8.4 Two Takeaways from Section III Readings

1. Kylie Peppler -- One of Peppler's more interesting points comes when she states that the aim of creative coding is artistic expression, rather than proficiency. I think it is immensely important to keep this consideration in mind with all digital art forms that are brought into the classroom, but this is especially true for coding, which can often be seen as "technically dense" or "difficult." With coding, it's very easy for students to get bogged down by the feeling that they are working within a field that they don't know (i.e. computer science), or working with a medium that requires a certain extent of foreknowledge (either of certain softwares or programming languages), but this is not the case. Coding, like all digital art forms, has the potential to be used for creative expression, but it is the duty of the teacher to eliminate any potential barriers to this goal and ensure that students understand that becoming savvy in a given form is not the aim. When students enter a digital art classroom, they should feel as though they are expressing through the exploration of new forms, not simply learning the forms for the purposes of becoming adroit--for this offers scarcely anything of value to the arts. 
2. Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary Stager -- The portion of the "Invent to Learn" reading in which Gary Stager discussed composition vs. consumption was of particular note to me because he was articulating a sentiment that struck very close to home. In this short anecdotal excerpt, Stager articulates his feeling of immense loss at never being able to have his music compositions be played or heard because the pieces were either too complex, or his teachers and peers did not have the technical knowledge required to play the piece appropriately. In spite of this, he states that such instances of lost/unheard music are now in the past because most computers now come equipped with notation software and MIDI keyboards that can be bought for largely inexpensive prices. These technological innovations effectively bring the world of music to everyone and afford entirely new opportunities for creation, exploration, and expression--even for those who are not traditionally gifted in music. As a creative individual that has always struggled with music, I couldn't agree more with this sentiment because I have experienced it personally. Music was never my forte, and it seemed that I could never fully learn an instrument in the manner that I wanted to. However, since I've gotten my hands on Ableton (one of the many notation softwares that Stager is alluding to) and a MIDI keyboard, I've made significant strides in music that I could not have made otherwise. I have been able to learn a bit of music theory on my own by teaching myself through doing, and this has even lead to a few great compositions that I'm extremely proud of (one such example is last week's Assignment 7.1, "Bathroom Beat," which was created using Ableton). In a non-digital climate, I would've had to settle for my inability to naturally create music, or expend a significant amount of resources on instructors or training services, but now, neither of these have to be the case. The digital landscape affords opportunities for inexpensive, efficient, interest-driven learning, in places where it never existed before. 

8.3 "Scanimation" Lesson Plan

1. Title: Scanimation
2. Activity: Using Scanners to Create Animation
• Students will begin activity by thinking about how they can either: a) convey a short narrative through a sequence of scanned images, or b) create some type of movement or motion through a sequence of scans
• Students may then split into groups, or even work individually if they so choose, and work at placing objects onto scanners to create their sequences
• During this work time, I will be sure to inform students that they must pay special and careful attention to the placement of their objects on the scanner so that the animation created is smooth
• After gathering their images, students will put the scanned images together to create their narratives using either EZ GIF, giphymaker, Adobe Animate, or any other software that they see fit
• Once the student have put together their Scanimated GIFs, we will have a short class viewing and critique
3. Age Group: 9-12 Grades
4. Learning Objectives:
• To illustrate to students one of the many opportunities for commingling between digital art forms.
• To ensure that students understand that 2D art forms can be used to create movement and motion, even if that aforementioned movement/motion is not intrinsic to the form itself.
• To get students to think creatively about how a narrative can be created through a sequence of images.
• To get students to become comfortable with manipulating the unpredictability of a scanner. 
5. Materials: Scanners, online GIF maker or application, any additional materials that students may choose to scan

8.2 Inside the Making of "Don't Litter"

The first step of the animation process was gathering materials. This was probably the worst and most difficult part of the process because it involved actively looking for trash (which is obviously gross). Since I don't smoke, I ended up finding the two cigarette butts on a walk home, as well as the used nib bottle. The rest of the trash was found via a dumpster dive in my suite.

Once I gathered the materials, a huge part of the process was figuring out how I wanted to arrange the trash within the frame (different placements depicted below). Since I already had an idea of what I wanted to do for the animation, really the main thing to consider was the placement of everything. The main "characters" of the animation were my fingers, so I had to figure a way to place the trash in a manner where my fingers could easily "walk" through the rubbish. 

 One thing I really wanted to do was add an iStopMotion preset background so that it would appear as though my fingers were on the beach. I though this would add more potency to the narrative, but I ended up going without the preset background because it interfered with the placement of my trash items (as shown below).

