The Surrealists

"Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I"

Surrealist art was a movement in the early 1920's which I believe is derived from creating art that is expressing what is held in our subconscious. Surrealist art is expressive yet unexpected and does not illustrate the world as we know and see it but rather an altered perspective from deep inside the mind. 

Surrealism was often shocking in nature and included explicit themes such as sexuality or socialism. 

Some of the most famous and well known surrealists include Salvador Dali and Man Ray

Grid Art Project

For my grid art project, I chose to use paint swatches. This was inspired by my client for my Ad Campaigns class, Glidden Paint. I thought the project would be a cool idea for an execution for an ad campaign and could help me familiarize myself with the product. I had to go to three different Walmarts and to take enough paint chips to execute my project. I used crazy glue to secure the swatches to a piece of plywood that I had cut according to the dimensions of the swatches to leave me room for 30x30.

I chose a photograph of a young Steve Jobs holding an Apple for my project for a few reasons. First I was searching for a picture with good color contrast. My medium of the swatches allowed me to be able to incorporate shading and tones in my project so I wanted a picture that would let me use this benefit. Steve Jobs is also a personal idol of mine, not for his personality which was known to be harsh and narcissistic but because of his ability to be a revolutionary. I see Steve Jobs as a role model because he never took no for an answer. He didn't abide by the status quo, believed in innovation and believed in quality products. He also was able to bring out the highest potential in those around them by pretending things they thought were impossible were possible and forcing them to strive to make the impossible happen. I find the man inspiring, however now after hours and hours of putting together his face with paint swatches, I must admit I kind of never want to look at him again. 

Her Morning Elegance

This animation is quite a work of art and very insightful. I interpret it as a the story of the woman's dreams being acted out in her bed. I thought the use of props were very creative allowing for more situations I could have ever imagined using just pillows, clothes and blankets. This relations to our flip books because it is a strong example of how as a story is being told, props can expand, change and turn or morph into other things. I also like that the video shows first hand how much can be done even in a simple setting.

Essentially our assignment gives us a simple setting... 200 pages in an old book. But we can use those 200 pages in any way we want and the possibilities are infinite.

August Sings Carmen

In some odd way, I enjoyed this video. I liked that it had an element of suspense, I never knew what was coming next. I think the animation, specifically the robot dancing on the desk it impeccable. It blows my mind how animation and effects can make things come to life in way they never do in the real world. I was kind of baffled by this video when I first saw it. How was it made? What does it mean? But the beauty of the internet is that these questions can be answered!

Wellah: The making of video:

This just shows how much time, effort, manpower and practice goes into making such a creative and well executed video. I think the appealing part of this video is the juxtaposition of the classic opera audio with wild, outlandish and modern visuals. 

I want to learn coding!

I found this video to be extremely inspirational. Computer programming is so valuable, as an inspiring entrepreneur I can't help but notice that most of lives new big innovations and products revolve somehow around computer programming. Whether this be making mobile applications, the newest technology or even making an awesome website for a new product. 

I have been wanting to learn computer coding for a long time now. I think many people might be interested in doing so but we often hear horror stories of how difficult and intense it is to do so. I am going to make it a new goal to learn at least a little bit of coding. Now that I am graduating in May I can no longer take a UT class on the subject but there are many books and online resources. A friend of mine recommended me this website that teaches coding. I think learning coding may help me because it would likely increasing ones ability to problem solve and takes a lot of dedication. I hope more schools will implement computer programming and more people will not be scared of trying it out.

Historic Computers Brought Back From the Dead

"As the door opens, you can see not only the 1401s themselves, but the mechanical punch-card machine where they take instructions from the outside world, the towering drives where they store data on spinning spools of tape, and even the desk-sized printer where they funnel information onto good old-fashioned paper. There's a gentle hum in the room. You can feel the heat coming off the machines. And, yes, you can smell them too"

Technology has come so far in the last 40-50 years. Computers went from being machines that take up an entire room to an even more powerful machine that I carry in my pocket. 

I believe witnessing these computers in real life would be empowering. It shows just how much humans have the ability to create. In the past few decades our society has literally used math science and computers to turn imagination into reality.

Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly is an interesting animation in which a seemingly asian woman has an affair with an american sailor and has his baby. She waits and waits for him to return for the family. Eventually he does return but sadly he is with an American barbie. He takes the baby away with him leaving Madama Butterfly alone and depressed to kill herself.

The animation itself is intriguing, it seems to be creative in nature. I like that they used barbie style dolls in the animation and the lighting helps to tell the story. I also like that the creator kept a constant flow of music rather then some sort of audio words or subtitles leaving a few things open to interpretation.

Alan Turing

My first research on Alan Turing leads me to find that he is known as one of the fathers of computer science and artificial intelligence. Awesome!

Upon first research Alan Turing, it seems to me that he was a genius, a man "before his time" if you will. Between translating code during the war and inventing the computing machine during his time at Princeton he is the type of man that should be considered a hero by his home country.

I find it ridiculous that after all he did for computer science and his country, he was arrested for homosexuality, which was illegal in the UK at that time in 1952 (only 60ish years ago). Instead of going to prison he chose estrogen injections, which were thought to balance his libito.

It is insane to see what law and justice was at times throughout history.


Rest in peace, Alan Turing.

It really makes you think about how law and society aren't always right. What will we look back on 70 years from now and think how could we have persecuted that people? It is known that Alan Turing saw no wrong and felt no remorse in his actions, but I wish he was able to make more of a movement. Of course that is hard for anyone being challenged by their government and society. Ultimiatley their punishments led to his suicide, which creeps me out because his body was found on my birthday June 8th.