Andreas Berner and Nova Jiang

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Art in Their Eyes

            Andreas Berner and Nova Jiang are two artists that approach art in two different ways. They both use technology in some way to create their art. Nova Jiang uses technology in a way that brings her sculpture like art to life. She uses it to her advantage to get people to play and interact with her work. Berner on the other hand uses technology to design and create things like commercials and music videos that are used more for marketing purposes. Berner’s work is more towards the design aspect of art where as Jiang’s work is more about fine arts. I have attempted to contact both artists but only got one response back from Nova Jiang. However, because of the amount of work she has currently working on for an upcoming project, she noted me that she was too busy to answer a few of my questions.

Andreas Berner is a graduate student from NYU with a Masters of Science degree in Digital Imaging and Design. He works as a creative director for several projects and agencies including his own private film production called Permanent Eye Pictures. He has directed several commercials and even music videos. He has also worked with several types of art including filmmaking, performing arts, and art and technology, but mainly works with 3D art and visual effects. I wasn't able to find a website for his film production, however, I did find that he was commissioned by several big companies such as Hyundai. Berner’s main tool for producing his work is a computer. He uses programs such as Maya and After Effects to create and put films together. His focus is more towards marketing, creating designs to promote or sell and an idea or product. Like many of the commercials seen on television, his goal is to make the product or idea look good so that people will become interested.

  

He uses several techniques such as using various camera angles that puts the audience in place of the camera and getting them to mentally interact with the video. In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin presents the idea of performance in film and how different camera angles are used to compliment an actor’s performance. Berner uses this idea in his work to capture the objects in his videos and present them well to the audience as if the idea or product is the star of the commercial or music video. Berner also uses bold, vivid colors to his advantage to catch the viewer’s eyes and to draw them into watching the video. His style also separates him from other similar artists in the business. He clearly has strong skills in 3D art and visual effects that he makes the subjects in his videos almost seem realistic but still having this sense that it was digitally created and animated. One really good example to sum up what he does would be a video for a commercial that he did for Hyundai for the 2012 Olympic games.  

 

The commercial features a red Hyundai driving down the road passing by different countries with signs saying “welcome” in their language. Throughout the twenty seconds some of the film, he changes up the camera angles to catch different views of each scene and the car but still featuring the car driving down the road. As a viewer looking through the eyes of the camera, you are traveling down the road with the car experiencing the different countries that the car passes by before finally ending up at London, the final destination of the video. All Berner’s work have one clear meaning behind them. What he displays in his pieces is what the audience will interpret it as. For example, the Hyundai commercial is about the car and the Olympics. As a creative director his job is to make videos like this to get people to interested the things he’s trying to sell, in this case, the car and also promoting the Olympic Games at London. Berner’s work is more towards being aesthetically pleasing while Nova Jiang, a fine artist, on the other hand is more about making art that is more functional and teaching something about life.

Nova Jiang, a graduate from UCLA with a Masters of Fine Arts in Media Art and a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Outright Nova Jiang displays art in a totally different way, visually and interactively. Unlike Berner, Jiang’s work is more physical where as Berner’s art is more digital. Her use of technology isn’t done on the computer. She uses electronics and software in her pieces to make them come to life by making things move. One of her pieces called, “Landscapes Abbreviated,” created for Wave Hill’s 2012 Winter Workspace Program, is made up of 16 pieces side by side in a grid like format. Each piece has a kind of bar with plant life on it that constantly swings around creating a sort of maze that people can go through, almost like a game. 

Jiang’s focus also isn’t about the visual aspect of art as Berner is with his. Her purpose is more towards creating a sense of play for her audience, where like in her piece, “Landscapes Abbreviated,” her audience is actually the performers in her piece instead of the piece being the performance itself. Jiang’s work can be described as new media according to Manovich. In Manovich’s book What is New Media, he presents the idea that new media is interactive. He states that, “[I}n the process of interaction the user can choose which elements to display or which paths to follow” (55). In one of her pieces titled, “Archipelago,” she created three green almost mini type-like floats for a commission for the 2010 01SJ Biennial. An event that hosts artists that presents their work to the public in promoting how we can change the world with the tools we have. Each of the floats holds bottles, paper, and pens in them. The green floats are supposed to symbolize deserted islands. People are welcome to come up to any of the islands and write something down and put into the bottle. According to Jiang, “Archipelago” is representing how “people should leave the island of their daily routine.” Instead of creating a piece where people look at and try to interpret what the meaning behind the piece, Jiang has them actually participate with the her and the piece themselves as a kind of activity to get people to actually act, in this case, to leaving their desert island routine.   
Compared to Berner, Jiang’s work can be interpreted in many ways because of how abstract it can be. It doesn’t exactly say in front what the meaning behind each piece. Her pieces have more freedom to the viewers to look at and interpret it in their own way. Berner’s pieces have one meaning to them and that is about the products or idea he is focusing on in his videos.