After I completed the animation, I really wanted to the add this sign at the end of the narrative to seal the deal. Ultimately, I ended up going without it because I wanted to let the message I was communicating speak for itself. Often art is a bit less impactful if you spoon feed the viewers the message your are trying to convey as an artist. In the case of this narrative, I thought it would be more appropriate to go without "beating the viewer over the head."

8.1 Don't Litter

7.2 Sound Reflection

One of the things I find most interesting about sound is that our relationship with it is highly selective. While this may seem completely obvious, I've found that when we're listening for certain sounds, we hear them exceptionally well. But if we aren't listening for certain sounds, they fade into the background of our lives, becoming mere ambiances that we're accustomed to. To explain this phenomena more precisely, I believe that in many cases our ears train themselves to the "natural." By virtue of our daily activities, our ears (in a sense) become deaf to the basic sounds that flow through our lives like clockwork: breathing, our own movements, room tones, etc. When a sound that is out of the ordinary appears, our hearing snaps into gear: people's speech, a loud car horn, a door slamming, etc. The difference between these two types of hearing could be described as "passive" and "active." Of course, we are always "hearing" something, however the sounds we hear passively are largely ignored, whereas the active sounds are pushed to the forefront of our attention. For me personally, this sound project served as the perfect example of this. When I went around my environment, hunting for sound in various places, I noticed sounds that I'd probably always heard, but never really payed any attention to. For instance, walking into my bathroom to listen for sounds, I couldn't help but notice the faint whirr of the air condition--but in any other scenario, where I wasn't practicing active listening, this sound would have easily been ignored.

When artists pay attention to sound, it shows holistically. For the arts, there is so much content and meaning that can be communicated aurally if one meticulously places thought into sounds. This of course applies to any form of music, but even for visual art installations, the utilization of carefully crafted sound can go a long way to bring potential viewers into the world of the artist. Sound has a certain immediacy to it, and as such, it may communicate something to viewers that a visual component could not do as a stand-alone. In regard to our class curriculum, precisely the same principle applies. In many of our projects (such as the video unit, or some groups' Impact 25 works), solely using the visual would not have served to convey much of any meaning for what was presented. Sound was not only a desired complement to the visual, but an integral part of the total message that was being delivered. This integral nature of sound is something that we miss entirely when we go about our lives listening "passively." Instead as artists and educators, we must practice active listening, and be readily looking for ways to creatively use sound to express ideas and transform them into new meanings.

7.1 Bathroom Beat

After waking up to the faucet running in my bathroom, I decided to take advantage of the natural ambiences available in the bathroom to see if I could make a hip-hop beat. I am not unfamiliar with making beats, so I went about gathering sounds based upon the basic components that make up every standard beat: a main melody, a kick, a snare, and a high-hat. Each sound that I picked to go in the composition was picked with the intention of using it to fulfill one of these basic beat-making components.

6.3 Impact 25 Final Project Outcome

6.1 Head Smashes Board Videos

My Video:

Original Video:

6.2 The Creative Potential of Video for Art Classrooms

While video certainly affords a plethora of options for exploration, creation, and expression in many different regards, I believe that its true creative potential, as an art medium, is only realized upon considering the things that it allows for which other mediums simply cannot do. By its very nature alone, video is already set far apart from the vast majority of art forms because it enables its creators to utilize moving images; Most traditional art forms are largely static, and thus, dynamism must come through special techniques or other means (i.e. texture, placement of subject matter, color, etc.). With video, this is not the case. Images are fluid intrinsically, and these same images can be cut, sequenced, arranged, exchanged, flipped, distorted, recolored, and even holistically altered to create entirely new forms of meaning. Furthermore, the manner in which these moving images are presented opens up additional realms of possibility. In some cases, the creative presentation of video can offer just as much to the overall artistic product as how the video was made, if not more. One such example of this is the upcoming "Addressing Home" project being undertaken by Teachers College in December. The various video works on display will likely speak to the concept of "home" in their own unique regard, however, by projecting these videos onto the Manhattan Bridge (a bridge that is used by many New Yorkers for daily commutes, and actually coming home), the meaning of this project is deepened and intensified.

