I Wish to Say

I Wish to Say is a performance art by Sheryl Oring, a firmly believer in the constitutional right of free of expression. The reason she is making this performance art is because she feels the lack of attention that the government pays to the common American. Up to this day 2 000 letters have been sent to the White House from this project.

Most of the letters I read were about bringing the boys back from overseas. I think that Americans/ tax payers do not believe in this war, and many of them are struggling daily to finance a war that they do not believe. In my opinion as a history aficionado, U.S. spends a lot in the military to keep the balance of power, and to keep the boys in shape. History teaches us that the greatest empire the world have seen, they have fallen because the under militarization. It might be true that the demilitarization of the U.S. would let other countries being number one, but being number one is just to feed the ego of the people on the top. There are many countries like Canada, Sweeden, Denmark that barely or spend nothing in the military and are able to give free education, health care, and  many other social benefits.   

I think this performance art is very powerful. In my opinion the audience will be the government and the canvas everyone who is making letters to the White House. It is very helpful since help us to understand the idea of performance art as a tool to create awareness.  

Grip Art

My muse for this project was the unique and handsome Mr. Santiago Echeverry.

Tristan Tzara, "Dada Manifesto 1918."

Dada was an art movement that began during the Great War. It literraly means nothing. Tristan Tzara, the leader of this group wrote a manifesto explaining Dada.  The entire manifesto is a clear example of Dada, it is literally nothing. The manifesto does not give us an idea of dada, since dada itself is nothing. Nothing is a very complicated concept. Since the beginning of mankind the term of nothingness was a very discussed one in monotheistic religions. Romans were not aware of the zero or in other words the nothingness. This is because the ideas in western civilization were base on polytheism. Polytheism is the idea or believe that the everything has been created out of something. For example in the Helen world of paganism, it was believed that the Earth came from a deity called Gaia. In the Sumerian's myth the world was created by the remainders of Marduk. These myths and many others that helped to shaped the West, they did not have about nothingness. It was not until monotheism and the coming of Christianity that the west was aware of the term of nothingness. In the Christian version of creation; Ex Nihilo, God creates the word out of nothing. This was revolutionary at the time, and the West began to be aware of nothingness. My Christian Doctrine professor; gave us this analogy of Monotheism myth of creation, "Monotheism is like a poet and a poem, the poem is created out of the poet and as long as the poet sings the poem it will exists." In my opinion, this is the main idea of dada, to focus on the ideas rather than the piece itself. In the pre World War I era, art was solely focus on the piece rather than the meaning. During the war, artists found themselves oppressed and experimented with many alternatives of expression. This formed a new group that will change the concepts of art from a strictly aesthetic form to a more expression form of art. This new group was known as Dada.

'The Mother of All Demos' Is 45 Years Old, Doesn't Look a Day Over 25

Thanks to Engelbart and his team we have the Graphic User Interface (GUI) and mouse. The Graph User Interface and mouse were key ingredients in the success of computer distribution in the 80's. By having a Graph User Interface and a mouse was more user friendly, way easier than turning on or off switches. This meant life easier, and since it was easy to use more people will be involve in computers. Sadly, Engelbart's and his team's idea were ahead of his time. Computers were still mostly use for military, and the idea for their use in business and civil use were days ahead.
I cannot imagine a life without a Graphic User Interface or the mouse. If computers were still make with switchers we will probably still years behind. Since the Graphic User Interface allowed many people interact. As more people interact with the computer, this allows more development. We will still use the library as the main source to do research.

Flip book: History of Multimedia

The first part represent the born of multimedia, when began to pass knowledge to their young by oral tradition. The hands of the man represent polytheism, since it was the main form of religion in the west.We can see a hand with five fingers and the other one with a kind of matter. This symbolize the polytheism idea of the world as a creation of deities by giving shape to something already existed.
The man created a doll within its shape. After that doll, it began to appear more dolls and then a man counting them. This is because the first evidence of writing system were form to take in account inventory. After we got the writing system, it was easier to spread knowledge. That is the reason why every doll transform into a man, and continue spread knowledge.
We can see a man with a Greek theater mask, symbolizing the importance of Greek contributions in the development of multimedia as way to educate the elites.
Roman Circus, the Roman realized that a way to control the masses was by giving free entertainment. In the Coliseum we can appreciate the use of control of the stage. The Coliseum could host gladiators fights, beast eating Christians, and naval battles.
The curtains symbolize the arrival of Opera. I portrayed a brief stages of Opera with L'Orfeo as the first popular opera, then the curtains close and reopen portraying a bright man symbolizing the focus of Opera to kiss monarch's asses and finally with Le Mirrage de Figaro  symbolizing the focus of Opera in the common people.
When the curtains disappear and the lights are began to shine is the moment of Broadway.  The stage is portrayed with balerinas, and the lights disappear to announce the beginning of the big screen. The big screen began to shrink to a t.v. and then the use of t.v. for video games.
In the end, I was trying to close the flip book with draws of a flip book flipping.
PD: This is just a friendly reminder that to Mr. Echevery that I got extra credit.

Flip Book Review

Gina: It was pretty cool, she really used the space available and it was very colorful. I think that she was not comfortable with the project at the beginning, but as the book progressed she found confidence to exploit the space.
Andrea: It was very touchy since it was personal. She found a motivation and stick to it. The quality of the drawings were pretty good, they talk for themselves in how much effort was into it.
Moi: Divino like always.
Spencer: It was brilliant idea to base the flip book on the activities he was doing. He draws things that everyone do, like navigate in social media, watch youtube video, or just by observing what was happening in his surroundings.
Kirby:
Holly: I found amazing how our drawings can reflect our state. Mr. Echverry was able to found out that the scene after the dragon was after she recovered from the food poisoning.
Katelyn: Seems that she enjoyed doing the project. It was very imaginative to use all the pages as a sequence, and came back with the same characters in the beginning and in the end.
Leah: Very nature oriented. I found very interesting that she was the only one to incorporate dialogues in the flip book.
Ralph: The quality was very good, it talks by itself. Even though he already had the 200 pages, he decided to finish the job.  I liked the part of the elephant, and how it was going to come out and then decided to go back.
Kyle: I think that the draw is kind of personal, since it about his hometown. He played safe did not take risk.

