Smarter Than Your Average Tennis Player

Big Finale

01May12

The show was a blast. A few kinks here and there, but nothing a few drinks can’t drown. Fixed it later in the day, but the show hit an astonishing 150+ attendees, which sadly has only convinced the security guard I’m a fabulous person.

The flier designed by me.

Images from the show

And documentary video soon to come.
The show took a terrifying, tedious and treacherous two days to install, in which a lot of Pratt’s faults surfaced. Including their ability to assist, manage, accessibility, and overall competency. Without the godsend that are my friends and family, I would be have been one less Senior Thesis show.

Finalized Text Abstract

Serena Rio
Digital Arts BFA Senior Capstone

Exhibition Abstract
Stand Alone

Stand Alone is a interactive projection installation which intends to explore the darker facets of social communities. As a regurgitation of my own scarring wheelchair experience, I intend to play with the all too real concept of ostracization and to some degree, social bullying. A commonly shared experience, the project will force the user into a situation of mockery and humiliation, relying on each individual’s personal ordeals in order to elicit visceral reactions.

User Case
User A, we’ll call him Steve for the sake of easy identification, enters into the installation space. Here he will look upon 3 staggered sheets of hanging fabric, with rear-projections of silhouetted attendees at a party. Chatter amongst the guest is audible. Upon crossing into an invisible boundary within the room, the chatter abruptly stops and all occupants stop and turn towards Steve. After a few drawn out seconds, whispers begin, which escalates into laughter and more audible degrading words. This eventually reaches a loud crescendo, until Steve flees embarrassed and upset from the room.

Programs
Max MSP
Processing
Logic Pro
Final Cut
ScreenFlow

Materials
Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect
Silk-Chiffon fabric
LG 3D Blu-ray Home Theater System
Optoma Home Theater Searies HD66
InFocus IN2114 XGA
Proxima C445 XGA

Bibliography of Research and Artistic Influences
TÖken
Taku DJ
Dead Mau5
Daft Punk
Gorillaz
Kanye West
Of Montreal
Pink Floyd
Pika Pika (Interactive sound performance via costume)
Gregory Kaufman
Johnny Lee
Isadora
Tench-on
Mortal Engine
Ms. Pinky
Harvest Works
Composing Interactive Music: Techniques and Ideas Using Max by Todd Winkler
Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking by Nicolas Collins
The Computer Music Tutorial by Curtis Roads
Cycling74

List of assistants, resource consultants, sources of assets above
Peter McCulloch
Liubo Borissov
Grayson Bagwell
Craig McCahill
Cycling74 Forums
Adam Apostolos
HarvestWorks
SparkFun
RadioShack

Artist Bio
Serena Rio’s passion lies in Interactive Media. She is fascinated by robotics, scripting, programing and circuit-bending, though she is particularly interested in projections. She also works in illustration and craft working, with a penchant for wood and metal, and incorporates these diverse skills into her pieces.
Her work adheres to the strong allegation that there needn’t be a spooky dividing line between the physical and digital world, a line that mirrors and perhaps even defines the gap between generations and lifestyles. Rio asks, how physical is our modern physical environment truly, and where does the digital end? When does the mind accept and the man-made deceive? Her work aims to meld the digital into our physical surroundings.

Rio has served as a tech in the Pratt Institute Metal Shop for four years in conjunction with a diverse array of other jobs, such as artist assistant, print and graphic design intern, and bicycle fabrication apprentice. She is one of three finishing up her BFA in Interactive Media in 2012, and plans to continue doing website design and management with the international Bicycle Film Festival.

Followed by an unprojected version of one of the silhouettes, for your leisure

In other news, blow my dick hole Pratt. Fuck you.

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THE CREATIVE AC…

31Jan12

THE CREATIVE ACT

by Marcel Duchamp

Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on the one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity.

To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing. If we give the attributes of a medium to the artist, we must then deny him the state of consciousness on the esthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it. All his decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis, spoken or written, or even thought out.

T.S. Eliot, in his essay on “Tradition and Individual Talent”, writes: “The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material.”

Millions of artists create; only a few thousands are discussed or accepted by the spectator and many less again are consecrated by posterity.

In the last analysis, the artist may shout from all the rooftops that he is a genius: he will have to wait for the verdict of the spectator in order that his declarations take a social value and that, finally, posterity includes him in the primers of Artist History.

I know that this statement will not meet with the approval of many artists who refuse this mediumistic role and insist on the validity of their awareness in the creative act – yet, art history has consistently decided upon the virtues of a work of art through considerations completely divorced from the rationalized explanations of the artist.

If the artist, as a human being, full of the best intentions toward himself and the whole world, plays no role at all in the judgment of his own work, how can one describe the phenomenon which prompts the spectator to react critically to the work of art? In other words, how does this reaction come about?

This phenomenon is comparable to a transference from the artist to the spectator in the form of an esthetic osmosis taking place through the inert matter, such as pigment, piano or marble.

But before we go further, I want to clarify our understanding of the word ‘art’ – to be sure, without any attempt at a definition.

What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way that a bad emotion is still an emotion.

Therefore, when I refer to ‘art coefficient’, it will be understood that I refer not only to great art, but I am trying to describe the subjective mechanism which produces art in the raw state – à l’état brut – bad, good or indifferent.

In the creative act, the artist goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions. His struggle toward the realization is a series of efforts, pains, satisfaction, refusals, decisions, which also cannot and must not be fully self-conscious, at least on the esthetic plane.

The result of this struggle is a difference between the intention and its realization, a difference which the artist is not aware of.