In regard to the potential of video in art classrooms and education abroad, video is best suited for facilitating collaboration and communication between student peers. For every step of the video-making process, from preproduction to postproduction, teamwork is an absolute necessity in order to ensure a suitable final product. In preproduction, roles must be properly assigned and adhered to. Who will be in charge of gathering the props, costumes, and makeup to be used in the video? Who will direct/film/sound-record the video? Who will be in charge of scouting locations? What is the shot list? In the production process, the collaborative spirit carries forward from preproduction and intensifies. Positive communication between directors, cinematographers, sound recorders, productions assistants, and potential actors must be maintained at all times, otherwise, time, effort, and resources (which are all nonexpendable) will have been wasted with scarcely anything to show for it. Similarly, for postproduction, it is completely counter intuitive for collaborators to butt heads in the editing lab. Compromises and team-spirited resolutions are the only way to eschew negativity and quickly resolve problems that may arise. Having students engage in processes such as these serves to strengthen their ability to work well together with others--a skill that is extremely important in all walks of life, and especially important for aspiring artists. Often in art, too much emphasis is placed on individuality and self-focused creative exploration, which can make it difficult when it is time for artists to come together and work collaboratively. Introducing video into art classrooms ensures that students are able to become acclimated to the spirit of collaborating early on, which will greatly help their artistic futures.

5.3 Three Takeaways from the Week 5 Readings

1. Papert and Solomon begin by offering a troubling view of computers and education, wherein educators and schools frequently resort to "using bright new gadgets to teach the same old stuff in thinly disguised versions of the same old way." What they describe here is a very formulaic approach in which computers are only introduced into the classroom for two reasons; either to be programmed by the student (i.e. used as a tool to reinforce what the student is already learning), or to program the student (i.e. to introduce the student to the technological way of doing or learning what they have already been doing or learning in the classroom). I certainly agree that this is immensely problematic because this approach is severely bereft of any potential for experimentation, creativity, and most importantly, actual doing. As discussed in other previous readings, technology in our society is already prevalently used for the aforementioned purposes of programming and being programmed, thus it is counterintuitive and completely redundant for this to also take place in the classroom. Classroom spaces (whether artistic or not) should be places of learning, and learning certainly should include introduction to new ideas and possibilities. By educators and schools resorting to this formulaic approach, they are "shooting themselves in the foot" by hindering both the function of computers, and what students can do and achieve with computers. 
2. Charny helpfully illuminates that since the Industrial Revolution, there has been a persistently growing gap between "the maker" and "the user," as most people are beginning to relinquish their ability to create in favor of simply using the technologies that societal advancement has afforded them. With this, comes the death of knowledge, understanding, and appreciation, in regard to the culture of making, as well as the actual practice of making itself. While this viewpoint is extremely credible, I believe the true power of Charny's argument lies in how it serves to build upon the problems put forth in other readings. In week one, we read about how technology is often misused, and incorporated into the human continuum of time (when in reality, technology is meant to be timeless and exist outside of this space). From this reading, we concluded that the problem lied in over-use, a conundrum where many have resorted to being "always-on" in regard to their technological devices. However, from Charny's argument, perhaps the true problem is "use" in general. Whether this be over-use, or even under-use, Charny illustrates that this reliance on "using" is extremely detrimental to our natural human faculties. While I don't think that he is necessarily advocating for us to use nothing at all, I do believe he is suggesting that we aim to consider our making/using ratio. If ever using tips to a higher percentage than making, technology is having an anti-humanizing effect on us, and there is likely a problem that needs to be remedied. If making is at a higher percentage than using, we should consider ourselves well-off because making is essential for forging new forms of knowledge for our future.
3. Aside from the power of making in a general sense, a common theme throughout these readings seems to be the idea of "learning through making" (and tinkering). This is a crucial theme that becomes somewhat obscured in the surrounding talk about the history of making and the various societal implications of making culture, however, the importance of this concept cannot be understated, especially for future art educators. One of the things these readings do exceptionally well, whether intentionally or not, is that they equate "making" to "doing." Rather than strictly defining "making" as a process where something is created, these authors allude to there being much more than this. Similar to "doing," making involves utilizing brain activity to engage with a problem or idea, implementing problem-solving skills to troubleshoot and come up with practical solutions/responses, and finally, taking action (i.e. the actual process of creation). By this view, making is more than just a physical activity, or the literal concept of "creating with your hands." It is an active process of doing, wherein learning is achieved on multiple fronts, starting from the mental and working its way down into the product that our minds inform our hands to create. This sort of "making," and not the traditional definition, is the type of making that we as art educators should strive to encourage and foster within our classrooms. 

