500 word summary

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During the research and communication project I have learnt how to research and analyse other artists and art movements, and not just the art work, but also the political climate and other events that influenced the artwork and artists at the time. This understanding of art history is crucial and has helped me to see where artists got their inspiration from, and I understand how art movements have developed. For example during task 3, I researched how technology and the invention of the camera has impacted the art word, and pushed the development of art movements such as impressionism, as they captured something that a camera can’t. I also wasn’t able to distinguish the features of art movements, such as the different between modernism and post modernism, and how different they were. Now I feel confident in recognising art movements. 

After seeing a wide range of mediums and work, it will help in my developing practice, giving me a wide range of inspiration and artists which to reference my future work from. I found task 7 about published images very useful, as I want to do illustration, and it pushed me to see the links between the article and the work, and how the artist chose the imagery to communicate the message. I mostly focused on illustrative work for all the research tasks, which now I realise was a bit limiting, and I should have includes some photography or graphic design as well, to broaden my horizons. Taking inspiration from a range of mediums would be beneficial, I think.  

Regarding theory and practice, an understanding of art theory is crucial for creating successful pieces of art. I think that understanding previous art helps us improve our own, as we see what is successful and what is not. We have to have a certain understanding of the rules so we can break them and create something new and original. This can be seen in Post Modernism, and the whole point is trying to build off of previous movements and morphing it into something that hasn’t been done before.

I found the third lecture quite thought provoking, discussing if technology is the mortal enemy to art. At first I agreed with the statement, as traditional and portraiture art is now being pushed aside for modern art and abstraction, but then I realised that without technology I wouldn’t be able to create my own art. I also discovered that without the invention of the camera we wouldn’t have the art movements that we have now, and that technology has actually helped to push art forward, and create new mediums such as graphic design, motion and other computer based media. The task on authenticity was also thought provoking, and critical thinking is a skill that is essential for critiquing and evaluating others work, and your own.

In conclusion  I have found the lectures and tasks very helpful to develop my thinking and research skills, which will eventually have a positive impact on my practical work.

Task 7

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Leo Steinberg (b.1920) from Other Criteria pp. 61-98

Richard Serra (b. 1939) from The Yale Lecture

The two texts, in essence, are describing specific changes in two different disciplines of art. When it comes to writing styles, the main difference is that Serra seems much more argumentative when getting his point across, maybe this is because he is mostly talking about himself.

Steinberg discusses the shift in characteristic picture planes that took place in the 1950s. He describes that before this point paintings had a sense of memory, that their image had once been actually seen (even with Cubist paintings). Steinberg states that paintings like this must be vertical, as that is the natural way.

Serra, on the other hand, explains the importance of site-specific sculpture. He first states that modernist sculpture has forgotten the importance of a durable self-sustaining structure. He claims that modern sculptors, for the most part, have ignored the advances in industrial technology, and in doing so have turned a blind eye to reliable manufacture. Serra speaks of the importance of site-specific work, most prominently how a sculpture cannot be created in a studio as the environment it is to be placed is of the upmost importance, and could impact on the work heavily.

The two texts speak of new mindsets when approaching age-old disciplines, in this way they are very similar. They could also be viewed as similar as we could swap the message of each with the discipline of each; making painting site-specific and sculpture not on the floor but on a wall. This just shows that the two texts, and disciplines, are very alike and could be easily integrated together.

Task 6

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I have always ben immensely fascinated with printing techniques and different printing media, ever since I was first introduced to the practice during GCSEs. Since then I have worked with a large range of printing techniques including; Lino, Drypoint etching, etching and screen-printing. And within each of these disciplines I have explored the ‘common’ methods of mark making on the plate/screen etc. While these methods are a perfectly acceptable way to create great works of art, personally, I find it difficult to stand out when the same ‘style’ of printing is being constantly regurgitated. Something that I touched on while studying my A-levels, is combining different printing processes in the same image, for example, I created large scale screen prints then printed and etching over the top. I really liked this approach to working and developed it as much as I could until my ideas surpassed the resources I had at my disposal. Now that I am at university, and thereby have many more facilities to experiment with, I wish to further my investigations in terms of print. Although I have combined different printing processes on the paper, I have not yet combined them on the plate. For example, I am currently exploring different forms of Lino printing, and I have the idea to create a ‘standard’ Lino printing plate and then using an etching tool to etch onto the same plate. If this ‘works’ then from there I can experiment with the order in which I print (cut Lino, print, then etch etc.), different inks and varying scale.