Video Game Revolution

I found myself identify with the video game revolution. I grew up playing, and learning from them. My favorite. My favorite video games were from Nintendo, these games were Pokemon, and Zelda. These game made allowed me to explore different worlds, and challenge my critical thinking skills.
I do not really think that video games make people violence, and if does most of the people addicted to it will probably just be a harmless guy. In Panama I got friends that are still addicted to video games and talk a lot about violence, but in reality they are harmless. Of course, Panama and U.S. are very different countries. In Panama we do not have a gun culture.
I will agree that video games are addictive, myself as a exMMORPG can proudly say that I have been clean for over 4 years. I think that the reason MMORPG are addictive because is an escape from the frustration of life, and because bring us to explore a world. While we live in a world of responsabilities and expectations from others, in MMORPG we are completely free of choice. It is not until you understand that there bad things are part of life, and that there are many wonderful things that you are missing until you understand that it is just a game.
Video games are part of a generation. It is hardly to find someone from that generation that does not play a video game. Video games are part of society, and it is a way we experience the world. I still play video games like Fifa and League of Legends to keep in touch with friends and have a good time.

Triumph of the Nerds

Impress your friends

It talks about how the multimillionaire computer began in the garage of college drop outs. They started it as a hobbie, but without knowing it was the first step that would revolutionize the world. I am amaze of the type of commitment they got into it. It was not just  a matter of luck that a bunch of indifferent people, they were the correct ingredients to make computers in the civilian world happen. College drop outs without a clear idea where they heading, but with thirst to do something. There were probably competent people able to do the job, but they were probably busy with their life and blind  to see the opportunities of their life. I find the this voyage of nerds similar to Colombus' voyages to the Americas, a voyages to the unknown who were able to sense an  opportunity and took the risk.

Ride the Bear

After the success of personal computing, IBM giants wanted a piece of the cake. IBM had the brilliantidea to assemble computers instead of building them. They look for Bill Gates to produce their OS and Intel for microprocessors. For a moment, they were dominating the market, but they failed to secure their product. Since it was assemble, everyone could copy their product. When people reverse engineer their IBM personal computer, they were able to sell cheaper since they did not have the amount of overhead IBM had. Even though IBM ran out of the personal computer business, Bill Gates and Intel were able to continue in the market since they were companies apart from IBM, and the ones who clon IBM pc were still getting their product of it.

Great Artists Steal

The episodes talks about the hundreds of names that have helped corporations like Apple and Microsoft and had not received credit for it. Jobs accepted that he has been using  the ideas of others and make it available. I do not really call jobs a thief, but someone who made something theoretical to practical. Many people can talk, but few can make things happen. Even though they were not his original ideas, he did no hurt or did something illegal to get them.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Steve Job's speech was very inspirational, and I found many influences on Buddhism in his speech. Although his story is just one story of the millions of stories about college drop outs. I am very sympathetic in believing that knowledge never hurts. I am majoring in accounting, and I am taking this class. Even though, I do not consider myself as an artist. If I was given a block to make a sculpture, I would probably just end doing a smaller block. Just by taking this class, I have more cards in my hands. I can meet new people away from career environment, be exposed to new opportunities, and see more of what life is about.
The biggest blows in life are the beginning of something new.If Steve Jobs was not fired from his company, he will probably be the same guy  before he was fire. He would not be able to found Pixar Animation, Next INC or met his wife. He will not be the same idolized man that the media is trying to make him seem like.
Be like water. Never settle down, there is a lot to see and to be exploited. In Buddhism, there is this concept that we are trapped by this notion of life that blind us from the real picture of life. As Steve Job quoted, "Stay hunger, stay foolish." I think that Jobs is trying to say that we are not destined to one, but to many.

Alan Turing: Pardon

I do not think Alan Turin should be pardoned. The British government should publicly acknowledge their mistakes and apologize. Alan Turin did nothing wrong, he was just different. Society condemned a good man, just because they did not understand him. I am aware that what is done cannot be changed, but Alan Turing should not be forgotten. I hope that this pardon is not just a presentation to make look the English crown more modern just because being gay is actually accepted, but to enlighten society that a person should not be judged for being different.

Kurz Weil Raymond and Mark J. Stock

 

Kurz Weil Raymond

Kurz Weil Raymon is a futurist, not the kind of futurist that read hands, but who tries to have an idea how society will be in 20 years. According Kurzweilai.net, "Kurzweil was the principal inventor of the first CCD flatbed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition." In my opinion, Kurz Weil Raymond is a very impressive individual. He has been pointed as the new Edison. He is not just an inventor, also a businessman. NSA offered him to work with them, but he denied to work for such an unethical company.

 

Mark J. Stock

According to www.markjstock.com, "Mark J. Stock is a scientist, programmer, and artist who creates still and moving images combining elements of nature, physics, chaos, computation, and algorithm." It is very impressive how Stock has found new ways to express himself. We usually think about art as paint, sculpture, music, etc... but who would thought that program coding could also be considered art.

Reference

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8538556914369528455#allposts

http://markjstock.com/bio.html