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Humanity Expressed Visually the arts and innovation

-a new project that I anticipate will change minds of the young people that I work with on an almost daily basis. This change will really aim at informing students about the purposes of media. The media is the message, as quoted by Marshall McLuhan. Its very true, especially in the world of online advertising and narrowed down search terms. The web is a vast array, to supply the user with personalized data, filtered down in the form of content selected through one's own contact with it. THIS BLOG ITSELF IS AN EXAMPLE OF HYPERREALITY..push a few buttons and its done, for the entire world to see. It defines this class and me in a rapid, few moments. Rapid responses to one's world that creates new contexts for growth and expression, in other words, new branches of the same tree to continue the journey. The media ties it all together. The media is the message.

Read below to learn more about the ambitious project that is being undertaken to help students at Maranacook Community High School learn more about media, imagery, individuality, contemporary art, sculpture, collaborative art, animation, fashion design, graphic design, and the arts of portraiture and self-portraiture using a digital camera.

Synergy and Phenomena

Why these categories (terms in bold)? synergy and phenomena dictate our lives in ways that can't always be expressed. They often have to be experienced. Art is every bit as relevant as the society that we live in. Art feeds society and society, in turn, feeds artists and designers to create the next experiences and trends.

As you probably know already, we live in a very media-driven world. So media-driven, in fact, that its easy to get lost in the frenzy of it all. Facebook and other types of social media are tying up all of the great minds of these times. Why? Because the response is so phenomenalogical. That's really a lot of it. Phenomena that we are exposed to, in a synergistic way, creates parts that as individual features, become greater than a sum of them. Its why sites like The Voice Project are so cool. Artists go on and perform the work of other famous musicians that they admire. The media is driving the message.

Andrew Bird & Priscilla Ahn » Cass McCombs from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

Putting it all together into a cohesive whole is very important, and that's what artists, designers, and even scientists and astrophysicists like Stephen Hawking are trying to communicate, as they create new fabric of thought to bridge their own understanding of this complex thing called life. At times, it can be very loosely woven together, warping towards chaos. Other times, so concrete that one can barely believe it.

Stephen Hawking's dream of floating weightless was realized in 2007. A man that has been wheelchair bound for much of his life became a passenger in a plane flown by the Zero Gravity Corp, was thrilled to feel weightlessness. This was a feeling foreign to him, until that journey to 24,000 feet.

What the heck does that mean for this project?

For my students, the power of the media is huge. How many of them really will realize their own capabilities as shapers and designers of the future? In college, some will undoubtedly become designers and artists. But its not for everybody. Staying up late, drinking coffee and pursuing the eternal design process can be like looking for a snake in the woodpile. Its not for everyone, but it is for those who wish to shape the future in new ways, and some of these are synergistic. So, ask yourself, what are my different facet? What are the different parts of me that work to shape who I am? Can this be displayed as a visual art piece or logo?

I want my students, both those that see themselves as native artists and those that may come to the task of making art as more of a non-native, to experience the rapid, successive effects of creating imagery to define personal identity and perhaps shift their own experience. In other words, an opinion can be born out of chaos and become second-nature, firm, and balanced, with a little perseverance and practice. We know the world we live in requires continual renewal and reenchantment, so let's get started, shall we?

Identity and logos (branding):

The-Greatest-Movie-Ever-Sold-490x295.jpg http://imprint.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/meat001-802x1024.jpg
vs Storytelling by Pictures

Morgan Spurlock, of the movie Super-Size Me This is a fan that was given to customers as a sales premium

from the poster of his new movie, The Greatest In the pre-depression era 1920's. It portrays women as the

Movie Ever Sold, where he gets 15 brands to common consumers and men, who were at the time, the most

endorse him and he allows the placement of common retailers. Also pictured, is a young girl who is learning

their product in his movie to illustrate how movie the ropes.

marketing works. "Since a cute little alien munched

on Reese's Pieces in Spielberg's ET, product placement

has become a familiar part of the cinematic experience."

