Hey everyone 🙂 I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed the ride of being in this class with all of you! With summer on the horizon and quarantines still in place, I thought I would share something cool I found to do while stuck at home.
I found this article on Forbes that details 15 cool virtual tours you can take during this time of Museums such as the Louvre and the Guggenheim, word monuments such as the Great Wall of China or the Eiffel Tower, and more!
Part of the beauty in public interventions is that they don’t always have to be super complicated. They don’t always require a huge budget or a detailed plan. They also don’t always have to conquer the world or attempt to right some great wrong. Sometimes, beauty truly comes from the simplest of things. I have noticed some of these “simple” public interventions when on daily walks during quarantine.
Traffic signal boxes are everywhere in a city like mine. Sitting at the corner of every traffic intersection in a huge gray metal box, they are usually just eyesores. A few near my neighborhood are different, however. Someone has painted them. Once I saw the beautiful one covered in paintbrushes near my house, I couldn’t quit noticing them whenever I came across one. Some attempt to make the box more beautiful by blending in, painting bricks, a fence, or some type of ivy. Others, however, attempt to completely stand out, covered in beautiful designs and murals .
Now I don’t know much about these projects. I have no idea if someone asked the city or the neighborhood for permission or just went to the boxes in the late hours of the night with a couple of spray paint cans. What I do know is that there is great spirit behind these works. Somebody took such a minor conflict – an ugly control box – and said “hey, let’s make it beautiful!” And if that isn’t a public intervention, I don’t know what is!
In high school, I worked with a lot of film, and there was always one problem we faced: finding quality royalty-free music to enhance our films. Everyone has their own process when it comes to filmmaking, but for me, sound was always an integral part of my inspiration process. I typically look for sound before I even start the editing process (as I personally love to cut footage at key points in the sound) and sometimes even let a sound inspire the whole idea of my film. That’s why it can be so crucial to find the perfect piece.
That’s where Kevin MacLeod with Incompetech ( https://incompetech.filmmusic.io ) comes in. If you visit his site, you will find THOUSANDS of royalty free audio files ready and able to download. When entering the website, you first will want to click on Royalty-Free Music. Then, you will see a series of genres grouping the many different files. This is super helpful, making the process of finding the kind of music you want that much shorter as you can simply click on the mood you or going for and refine by instrumental or musical style.
When doing some research about desktops, I came across something cool that I had NO idea you could do and wanted to share with all of you: change the icons of your desktop folders and apps; no more boring and un-aesthetic blue folders for us! I found a couple of help pages that outline how to carry out this process on both a Mac and a PC and have included them here in case you are interested in doing so for your desktop project or just for you 🙂 I also included some photos of how other individuals have utilized this function to personalize their own computers to show the variation of styles that can be represented in doing so.
Known to many for providing the method for forming our oldest cartoons and favorite early Disney classics, flipbooks have a wide history revolving around their utilitarian purpose. But what else about these works makes them so special?
All works above are by acclaimed flip book artist Scott Blake
Stemming from the early 19th century, flip books have not just provided a means for early animation and gifs: they have created a whole new medium of art. Similar to lenticular and other optical illusions, flipbooks have the power to create true movement out of 2-D works. Not only do these works pack a punch filled with expression, their size allows them to be shared, allowing even those without technology to experience the magic of gifs.
Included in this post are a few works by a notable flip book artist as well some by gifted anonymous artists, demonstrating the breadth of the flip book genre.
Inspired by 1930s cartoons, Steve Cutts is a British animator whose collection of YouTube cartoons use a variety of animals and symbols to make deeper statements criticizing themes such as consumerism, substance abuse, and climate change. His highly visual illustrations have amassed millions of views, using absurdity, similar to Dada art, in order to provide a response to the current world climate. Below is a link to Cutts’ YouTube channel where you can view his absurd and darkly satirical commentaries on humanity and society as we know it.
During the Blue Rider Period, an expressionist art movement, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky underwent a metamorphosis in his artistic style. This shift saw his colors more vibrant, his lines more free, and his subjects more abstract. Rather than attempting to depict scenes, Kandinsky took inspiration from music, spirituality, and the feelings of his inner soul when painting his masterpieces. Shown are a selection of some of his grand works from this era, with a few holding city-like qualities that could serve as inspiration as we move forward into our next project.
When pondering over the idea of the simplest abstract works that convey the deepest of ideas, my mind comes to one artist: Mark Rothko. His beautiful yet simple works appear at first glance to be nothing more than a few colors, minimally placed on a canvas. But that is the magic of them. Rothko’s simplicity is meant to provoke deeper emotions in his work’s observers, demanding an active encounter that sparks deep, and distinct feelings in each individual commentator. Many of his seemingly plain canvases are created with multiple layers of different colors, providing them a certain glow that changes with more observation. One of his most famous exhibitions lies in Houston’s Rothko Chapel. Its series of black canvases call upon many spectators daily who view this non-denominational establishment as quite spiritual, a place to find deeper meaning about oneself.
2020 Foundations 