As it was mentioned before, my project is about making people feel more interested in biological science. I planed to create an interactive animation, so I did some searching to look for software that could help me to work out this idea. I found an open source called Processing. Although the program involved some coding skills, it was very accessible for a beginner (like me) to learn. Here is a basic practice of interactive animation I did with Processing. The two figures are set to follow the direction of the cursor. But when the space key is pressed, they are replaced by a cross-shaped image.
The exhibition New Only by
Name tended to bring out people's appreciation on sound as a form of art. Not
just showing sound, the works included video installation, experimental art,
and even sculpture piece. The two pieces really had my attentions were Clinton
Sleeper's We Are Singing As Softly As We
Are Able and Robert Morrison's and Jean-Paul Perrotte's Structures in Microtonal Harmony.
Sleeper's piece explored the character of pop music, noise and
history. The work was presented in a short video projecting on the gallery
wall. In this 5-minutes long video,
Sleeper continuously put and threw dirt on a set of guitar and drum instruments.
The sounds, or noise, from dirt hitting on the instruments were playing out via
the stereo. A variety of audio equipment was used such as loop stations,
distortion, acoustic simulator, radio and tape deck to manipulated the sounds. The
piece seemed to explore what defined music and what then defined noise, and
tried to build up subtle relationship between these two elements.
The sculpture installation Structures
in Microtonal Harmony was right next to Sleeper's work. Morrison is aware
of the relationship of sound and space and interested in inserting sound into
sculpture. His collaborator, Jean-Paul Perrotte, is a composer. The eleven
bronze bowls were placed along both walls. On one side, the audiences could interact
and make sounds from the bowls. On the other side, the sculptures were
controlled by Arduino, which played sounds randomly.
This exhibition introduced sound art, explored the connection
between different sound elements, and left a space for the audience to define
this new genre of art. When walking around in the gallery, I was impressed by
these works, especially Structures in
Microtonal Harmony which changed my view on the capacity of sound art. There
were four pieces shown as I remember, but I would really like to see more
amazing sound art works for any future exhibition similar to this.
For the style of animation, I decided to use pixel art. The reason is because it can mimic how scientific illustration generally looks like. I started with an ameba-like creature. The gif, which was done by Photoshop, shows how the animation will be, but this is only a test, so it won't be included in the project. Even though I only animated a simple movement, the process was sort of time-consuming because some parts had to be animated pixel by pixel. But overall it was a fun experience.
It is kind of interesting to mention how pixel has been connected to science in an episode of Futurama. In this episode, the characters try to find the basic unit of matter. Because the entire animation was styled in pixel art, a pixel is described as "the fundamental structure of the universe." Here is the clip of what I'm taking about.
For the my decision, I decided to make a project related to biological science and
animation. The idea is to make life science be more approachable to general audience, getting people to feel interested in this subject. It may be focused on anatomy and biological process.
I always think visual content has strong power to influence people. I hope that by using animation on my project, people are more interested in biology. I also think interaction is another way to allow people to engage with something that they are unfamiliar with but enjoy it at the same time. I will try to find possible sources for the interaction part. So far, this project is set to be an animation about life science. The drawings shown above are the drift of the storyboard for this project.
In the first week it was to come out an idea to work for this semester. For my project, I want to study the questions that how the value of an artwork is determined, and what kind of measurements people use to evaluate an art piece.
I thought of some elements people may base on, such as how the work or the author has been widely known, the identity of the author, whether the work follow the public taste or not, the uniqueness the work has, or if the work contains technical skills.
So far, my initial idea for this project is to present it as a board game. The player, or audience who interact with it, would be the role as art collector. The game would provide images of different art works to the player and ask them to choose. During the process of playing, it may help me to find out possible answers for the question that how an art work is evaluated by the people.
I try to involved the concepts of art and technology for the two ideas. There is no restriction on which one idea should be individual or which should group projects. In other words, my two ideas can be either individual or group projects. The presentation format I think of for these two projects is sculpture, but no limitation on the materials.
The concept of the first ideas is about how people think about technology through time. Examples are like people in the 18th century had often thought the future filled with hope because of the great progress of technology during that time. However, when the time moved to stress events such as WWII and cold war, technology started to be connected with negative thoughts. How technology is defined is based on the condition people live with. As technology has became a significant part in our daily lives, I'm curious about people's opinion on technology in modern world.