5.2 The Potential of Scanography for Art Making

Simply by judging from our homework assignments, I can easily see how scanography could be used as a potent tool for digital art making. First and foremost, scanography is easily accessible because it is extremely similar to photography in many regards; scanned photos rely heavily on exposure (the light of the scanner, and of the surrounding environment), depth-of-field (the distance from the scanner), and subject/composition (the placement of items on the scanner, and movement of items within the frame). However, the crucial distinction that makes scanography fun, alluring, and ultimately potent as an art form, is the fact that images can be altered while they are being taken. The manner in which the scanner captures motion lends itself to a variety of amazing and bizarre effects, and one can also quickly change the arrangement of items as the scanner beam is moving, effectively producing a nearly unpredictable product. If one wanted to create a final scan that is more predictable, it would take practice, exploration, and a comprehensive knowledge of how the medium is working to produce the images that result. When considered in this light, scanography is certainly an art form worthy of art making in its own right, for it necessitates the very same things that other traditional art forms require of its artists--albeit in a unique way that is specific to the medium.

5.1 Scanograph eBooks

Daily Meals eBook:

Water Reflection & Refraction eBook:

4.3 Digital Photography and Children

1. Digital photography is a fantastic material for children to utilize for learning and exploration because it allows them to perceive their world from an entirely new lens--quite literally! While we may be constantly seeing the world around us, these long-standing experiences make us somewhat desensitized to our own perceptions and the manner in which our world is arranged. When young students begin to delve into digital photography, creating their works necessitates that they be aware of certain elements of "framing" (i.e. the things depicted within the frame of a photo) that will effectively bring the composition of our world back into the forefront of their perception. A great photo might utilize depth, light/shadow, focus, angling, and a variety of other techniques which would serve to heighten a child's critical eye, and re-sensitize them to the beauty of the natural world.
2. The process of digital photography also lends itself to mistakes, and greatly facilitates a child's ability to correct or perfect a work late into the creative process. As a opposed to traditional photography that is usually developed in a darkroom, and for the most part, developed to be the final product, digital photography is extremely fluid, and able to be greatly altered before the final product. Editing softwares, such as Adobe Photoshop, are not only fantastic tools to use for digital photographs, but they are also intrinsically linked to the medium, and as such, serve as an essential part of the creative process. A young child might be thrilled to explore the plethora of options available in Photoshop to see just how far technology can change a photo before it is presented as the final work. 
3. In terms of art education, digital photography is perfect for facilitating the artistic development of a child because there is no designated way to take a "correct" photograph. Whether it be for social media, professional, or personal use, we are all constantly taking pictures and using processes of digital photography, which makes us all digital photographers. Children are certainly included in this tally, and thus, they too do not have the shackles of "good creative work" or "bad creative work." This lack of boundaries is extremely congenial for their education, and it would certainly serve to foster their sense of confidence in exploration and risk-taking.

4.2 Impact 25 Project Update

Impact25 Idea: Digital Ink Blot Interpretations
Collaborator: Jackie Gropper
Synopsis: Our Impact 25 idea involves showing 25 (or more) people digitally painted ink blots and documenting their interpretations/reactions to our drawn ink blots using digital videography. For our digital ink blots, we were thinking of having a small rotation of various designs that can be somewhat randomized when shown to our participants. Participants would then be asked (on camera) to introduce themselves, interpret the digital ink blots, and explain/justify their interpretations. After showing all the participants our designs and recording their interpretations and justifications, our team was thinking of then recreating the ink blots to align with each participant's stated interpretation. This part of our project is not yet finalized, but we do think that this would be a great element to include for the purposes of contrasting reality (of our initial ink blots) and perception (of the participants).
Work in Progress: Our Impact 25 team has already begun to create our rotation of ink blots, and we are continuing to finalize the methods that we would like to use for conducting our project. The next steps are to secure participants, and set aside ample time for video recording and editing. Additionally, we might look into creating more ink blots to have a larger rotation to choose from, however this is contingent on the other elements of our planning, setup, and execution.

Sample Ink Blot Drawing:

4.1 The Flower Spectrum

Original Photo Taken in Class:

2 Ideas For Creative Component:

1. Digital Animation - Some type of animation design which might encapsulate the various colors of the flowers depicted in the original photograph and give them some sort of personality and flair. Perhaps each color shown could correspond to an emotion. (IDEA CHOSEN FOR CREATIVE COMPONENT, AS SHOWN BELOW)
2. Sense Painting - A painting (either traditional or via digital technologies) that might exemplify how the flowers depicted in the photo would serve to stimulate the various senses. Painting might correlate to any of the five senses, except for sight, since the image is already readily apparent. 

Chosen Creative Component: The Flower Spectrum