Task 5

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Nina Vatolina- Fascism, the most evil enemy of Women, Poster- 1941

Nina Vatolinas imagery is scattered with depictions of empowered women. It is clear to see why this is one of the most famous Soviet posters of this time period. The simple but bold palette, high contrast and sharp text really makes the work stand out. The fluid movement of the figure is emphasized by the fluidity of the dress and the background. This draws the eye in from across the room and encourages the eye to scan the image. I have seen this specific poster before online and in books, and after seeing it in the flesh the two do not compare. Through second hand images the colours are not quite right, in person the red is extraordinarily deep and vibrant, whereas online it often has an orange tint to it. in person the contrast was also much clearer, which quite possibly was down to the large scale of the poster. This is the primary purpose of a propaganda poster such as this; firstly to draw attention, then to inspire. The emotive features of the face emanate with calm confidence and sureness. Personally, I feel inspired by this work, not by the political message that it flaunters but of the sheer hard working determination that the figure shows. If we take away from the overall message and pull out the figure alone, we get a depiction of a strong, hard working but also naturally beautiful women, something that most women, especially at the time, would aspire to be. This strikes a stark contrast to the representation in the background; a woman weeps over her, presumably, dead husband and child. This contrast is accentuated by the tonal values throughout the image. This seemingly represents the horror of which the fascists will ensue, and the red woman, representing the soviets, rising above stronger and more determined than before. (The two women could almost be seen as the same person but in different time frames). I have found that this contrast between this despair and unparalleled confidence is quite common in propaganda posters of the time; this includes Nazi propaganda. This intrigues me as the posters are admitting to extreme hardships and then smothering them in positive imagery. I suppose, in a way, it was impossible for the governments to cover up the poverty and hardship with positive imagery alone, as nearly all of the general public was experiencing the same hard times.

 

Task 10: Upload one image of your choice to represent your practice, and exactly ten words.

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A still from my film

Vibrant

Sensual

Colourful

Sensitive

Provocative

Detailed

Conscious

Human

Continuous

Personal

Choosing one image only to represent my practice has been a real challenge. My practice is so varied and there’s such a wide range of areas that I am interested in and media I enjoy working with and want to explore further. Therefore I decided to choose an image from my most recent project: Artist’s Film. This image is a good representation of my love for vibrant colour and high quality/detail. The film I made showed a girl’s mouth pressed up against a glass surface, her tongue and lips moving around in different coloured substances with vibrant contrasting lipstick colours.

Another passion of mine is making wearable art, which links strongly to the human aspect of my work.  In the past my practice was mostly based in drawing and painting. I’m still very interested in painting as a media but at this stage I want to explore everything before I settle into a more permanent way of working. My practice is still very much evolving, and I am really enjoying the discovery and experimentation at this stage in my artistic experience.

Artificial Intelligence

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Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?

 

Games development most often uses the simple form of Artificial Intelligence which is called behavioural modelling and is very important part of NPC’s creation. NPC’s are mainly just the background characters in games so their only task is to play the role regardless of circumstances, emotions etc.

The more developed form of AI when computer pay attention to intentions and emotions is called emotive modelling. First projects of the artificial emotive intelligence comes from late 90’s. One of them is  dr. Breazeal’s project called Kismet. It’s main aim was to align psychological elements to make robot understand people. Nowadays there are a lot of attempts from companies such as Google to improve emotive AI and introduce it into our homes as personal assistants but this could also be translated into games.

Kismet robot

First attempts of introducing emotive artificial intelligence into games design comes from 1985. Game called Little Computer People was released by Activision. The main task of a player was to take care of the generated character which had limited range of needs, emotions and behaviours. This type of games was becoming increasingly popular until The Sims came out in 2000 and it was a smash hit proving that people are very eager to play with intelligent characters.

 

 

The Sims

Emotive modelling of non-playable characters (NPC) could have really interesting impact on different types of games, although game mechanics would not be the same anymore. Imagine the RPG game where every NPC tries to solve quests and kill the same enemies.

In a study made by Deep Mind researchers there were AI „agents” competing against each other in 40 million rounds of a game about picking up fruit. In the future scenarios with less apple to collect they became more aggressive and started to fight. It proves that in a game with emotive modelling of NPC’s with the same goal they would attempt to eliminate each other.