The second idea I want to work with is what scale people use to determine the value of an art work. I think of making several sculpture, each is made based on different factor that people use to evaluate art and serves as comparisons to each other. The factors are like the identity of the author, whether the work follows the public taste or not, or if the content is filled with technical skills.
As a student who studies biology and art, I am interested in the relationship between these two studies; however, I want to explore problems in life science by using artistic skill. I have a slightly different way to view the art-science connection compared to how Bioart approaches it. Sarah Bryant, a book artist, also uses artistic method in her works to explore scientific topics. Bryant is interested in diagrammatic pattern and changing lines in statistical graphs. She has already published over ten books. I am mostly attracted to two of her books named Point of View (2008) and Figure Study (2015).
Point of View (2008) explores the emotional changes of an individual when reacting to the other people and the surroundings. Bryant primarily focuses on social anxieties, and she also emphasizes the necessity for an individual to interact the environment. The graphs are mainly designed in the cross-section style, showing body temperature changes by different colors. Some pages are translucent to imply the shifting of emotion. This book has applied some psychology and sociology aspects.
Figure Study (2015) is Bryant's current work. Collaborating with the biology professor David Allen at Middlebury College in Vermont, they collected population pyramid data from various regions around the world. More than one hundred population pyramid images were created. In every sheet, each two population pyramids are attached to each other, one at the upper position and another one at the lower position. Generally speaking, Figure Study is a collection book of data study. It allows the readers to learn the population distribution in different places and to analysis the images by comparison. Besides the book projects I have introduced, Bryant's other book works such as Cutaway, Biography, Simulations, etc., are also related to scientific subject.
The way she interacts with the meaning and simplicity of lines and how she connects art with the science are truly interesting. Her works make me see a different way to explore the art-science connection. Bryant tries to present two things in her works, the physical realities of environment and how humans reflect their emotion to the environment. Point of View is a well example to understand Bryant's goals. I also found out she is careful on the design to every detail of a book. In Point of View, there is an interesting feature that the characters are only drawn with the outlines, making readers be able to identify the their emotions by the color changes instead of the facial expressions. Bryant also set a gatefold for each page in order to encourage the readers to have more interaction with the book and dissect the translucent layers. The translucent design represents the transition of surroundings. Although Figure Study does not present an obvious emotion-environment connection, but the series of population pyramids have fully shown the realities of environment. Bioart develops a new way to practice art, but sometimes a Bioart work may hold the viewers back because of their unfamiliarity to biotechnology. Sarah Bryant uses drawing skill and layout design to explore different scientific studies. Similarly, for this project, I also want to question biological problem by using visual images. My final project connects to the issue of animal endangerment and human activity impact on environment. According to National Geographic, species extinction is happening 1000 times faster when humans appear, meaning we are causing the loss of various organisms at an unbelievable speed. Animal extinction is typically caused by human activities such as hunting, natural resources consumption, overexploitation, etc. For instance, many amphibians lose their habitats because of agriculture use or industrial contamination. Biodiversity is seriously important to increases natural productivity and maintains ecosystem balance. Species extinction can lead to the instability of ecosystem, causing more species to extinct due to the disruption of food chain. Therefore, the purpose of my final project is to gain more public attention on this issue. It is a 5-minutes video that consists images of endangered species. The species are in five classes of animals: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. The video starts with aquatic mammals then ends with marine fish. I used ocean habitat as the starting and ending point. Most drawn animals were classified as either vulnerable or critical endangered in their conservation status, and only few are considered as less concerned based on the IUCN Red List. All species I selected were threatened due to human activities. I drew the images by the software Corel Painter. The reason I chose to use drawing is because I think visual art is a common art form for general audience and is an effective way to transmit the message. Then all the drawings were collected and transformed into a video by using Adobe Premiere. I also uploaded the video to the Internet, so it can have a higher chance to be noticed by the broader audience. I hope this video project will create some impact to the public. The primary influences I look forward to the audience are viewing nature and life with more respect, and perhaps even more –gaining interest in biodiversity by concerning wildlife preservation or human impact on environment. However, there are several considerations that my project needs to adjust. Because the animation only moves in either vertical or horizontal direction, the motion can be more dynamic and developed into a storytelling. Besides the movement problem, I think my project need to develop a question on contemporary technology of digital art. So far, I have made some project to connect art and biology, but I always interpret my work in an overly simple style. Starting from this project, I hope to see myself building up more experience of practicing biological theme in an more artistic, poetic way.
