1. camara obscura, camara obscura
2. light-sensitive chemistry
3. Daguerreotype
5. "aura"
6. commodity value
7. exhibition value
8. cult value, cult value
9. Photomontage
10. appropriated elements
11. cinematography
12. Photomechanical reproduction
13. Eadweard Muybridge's
14. Jules-Étienne Marey
15. The Dadaists
16. Heartfield
17. Hausmann
In this week's lecture, we talked about the history of printed media. First, we went over the History of Media, where we learned that everything started forty thousand years ago when some human ancestors painted on the walls of a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. They would paint the stencils of their hands and other markings mostly related to animals. Something really interesting about this is that experts don’t know exactly what purpose the artwork had, but it is probable that their paintings might be the first examples of communicating through a medium, maybe to tell stories or just to record important events. Then, we talked about Monks copying manuscripts during the Middle Ages. In early manuscript culture, monks copied manuscripts by hand during the Middle Ages (about A.D. 500–1500), where they copied a variety of texts including some on astronomy, religion, herbals, and bestiaries. A really interesting fact about this is that it typically took a scribe fifteen months to copy a Bible, and such books were written on parchment or vellum made from treated hides of sheep, goats, or calves. Some years after this, Johannes Gutenberg built the first printing press in 1450, meaning that books could be mass-produced without the need to be handwritten. This brought the first newspapers during the early 17th century, and as more people learned to read and write, mass media continued growing. We also talked about photography, and how its arrival changed the media scene. In 1862, Matthew Brady held an exhibition of photographs he had taken of the U.S. Civil War, this caused a lot of shock and impact in the Americans due to the images of dead at the battle of Antietam. By late in the 19th century, new technology allowed newspapers to print photographs, and in 1895, the Lumière brothers gave the first public demonstration of moving pictures in Paris, and something really interesting about this is that some members of the audience were actually frightened of the moving pictures. This takes us to the history of the printing press and printed media, where we stopped to think... how would life be nowadays if the printing press had never been invented. We would not have books, magazines, or newspapers. Posters, flyers, pamphlets, and mailers would not exist. The printing press is really important, even cataloged as one of the most important inventions of our time, since it allows us to share large amounts of information quickly and in huge numbers, changing the way society evolved. Throughout the years, more and more inventions would appear, such as the Letterpress (which requires an operator to set movable type, ink it, and press paper against it), the Offset press (which revolutionized the printing industry, making it possible to print enormous quantities efficiently and cost-effectively), and the Digital press (which can print hundreds or thousands of the same item, but it can be costly when printing a few dozen or even a single copy). Lastly, we talked about the history of photography. Here, we went over some photography techniques, such as the Camera Obscura ( where from the 1500s to the 1800s, Draftsmen used these large wood boxes which had a lens on one end to let light through. But unlike modern cameras, which use light to create permanent photographs, these tools cast the light onto a frosted sheet of glass. Thanks to this, we had the first photograph ever, captured by Joseph Niepce in 1826), the Daguerreotype (which refined the chemistry in photography, shaving down the exposure time to only 15 minutes. Bringing with it, the first people captured in the photograph), and the Collodion or wet plate (which revolutionized photography by being 20 times faster than all previous methods). Thanks to all this progress, we were finally able to capture time and frames, with the introduction of the first KODAK camera in 1888, and with the arrival of the digital camera in 1975.
For our midterm, my group had a list of words to develop into a presentation. Being the team leader it was my job to divide the words amongst the group members, and make sure everyone was on track. We had 2 team members absent the day we got the assignment so I made it a point to make a group-chat with everyone in it so we could communicate over the weekend. I periodically checked in with everyone to make sure we would be done for our presentation on Tuesday. While in class, we did have to discuss the interactive aspect of our presentation. At first we were going to just come up with a game to play with the class once everyone was done, but we wanted to make it more fun and have more variety rather than just doing some sort of Kahoot! That's when we decided that instead of doing 1 game or activity, we would have some of the group members do an activity or game for their specific word to maximize the fun. This went over really well as the class seemed to be into the games and quizzes we had them do throughout the presentations.
For me specifically, I chose Leonardo da Vinci as my word. I chose him because I've always been fascinated with Leonardo. Everyone knows about the Mona Lisa, but not a lot of people know about his scientific inventions and rich history. In my presentation I wanted to focus on that aspect of Leonardo first. Then I moved on to his artistic breakthroughs and religious affiliation that we were aware of.
