul ballads, and blaring hard rock. Yet, somehow, he was always able to bring it all together into one collective force.

So, if you're reading this, and the only thing you know about Prince is that "Hey, wasn't he in that one purple movie?" or "Wasn't his only hit that 'When Doves Cry' song?", here are 7 Prince albums you must hear, coming from an expert. This is not to say that these albums are superior to Purple Rain, because comparing two Prince albums is like comparing David Bowie to Barry Manilow. It's just not possible.

1. 1999 (1982) - In 1982, if you were worried about the predicted apocalypse in 17 years, Prince was there to party with you. This is the ultimate party album that had everyone dancing their life away. Guaranteed. Not only this, but it's the point where Prince had perfected the art of genre-blending. The sound complexity of songs like "Delirious", "Automatic", and "Lady Cab Driver" were absolutely unheard of. Not to mention the extended funk workout of "D.M.S.R."  The music video for one of the most well-known tunes from this classic, "Little Red Corvette" also helped to break the color barrier on MTV alongside Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean".
   
   
2. Around the World in a Day (1985) - This album truly lives up to it's title. It will take you on a journey, beginning with a song that makes you want to call a local belly dancer. You then get a bubblegum pop, hippie-infused song about a park that is paisley and in your heart, a six minute complex ballad with piano work and vocals that will blow your mind, the classic hit about when Prince lost his virginity to a girl in a beret that was raspberry, a song about how funky life can be with a killer bass line, a gospel song about finding salvation, and more. Funny thing about this is, this album was already completed during the middle of the purple success. And it sounds nothing like it. Nothing.
   
   
3. Parade (1986) - Scrambled eggs might be boring to Prince, but this album happens to be far from that. Parade stands as the last album to be credited to Prince and the Revolution, written as the soundtrack to Prince's second motion picture, Under the Cherry Moon, which fared significantly less than it's predecessor. The film aside, the album stands quite well on its own. Not only did it possess one of the biggest hits in his career with "Kiss", but it is also filled with sparse, demo-like recordings that are also filled with life. It sounds unfinished, like these were the humble beginnings of the record, rather than the finished record. Nonetheless, it's filled with offbeat funk, intense orchestration, and a large absence of the rock elements that defined his earlier work. It is the album that explicitly presented the musical dichotomy of Prince.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Sign "☮" the Times (1987) - We shouldn't be talking about this album as part of a collective post. We really shouldn't. It's my favorite Prince album of all time, and I know more about this era than any other. Despite this, we'll try to keep it short(ish). Released exactly one year to the date after Parade, this album is two LPs of sheer craziness. It opens with the bluesy, socially-conscious title track. From there, it spirals off into hardcore funk, a spacey ballad about the Dorothy Parker in Prince's dreams (not the poet), pushes you to consider "Starfish and Coffee" as a new breakfast entree, takes you into a world that defies sex where Prince imagines what it would be like to be your girlfriend (platonically, of course). Then there's "The Cross", which goes from strictly acoustic to blaring hard rock in a split second, the booty-shakin', 9-minute "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night" (recorded live with The Revolution in '86), and the album closes with what has to be one of the greatest love songs of all time. Have I said enough? Not nearly.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   
   
5. The Black Album (1987)/Lovesexy (1988) - Okay, so I'm cheating a bit here, but these two albums certainly go hand in hand because of the stories behind them, which we've outlined previously. In case you don't feel like reading the whole thing, here's a shorthand version. Essentially, these two albums represent where the darkness and the light meet. Late 1987-88 is rumored to be a highly conflicting and crazy time for Prince. Only he knows what is true, but what can be said is that the dark funk and rap parodies on The Black Album coupled with the highly spiritual and pop complexity of Lovesexy make this era one of the most ground-breaking in Prince's 35+ year career.
   
   
   
   
   
6. O(+> (The Love Symbol Album) (1992) - Welcome to the pilot episode of "Prince Writes an Opera Like No Other". That essentially sums up this fantastic work of musically diverse tunes that tie into a loose plot line. It's the second album credited to 'Prince & the New Power Generation', following Diamonds and Pearls the year before. In terms of content, the album is all over the place. We see Prince rapping in "My Name is Prince" and "Sexy M.F.", throwing in some crazy new jack swing with "The Continental", and even experimenting with reggae sounds in "Blue Light". The climax of the story comes in the second to last track on the album, "3 Chains O' Gold", which, to put into perspective, is like "Bohemian Rhapsody", Prince style. This era also marks the first appearance of 'the love symbol', which has no pronunciation, and is the character that became Prince's name the following year.
   
   
   
   
   
7. The Gold Experience (1995) - The first album to be credited to 'O(+>' (see album art), this interlude-packed experience is filled with all the magic of Prince and the new directions of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Each interlude contains an 'NPG Operator' that directs you to the irony of "Pussy Control", the ballad "Shhh"—which contrasts hard rocking drums and guitar with smooth R&B, the blaring rock n' roll of "Endorphinmachine", and the spacey aura of "Shy". The lead (and most well fared) single, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" was the first of it's kind being that 'The Artist' released the song independently, while still under contract with Warner Bros. This joint has a little bit of everything, which is very true to Prince's nature.

If I made this list again in a year or so, it might be completely different. So, I guess you could say you can't trust me all that much. What you can trust is that Prince is much bigger than Purple Rain. He has contributed tremendous innovations to both music and pop culture over the years, and is unarguably one of the most prolific and musically diverse artists in the history of music. So, the next time you see that 5'2" genius in the diamond-studded purple trench coat, white frilly shirt, and high-heeled boots sitting on a motorcycle, just know that 30 years later, his legacy has engulfed a plethora of additional sounds that defy all that is popular music.

Until next time, Peace & B Wild.