Anon.

Animation vs Sketch, Old School vs New School, Past vs Future...Hmmmm

From what you see now, the modern animation technology that companies like Pixar use seem to be really beneficial. Everything would take much less time. You would no longer have to draw 24 pictures to get one second of film, but rather 24 minutes to get an hours of film. Well not really, but you get the point. Modern technology makes things easier for us. Technology helps us get from start, to the end result one person wants, as fast and efficiently as possible. Thus, this always seems like such a great thing. And you have to agree, the fact that the appeal factor of modern animation online makes us want to watch something more than the hand-drawn counter parts. I mean, sometimes when I see a TV show and its in black and white, it warrants an auto channel change. I think this works in the same theory with animation, the eye candy. We were born in the modern world where the majority of people will always want the newest stuff. You want the newest mp3 player or cellphone or game console. And from this, newer and better looking films and animations achieve the same end result.

But its too good to be true ain't it. The problem with modern animation is that they spend more time polishing and creating the 'image' that from what I can see, modern animation has dipped in the quality of the storyline. They seem to just pack as many jokes as they can into one measly hour and a half. What does this achieve? A few laughs? Because I doubt this will make many people come back for more. I believe that for the older generation of sketch animation, that had to put more thought into the storyline more so than how everything looks to keep the audience interested.

If only we could take the best of both worlds, now that would be a great achievement.

Web as Art: Word Perhect

------> http://www.e-2.org/perhect/frame.html <------

This art piece is a mockup of Word Perfect where the user makes an old school type of Microsoft word. The normal functions that are usually implemented to make writing a piece of work down much easier. Keeping electronic copies of your work is much neater and more efficient then having it everywhere. However, the author sees the problem that using Microsoft Word, everyone must conform to how it works. The way it works. This version that he calls Microsoft Word Perhect. This piece has a variety of tricks to type out their work. Although its not a real functional program where you can actually type, it does allow you to use the options you would see in the top toolbars of word perfect (save,undo,open, etc...) but with twists of course.

The artist uses the web to display his piece of new media art because the basis of it, the program which it is mocking is a computer program. And his work needs alot of human interaction for it to work and thus putting it on a virtual estate where anyone can access it and feel the intentions of the artist must be a good thing. The internet has been one of the most influencial product in the last decade and using it to your advantage is not a bad thing at all. Also, the artists intention was to make fun of word perfect, how it conforms us to the norm and computerizes everything, leaving out the good old days of pen and paper. Well he is literally digitalizing pen and paper where for example: When trying to use the save option, it would have a pop-up telling you to either 1) Go to a local shop to photocopy or 2) Re-write it. TBC...

Are Wii the Children of the Revolution?

We’ve all seen the past generation of gaming as we grew up, where Super Nintendo revolutionized gaming and Nintendo 64 brought the world into true 3d gaming. But now, the next generation of gaming begins, with Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and the early launch about a year and a half ago of the Xbox 360. Throughout the generations of gaming, people have slowly started to come out and say, games are getting boring, and there’s no ‘new’ ways to increase fun. They have only been beefing up the graphics and raw power of the systems with better computer A.I. and environments. But this year, Nintendo took the challenge and introduced motion sensing, an innovative way to control characters and objects within the game. They chose fun and innovation over raw power, graphics and multimedia which the Playstation 3 and xbox 360 focused on. And because of this, the mass media bought into the hype of innovation. Recently, in only 4 months of time, the Nintendo Wii has sold 60% of what the Xbox 360 has sold in 16 months. (5.73 million vs 9.55 million.) How long will it take for Nintendo to take over? Microsoft was smart by giving themselves a head start, but statistics show they won’t last, but this isn’t to say they aren’t successful, perhaps not as successful as the Wii. And since the Wii set out to be fun and nothing but fun, I think they definitely achieved their goal. They went way past the normal targets of gamers. They essentially created a system that gathered all new types of people. I could ask my mom who has no clue of what Xbox or Sony Playstation is but she said she wanted to try the Wii. This is more than enough to prove that the Wii is a revolution, given they keep pumping games that utilize their innovative hardware. And at a much more affordable price compared to its competitors, what’s not to like? I’m glad Nintendo learned from their old system, the Gamecube which was a complete failure. Most people doubted Nintendo had finally come to an end in game consoles after the Gamecube but they put the self right back to the top this time. So much so that Sony came up with an “all-new controller that features tilt sensing”. I wonder where they got that idea from…

Power and eye candy OR innovation and fun. It’s up to you.

Hybridity in My Life

As a baby who grew up in what people call the Information Era, and the fact that we have hit a high point in technology use, it is extremely hard to ignore the fact that almost everyone who lives in urban atmospheres are affected by hybridity. In today's high speed world, seconds seems like minutes, minutes seem like hours and so forth. Since everything is a hybrid, we expect things to be faster and everything is on demand. This is what I observe practically every day of my life thus far, everyone's in a rush. And especially on our New York trip, people seemed like they were being fast forwarded at times. Because of this new 'culture' of life, it just seems normal now. We may not know it, but when you come to think of what exactly you use on a regular basis everyday, more than half (or in my case anyways) of the items used are hybrid technology. The main items I deal with everyday that are hybrid would be: mp3 alarm clock, computer, Nintendo DS, PSP, stereo (with cd player, radio, and tape capabilities),MP3 cellphone,ipod and the list could go on, for maybe just a few more items but I think the point gets across. However, this isn't a bashing of why people had to invent hybrid products because I believe it is a great idea. It makes life much easier at times even if you don't realize. Can you imagine if you didn't have a computer? It is potentially one of the most revolutionary and integrated object in developed countries. But some of the third world countries havn't even seen computers, potentially writing on leaves and sand, while we are typing. Developed countries are highly influenced by modern technology and hybridity that sometimes we need to just take a breather and chill. Just feel the moment and forget about the fast paced world and reflect.

BioArt : "The Victimless Meat" - Blog 1

Well, we can all talk about how crazy this seems but in reality, people are killing, people are manipulating, using innocent animals for their own pleasure or gain. This is not right. It is unethical and moral to treat these animals as nothing, using them at our own will. Can you imagine yourself as an animal, and perhaps having someone working on you in a lab, growing perhaps a human ear on your back? It’s absurd. In my opinion, this so called bioart shouldn’t even be considered art but “shameless science”. The fact that these animals can’t do a damn thing about it is saddening. Their defenceless and is made as entertainment values for humans rather then being considered life, just like you and me. With the technology swiftly moving along, humans want more and more. They want things to be faster, easier, less time consuming, more relaxing and the list goes on. We tend to forget about the basics. Without animals, we would starve yet we don’t appreciate, but display them as “art”. Having said all this, it’s a cruel thing to do and we should stop exploiting what we have before it’s too late.