After deciding what I wanted to discuss in the presentation I had to think of a medium. The assignment was to make it fun and interesting and I knew a 10+ slide presentation was not the way to do that. After sitting on it for a few days I came up with the idea to have Leonardo sit down for an interview. I would use TikTok's "green screen eyes and mouth" feature to put my eyes and mouth over a picture of Leonardo to make him come to life. I would then record his responses to my questions and film myself sitting down being the interviewer, and eventually put it altogether to make 1 video. This was the original idea, which I would soon come to find out would need some adjustments and changes.
At first, I wanted to do everything myself, but I thought it would be more fun to have someone else be Leonardo in the video that way it's more interesting (almost like I am actually talking to Leonardo not just myself). So to solve this, I asked my best friend if he would be the voice of Leonardo and he said yes, so I had him use the TikTok feature and it worked really well! The problem I faced while filming was time. The presentation could only be up to 5 minutes due to other groups having to go and with my video it would've taken at least 10-15 minutes. I knew I had to cut something, so I modified the original video idea. Instead of a sit down interview I just had Leonardo talk about himself, and after some editing, it cut the time down to 4 minutes. That still left a little time for me to do a wrap up at the end and an introduction at the beginning, but the main aspect of the presentation was the video.
I wrote the entire script for this video and came up with the idea on my own. The use of the TikTok feature was also my idea after watching some TikToks one day and seeing someone use the feature themselves. All my deliverables are attached at the end of this post!
1. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE CANVA PRESENTATION
2. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE FULL VIDEO
This week marked our transition from the Renaissance era to the Industrial Revolution, a period in which artists once again defied convention and broke free from the artistic norms that had prevailed during the Renaissance. These creative minds rejected the established treatises and embraced the pursuit of innovative, avant-garde styles and modes of self-expression. The first of these groundbreaking movements was Impressionism, which notably departed from the precise realism and perfection that characterized earlier art, both in style and subject matter. Impressionist artists adopted a more relaxed approach to their subjects, employing a less refined painting style characterized by visible brushstrokes. Remarkably, during its time, this style faced widespread disdain from the mainstream art world, who even used the term "Impressionism" as a derogatory label due to its perceived unfinished quality. Personally, I find this irony in that Impressionist paintings were among the first I encountered as a child, and they continue to hold a special place in my heart. Subsequently, artists delved into experimenting with geometric forms and infusing more emotions and sentiments into their work, marking the advent of the Symbolist movement. As this era progressed, artists ventured into manipulating the scenes in their pieces, imbuing them with an air of mystique and dreamlike quality. Their objective was to convey the feelings and ambiance of a scene, rather than fixating on achieving absolute realism. In a sense, this aligns with my own artwork, as my style veers far from realism, leaning towards stylized and slightly cartoonish depictions, often exploring the realms of the imagination. Continuing this trajectory, the Fauvist movement pushed the boundaries even further by experimenting with non-traditional colors and simplifying backgrounds. This simplification, initially explored by Symbolists and Fauvists, was then expanded upon by artists like Picasso, leading to the Cubist and Abstract eras. Cubism aimed to depict a subject in a way that seemingly allowed viewers to perceive it from multiple angles simultaneously, creating a sensation akin to glimpsing the subject from a higher-dimensional perspective. Finally, the Abstract Expressionists made the most radical departure from the Renaissance style, opting not to represent any specific subjects in their work. Their art was about aesthetics and visual appeal, devoid of concrete meanings or subjects. Their creations were designed to be beautiful in and of themselves, not tied to any particular subject matter. Throughout these artistic movements, genre painting remained a consistent trend, portraying everyday people engaged in simple, everyday activities.
This week in class we created our very own abstract paintings. My group and I decided we wanted to do something that made us happy so the first thing we did was grab all the colors that resembled happiness to us personally. We then had to decide how we were going to start drawing considering 6 different hands drawing at the same time was going to be a challenge. That’s when we came up with the idea of drawing specific sections and then halfway through the session we would rotate it to add to each other’s designs. We employed what we learned about Abstract Expressionism from the lecture in order to create this piece and broke the rules of art set forth in the Renaissance period. We used random lines, shapes, and curves in order to make it look as “aesthetically random” as possible, something generally seen in abstract paintings. My group’s main struggle was trying not to make it look pretty. We all hesitated at first to get started because we are all in the design/artistic realm and are trained to have meaning to our pieces with clear visions. This task was a nice way for us to let go of those rules and just create something random with the short time we had, and I think it paid off well. I started with just drawing a simple curved line on my side of the page and let my hand take it from there. I even closed my eyes for part of it and randomly drew lines across the page in order to enhance the randomness of the piece. I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment and it was fun to just let go and see where my creative side took me, which is definitely something I need to do more.
For this assignment, I wanted to have a narrator that talks to kids about art history as if he's telling the a story. The kids would sit...