It turns out that emotive modelling is very interesting tool in few games such as life symulators but would not work in other types of games.

 

Consider your favourite video game. If it contains AI controlled agents how individualistic are they and there behaviours, and, how might you set about improving them?

 

A requirement of every good game settled in an open world are non-playable characters which are both individual and related to the environment. It is very difficult to match this two features and that is the thing game developers often struggle with.

Well-known example of NPC can be found in The Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim. I mean adored city guard which became even famous because of his lack of individuality.  Each town in Skyrim world has loads of city guards but for some reason (probably laziness of developers) everyone looks exactly the same. Designers obviously tried to conceal this flaw by covering their heads with helmets but identical behaviour, voice and sayings reveal that it’s absolutely the same character. Also their mechanics does not differ at all. They run in the same pace, fight the same style and have the same amount of health points. The only distinguishing feature is the colour of their armour associated with town’s coat of arms but it doesn’t make a big difference.

There are a lot of ways to increase the level of variety among the city guards in Skyrim. One of them is obviously creating some more 3D models of guards with different faces and body building but it requires a lot of work. I wish that in the next parts of The Elder Scrolls game developers are going to record more voices, maybe create some more versions of the armour and make their mechanics differ. Changing their sense of humour, sayings and attitude depending of which part of country guard defends seems to be a good idea also.

Even though there is a lot of flaws in Skyrim guards everyone finds them so cool and being identical and bad in mechanics just make them very recognisable on the field of RPG games. It makes me insecure if the points suggested by me would improve them or rather spoil the inimitable atmosphere of Skyrim.

references:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/12/video-game-characters-emotional-ai-developers

http://news.mit.edu/2001/kismet

https://howwegettonext.com/the-boundaries-of-artificial-emotional-intelligence-aa10583302dc

Google’s AI got “highly aggressive” when competition got stressful in a fruit-picking game

Final Task – Reflective Summary

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Throughout this module I have learned new ways to research, using a variety of resources which I wouldn’t of usually used beforehand but will continue to use in the future. The weekly tasks have challenged my writing skills, as I have found it difficult to write essays and to analyse images and texts. By doing these tasks i have seen my writing skills improve and I feel more confident with doing these in future. The lectures have been really interesting and i have found them enjoyable while i have learned important factors with fashion which I haven’t learnt in practical sessions or study sessions.

The first few tasks were on using online resources, primary and second sources. The first task opened my eyes on using the library resources and using articles. In the past I  have never used books for researching merely used online resources such as Pinterest. This task has seen me broaden my mind and use books. I did find this task challenging as I had to relate all three resources together, as I’ve never done this in the past it wasn’t the easiest. However this has been helpful as I now think of a variety of research resource and how I can link them together.

The next task was about using Harvard referencing. I have used Harvard referencing before but not like this, although this is a long process it’s important and now I know to reference all of my work in this manor. The next task I found more challenging than the ones before, as I had to analyse an image which I find difficult, this is due to me never having to analyse anything in depth before.

The following task on reflective writing really challenge me. I enjoyed reading ‘Fashion as Communication’ text as my knowledge on fashion was expanded, I liked reading how fashion has many definitions and other peoples views on fashion were very interesting. Since the previous texts I have used library resources more and found it easy to find supporting texts. Again I liked reading the other texts as I got a better and more thorough understanding of the first text and fashion in general. I know now how further reading is useful as it can support other research. However writing up a summary was harder than expected as I didn’t know what to put without going into too much detail. I also had many ideas which got mixed up and made it harder to put my thoughts down clearly. The task I really enjoyed and found engaging was ethical issues. In the lecture I liked seeing how shocking each advert was and how many different opinions there were as well as the controversies surrounding them. This was a really interesting task as it challenged me to think in more depth and stretch my ideas about information i had never looked into.

Since doing all these task I have used more research resources in my studio work, I now use books more than i use websites which allows me to look more into the work than before. The tasks and lectures have been very useful as I’ve learnt new thinking skills as well research skills. They have tested me and made me push myself, each new task I improved from the previous one as I filtered my thoughts more and looked at them in more depth. This whole module has been very beneficial as everything I’ve learnt can be used throughout my degree and for the future.