Consequently, in the chain of reactions accompanying the creative act, a link is missing. This gap, representing the inability of the artist to express fully his intention, this difference between what he intended to realize and did realize, is the personal ‘art coefficient’ contained in the work.

In other words, the personal ‘art coefficient’ is like an arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed.

To avoid a misunderstanding, we must remember that this ‘art coefficient’ is a personal expression of artà l’état brut, that is, still in a raw state, which must be ‘refined’ as pure sugar from molasses by the spectator; the digit of this coefficient has no bearing whatsoever on his verdict. The creative act takes another aspect when the spectator experiences the phenomenon of transmutation: through the change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transubtantiation has taken place, and the role of the spectator is to determine the weight of the work on the esthetic scale.

All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives a final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.

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Look ma, all hands!

06Dec11

First semester Senior Thesis presentation. One down, one to go.

Floor mapping, converts the entire room into a grid, detects the user, and even makes an educated guess at the direction they’re heading, which each silhouette can appropriately respond to. Look at those ups.

Silhouette scripts. Guest appearance by Craig.

Samples. Girl talk. Wonderful detail.

Glass testing.

By the by, presentation was a hit. Boom.

In other news.

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I play Ebay like a gameboy

07Nov11

Ebay addict present. Somebody stop me.

I had a small car accident over the summer. Was smashed in February, and just now getting around to recovering. If you’re really interested, it’s easier to find googling me than my own webpage is. Can’t stop won’t stop winning!

Started helping out at the Bicycle Film Festival‘s web management. It’s been good for me all around and a good boost back into Serena 2.0.

Working on another project. Wish me luck!

“The Fat Man Stands Alone”
(title is still a work in progress)

PROJECT STATEMENT
User A, we’ll call him Steve for the sake of easy identification, enters into the installation space. Here he will look upon 3 to 4 staggered panes of frosted glass, with rear-projections of silhouetted attendees at a cocktail party. Chatter amongst the guest is audible. Upon crossing into an invisible boundary within the room, the chatter abruptly stops and all occupants stop and turn towards Steve. After a few drawn out seconds, whispers begin, which escalates into laughter and more audible degrading words. This eventually reaches a loud crescendo, until Steve flees embarrassed and upset from the room.

INTENDED EFFECT
By requiring the user to enter a situation where they are the focus of mockery and slander, my project intends to explore the darker facets of social communities and interactions. Thus I intend to play with the mortifying concept of ostracization and even to some degree, social bullying. A commonly shared experience by most, the project will rely on each individual’s personal ordeals in order to elicit visceral, emotional, reactions and may perhaps dredge up suppressed memories. These experiences may range from racial issues, childhood bullying, and embarrassing exposures.

POSSIBLE PROGRAMS
Max MSP
Processing
Isadora
Open NI
Cinder
Syphon

MATERIALS
Projectors
Microsoft Kinect
Computer
Isadora
Frost Plexiglass
Audio (Speakers)
Room Props

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Can’t beat em, join em.

06Nov11

http://i1.exhibit-e.com/gagosian/9d9bd05f.pdf

Interesting article on Takashi Murakami.

Murakami seems quite the enigma to me, since following him for the best couple years, I’m got kinda bummed after reading the interview. The interview illuminates a good deal of how Murakami views his art, his priorities and his seemingly innocuous methods of thinking. He despises the parallels drawn between him and Andy Warhol, but when confronted about the similarities that arise between his and Andy’s studios, he seems vague and dumb. “Maybe it’s the same as Andy Warhol’s”, and only seems to diverge from his predecessor in drugs and labor, differences that most likely stem from the variants in Asian and Western cultures.

What intrigues me most about the interview however is Murakami’s priorities, which are actually tangibly listed. Surprisingly, death is not as shocking as one could imagine. However the fact that his paintings, studios, and artisan lackeys is low balled at number 5 is astonishing. Especially since above all, his water business topped his chart, a plan that doesn’t even seem particularly definitive. He doesn’t delve very deeply into his art, semiotics or messages. Though this may be attributed to Gingeras or Murakami’s failings at the English language. He is quoted as “creating something like the Star Wars franchise.” Considering that a mere few years ago, his works were reported to be one of the most desired in the world, is something I find odd and yet strangely befitting.

As an avid fan when I was younger, I’ve come to understand that the “Otaku” culture is social suicide in America. Even in Japan, where the industry booms, Otakus often catch the bad rep. This is because it’s juvenile and fatally recycled, a far cry from the art world. Though the correlation between Andy Warhol and Takashi Murakami stands strong, I believe Warhol to hold a more substantial thinking behind his work, which I no longer trust is too secure behind Murakami’s work after reading the interview. Though Murakami claims to base his work on much older influences, I cannot see it situated any where besides contemporary pop art. Does Murakami succeed in creating a franchise out of an already existing franchise? Is art still fine art if it’s created under the intention of a franchise? Or really is it simply a franchise and merely we consume it for the cultured and cool steeze?

Wanna keep dorking? Other mind-twisting interviews and commentary.

=Self-Conscience Disclaimer -I’m not into all these artists/This is for school

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Boring Boring Boring

06Dec10

Senior thesis. Presentation on the 10th oh no!

Still paying my dues, here’s an old video from the Oct. 18th presentation, just coding so if you think you’re interested, you’re probably really not.

Wii genius shows how this is possible.

Johnny Lee.net

On a more interesting note

and Kinect Genius show us how I blow at technology!

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Things I wish I did (and will probably plagiarize later.)

24Oct10

If things couldn’t get any worse, DJ’s still right on track with doing everything I can do but wasn’t smart enough to think of. They’re so cool they probably really could screw themselves.