~The Guardian Newspaper Online

Signs and Conveyed Significance: every picture sells a story

http://www.worldpath.net/~minstrel/hobosign.htm http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/files/2011/11/iPad.atkin_1.jpg

vs iPad photo by Ben Atkin

On the left, these are code symbols On the right, we have app icons that were developed to help

that hobos would leave for each other computer users work quicker and access programs and buttons

when they left residences, churches, parks for functions in certain programs. The development of these icons

and other recreational and safe areas to once allowed for faster use and better workflow. Now they work to sell

stay in the U.S. during the 30's and 40's. apps as app icons. Marketers are really having fun with these as they

work to design recognizable, compact emblems for our lives.

Project Goals:

This is my idea (with a little help from a student and a class that I teach).. We came up with the notion to expand the idea of visual arts and the role they play in making us who we are. What if each of us was charged with coming up with a symbol that represents our own personal identity?

How are you feeling about the task of defining yourself through the use of imagery? What if I said that I wanted you to create a logo that defined who you were?

Here's mine:

(just kidding, this is my ski pass) here it is:

Project Procedure:

1. We're going to take the logo and make first, a collaborative sculpture, using found materials and the logos, all trimmed down to the same 6" x 6" size.

2. Next, that logo will be enlarged to create a 10" x 10" logo cardboard stencil that can be used to create a T-shirt. You'll have to bring in an old, dark-colored t-shirt that you don't really care about.

3. Using the stencil and a spray paint, we'll create a shirt that has your logo on it.

4. The shirts will be hung to dry and washed before you wear them.

5. After the shirts are dry and laundered, you will work in a group with others in this class to design a portrait shot where you are wearing the shirt that has your personal logo on it.

6. You will set up and complete a self-portrait image, using a digital camera, proper lighting and some trial and error. Although someone will actually "snap" the shot, you will work to set up the composition. The shot can be anywhere, at school, at home, but it will be set in an environment that you commonly visit and the pose, the props (if any) will be added to the surrounding shot to become elements of essentially what makes up your own fashion shoot and you are the designer.

7. Once taken and selected, you will submit your self-portrait image composition for a grade (rubric to come soon).

Here's pretty much the process

we'll use (but we'll use paint instead):

Make a Fin T-Shirt - Surf Sufficient from www.KORDUROY.tv on Vimeo.

8. While you wait for the opportunity to create your stencil on the t-shirt fabric (believe it or not, I don't have 20 spray bottles) you will work towards creating a zoetrope image. This will be an animated image of your logo, either moving or changing in a span of time. More on the zoetrope part of the project to come on the zoetrope page.

Now, back to our studies:

Lets explore how art and identity work together..

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/basquiat/ http://imprint.printmag.com/design-thinking/a-new-identity/

Ideas for redesigns of common, everyday logos.

http://www.basquiatbiography.com/lesson-plans

Jean Michel Basquiat was one of the most prominent artists of recent decades to forge an identity that took notions of cultural significance and became an icon as someone searching for freedom to redefine himself and reappraise notions of culture and self-significance as a young African American man in the New York art world of the 1980s. He changed notions of what art could do, as well as ways to innovate style and culture with imagery. Predictions and consequences of his imagery were often cast aside with regards to ordinary people viewing his work. At the bottom of the page, there is a bit more information on Jean Michel, who tragically died at 27 of a drug overdose.

New identity, as shown in logos for companies that could be updated, is something that is able to be changed. Does the message change when the media shows that it possessed so much power today?

Logos, logos & more logos...

http://www.idgram.com/bio All images below by Gert Van Duinen who is a graphic designer. Below are all logos that he has developed for different companies over the years. They are provided here as inspiration for you. The basic simplicity of his style will transfer well to tshirts via stencils and paint.

Make your own!

Just like bands create their own logos (and below are a couple from a few friends of mine), each of you will work to create a logo that represents who you are..

http://burntbeardband.com http://www.myspace.com/mumbasue