Task 4

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Red Star over Russia, Tate Modern 2017-2018

Overall the exhibition was, for me, inspirational in a sort of melancholy manner. The imagery displayed throughout the exhibition was spectacular and the deep historical background that it represented supported it further. This to me was very significant and it reminded me of the importance of meaning in my work, because of the emotions, or lack of emotions, that an artwork could create. By supporting the works with historical content the curator has provided a great context for viewers to recognize. This makes the exhibition as a whole much easier to understand and, more importantly, gives the viewer a better opportunity to make their own thoughts and opinions on the relevance of the work at the time. The exhibition had a real emphasis on informing the viewers on the historical and political history of soviet Russia, I feel that this strong historical part of the exhibition was integrated perfectly with the ‘artistic’ side of the exhibition. It would have been easy for the exhibition to have a ‘museum’ like atmosphere, but this was not the case.

final task

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From these research tasks I have learnt that there is more to art than the design. There are different categories, such as modern and post-modern art that determine the style of design. It is important to research the meaning of the design if any as it could be different to what you presume.

Completing these blogs has given me the skills to write in the Harvard style and consider different opinions for art work. I will use this style of writing within my future annotations and when completing research tasks. Looking into reviews and articles on art pieces has given me the opportunity to find new information and give me a whole new opinion entirely. Using quotes within my work also helps me to elaborate and express my opinion.

My favourite lecture was looking into post modernism as the art included within the talk caught my eye and was interesting to hear how they are related to other post modern pieces. We viewed my favourite subjects photography and graphic design which I am strongly into. To complete the blog from this lecture I looked into Nick Knight and Shepard Fairey who I have previously looked into in past projects. Both of their work are bold, eye-catching and create conversation. They both understand the power of red within art work and use it a lot to create an impact on their viewer. I have also learnt from looking at all the different pieces of artwork through the lectures that contrasting, limited colours such red and black creates an amazing impact on the design. For my illustration project we looked at using the photocopier to print out designs in black then using spots of design to overlap red. Doing this created an great effect that i will be using in future outcomes.

For the task looking into underground artwork I researched into the Oz magazine. I found it very interesting to learn how their brand was banned for being explicit with their designs but have recently been recovered and shared online. This shows how society have changed their opinion on explicit art work. This generation are much more accepting and willing to share so Oz have seized the opportunity to post and display their magazines online. From doing this they have been able to reach a wider audience but this will also degrade the physical magazine value as it can be viewed by everyone online.

From looking at photographers within the tasks I have been inspired for my next photography rotation. I have seen a variety of images also mixed with graphic work that could be used to influence my own photography work. I have even considered choosing Photography as a pathway as I can see how amazing photographs can change a view or even a persons life.

From completing these tasks and researching so many different artists will expand my influences and consider being more adventurous within my practical work.

Task 3

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Select one example to outline the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre?

One of the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre is that the consumer of the product has some kind of control over what is to happen in said circumstances, for instance actions made in the product can change the overall outcome of the product, for example in some role playing games the choices you select along the way can change the ending or what tasks/missions you must complete in order to finish the game some making the game longer and some making the game shorter, for instance making the choice to do all the side quests in a game instead of just sticking to the main story can result in many more hours of game play instead of a short play through. Although this can be in interactive games it can also be used in other types of media such as books where the audience is told to go to a different page for each answer or choice made overall resulting in a different ending, this is mostly found in children books but can be found in some adult/teen based demographic books too.

Image result for alternate endings in undertale

 

Does the interactive narrative still have a role to play in video games today. Give examples?

Interactive narrative still has a role in games such as role playing games, some good examples being Undertale where your decisions to kill or be peaceful change almost every aspect of the game, for example if you where to kill a certain character early on in the game then you have to fight their friends later on making the game a lot harder, also one funny thing in Undertale is that if you don’t buy cookies from a spider early on you need to fight a spider queen which is stupidly hard, I thing that is a good example of interactive narrative, Another good example is the game GTA V, this is a AAA title game in which the player has a lot of side tasks and main missions to complete but the big choice that the player makes is at the end of the game where you have to choose which character too kill each resulting in a different ending, the best being if you are able to not kill any of the three main characters. These type of game changing choices can be found in games like fallout 3 where there is a karma system in which the more bad things you do the worse karma you obtain, meaning less people will help you and you cant join certain groups which can make the game a lot more difficult.

Image result for fallout karma