Although both Nova Jiang and Andreas Berner are both modern artists they have different ways in approaching how they create art. They’re also both different in that one is a designer and the other is a fine artist. Berner creates videos and film for the purpose of selling while Jiang creates her sculptures to get some sort of a teaching across. What they create art for also effects the type of art they create. Since Berner working in the business where it focused more on marketing goods, he has to create work that will sell and be able to promote the company. Jiang creates work that fits more for a museum setting where art is more about being appreciated for what their for. Both artists may be different in the field of art they are in, they are both professionals at what they do and that is what makes them similar as artists.

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Works Cited

Andreas Berner. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <http://andreasberner.com/>.

Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Walter Benjamin. N.p., 1936. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm>.

Manovich, Lev. "What New Media Is Not." The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2002. 49-61. Print.

Nova Jiang. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <http://www.novajiang.com/>.

"Nova Jiang." Wave Hill Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2012.      

            <http://www.wavehill.org/arts/artists/nova-jiang/>.

           

           

Second Life: Creating myself

Real self:
For my real self I will try and keep it as close as possible to really make my avatar represent me. I will have the hair short as I have it now. The clothes will be a short sleeve hoodie with a tank top underneath. I will wear jeans and I will see if I can get a belt that hangs down my side as I always have it. For my shoes I will use ankle high converse. I will also throw in some earrings and some kind of hair tie or bracelet.

Fantasy self:
I based my fantasy design off Final Fantasy and Ragnarok. I started creating a character profile as well that I used to sketch and design my fantasy self. There are a lot of parts/clothing/accessories to it. I have the hair kind of short but it goes of into a long pony tail. The clothing is closely similar to the Ragnorok style of the thief class. I will keep my body build, height, and also my face (but with the triangles underneath my eyes) and I will attempt to make the clothes. My first plan is to try an mesh out each piece of clothing and accessory in second life that my character has on her outfit and put it on her like layers. The reason is that I wanted it to look more 3-dimensional. My second plan is to use a template and draw the design on it.

Interaction with Second Life

Manovich "What New Media is Not" questions

1) Under "The Myth of Interactivity," Manovich argues that computer media isn't "interactive." He does state that it is broad and can be interpreted as interactive physically (clicking on picture for example) but how will someone from the outside understand the interaction that Manovich is talking about?

2) Also under "The Myth of Interactivity," Manovich talks about Laniar's "post-symbolic communication." Where has this myth started? Does it or will it effect the rise of New Media?

Here is the screenshot of my Youtube mix called "iPiano." I layed out the videos side by side, from the lowest key to the hightest key mimicking an actual piano. I wanted to keep it simple because after much experimentation it became difficult trying to harmonize all the different sounds making it a mess. However, it was fun playing around to try and make the videos fit.

Homage to the Shallows

The video as a whole came together a lot better than I had expected. Watching everyone's films at first, I thought things wouldn't go as smoothly as they did. Especially since we were let free to do whatever we wanted knowing everyone did have their own styles and tastes, so I assumed that putting it together would be difficult. When everyone else before me played their video in class I thought for sure mine would not fit. However, it did intrigue me how the videos that related to maps were similar to one another and the videos about time were similar as well as the ones about technology. I especially noticed that in their techniques in using transitions and sound. When we put together the videos in 3 different groups according to our paragraphs we really made those sections look and sound as a whole. Although the videos aren't exactly what each of the paragraph is talking about, it still relates the book because of the symbolism that everyone used to represent what their paragraph is talking about. It more or less summarizes rather than goes in depth into every little detail that the book goes into.
My favorite editing trick throughout the film would have to be the first group who did the paragraphs about maps. I like the way they used the technique to connect all their videos by having one song play throughout all their videos. We did the same technique with the animations but instead of having the one universal sound play in the background, they had their song in the foreground. That is what really made their transition between their videos go so smoothly as a whole. They also still had their own sound effects in each of their videos and that is what separates them individually. Within the group I also liked Serina's use of transition in her video. Unlike all the others, hers was unique. Instead of something like a blur or a sweep to transition from one clip to the next, she used something that was like a green bar acting almost like a scanner. I thought that was very interesting and something that I will have too think about when I do transitions for another video.
Erin's video was probably the one that stayed true to the book. She chose videos that were very literal to each sentence of her paragraph that it was very close to how imagined the paragraph to be. From drawing a simple landscape to growing up to becoming someone drawing something so precise, she really nailed it. Her use of transitions as well was also very interesting especially between the clips of the boy pointing at Balitmore on the map and the man pulling down the screen and drawing a map of the U.S. It was very creative and well done.
Overall, I thought this project was a success and I am very proud of it! Everyone did an amazing job with their individual videos and an even more amazing job putting it all together. It was difficult at first trying to figure out how we could connect our videos with another, but by working it out together we pulled it off.

Dreamers Life

This is my first time ever editing videos. I also took a big step and I became a little adventurous by writing my own song which was another first for me. The editing process was very difficult especially for this project. The hardest part was actually matching the audio recording to the video and also trying to make it so it doesn't look like a music video.I wanted to stick with the concept of Richard Graham's video art but I wanted to relate more to modern artists and also I wanted to make it so I can relate to video as well (Graham's song just didn't fit me well...). It turned out to be a long agonizing process but I think it turned out pretty well for my first.

Beauty Behind Destruction

I did the first part of Alex Hubbard's Collapse of the Expanding Field I-III. I wanted to keep the concept of destroying the flowers creating destruction. I kept everything the same except I reversed it. I wanted to show the beauty behind the destruction that created the art. This was probably my favorite video to make out of the two. I had fun breaking the glass and cutting the flowers. I was very happy with the final video.

Video Art project

 The 2 videos I chose are:

The Collapse of the Expanding Field I-III by Alex Hubbard (2007)
I chose this video because how they took something that was already beautiful (the flowers) and they cut them up and destroyed everything but what came out in the end was art. To me, it was the beauty of destruction that created an art piece and that is why I like this video.

and

How I Became a Ramblin' Man by Richard Graham (1997)
I really like the concept behind this video. It is about a wandering cowboy that has been traveling around with his horse and he would stop and sing in the middle of no where.  It is like the saying "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" The man is talented at singing and playing the guitar but no one can hear him. His talent is pretty much oblivious to the world.

Video Art II questions

1. In the very beginning of the reading it talks about why advertising isn't considered video art. The reason being is that advertisements have a purpose in trying to sell something to the audience while video art is done just for the artists personal reasons. The reading also compares video art to traditional media several times and there are some traditional media posters that are still considered art even though they are a type of advertisement. So what makes advertisements in traditional media such as posters considered art more than the advertisements made by video?

 2. I've realized that many of if not most of the video art done is very abstract. Not only the images but also sound. But I wonder, what makes a good video art? What makes one video art piece stand out more than the other? Are most of the successful video art abstract?

See animation with audio

This is my first time putting audio with an animation. It was hard to figure out what sounds would go with it. I experimented a lot with using the mic and editing the audio in Garageband such as the panda and tank noises.

See animation

I animated "See" showing how the panda first started off as this gentle creature following the ways of Confucius' proverb. As the animation progresses the sun goes down along with Confucius symbolizing how we let go of his teachings and we start becoming curious and letting ourselves being cluttered with all this stuff. Then finally we just allow ourselves to be just consumed by seeing violence and being okay with mature rated things.

Critcal Thinking Questions

1. In paragraph VII, Benjamin talks about the confusion between the artistic value of painting vs photography. He mentions photography has been under question whether or not it is a form of art and whether it is photography that actually changed the entire nature of art. Since photography and film is still new, would past art such as paintings be valued less than what film and photography would be worth centuries from now? Do we value photography and film more even in today's time?

2. In paragraph XI, Benjamin asks the questions "How does a cameraman compare with the painter?" He compares them with a magician and a surgeon as polar opposites and how a magician works more distant where a surgeon works more direct. It is true that both the painter and cameraman will come up with two totally different pictures because of the way they work, however, wouldn't they still be considered the same in that they both want to achieve some sort of reality, such as both the magician and the surgeon both work to heal the sick?

Project 1: See, Hear, Speak

 

Statement: This piece was inspired by the short proverb, "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," from the 3 wise monkeys. Using images from several books, a D. Gray Man manga novel, videogame magazines, and images from pulled from Google, I put together this triptych that called "See, Speak, Hear."

This piece illustrates our generation and what we see, hear and speak of things now a days. The panda is meant symbolize our nature, which is much more relaxed. We are constantly surrounded and influenced by so many things to keep us entertained such as social media, movies, music, the internet, and our ever evolving technology that it is what we make of as life. It's all we really focus on that we don't realize the other things in life outside the computer or television screen in front of us.