Relational Aesthetics

Monday, April 23, 2018 11:59 PM

Relational Aesthetics is a term coined by the curator Nicolas Bourriaud to describe art that rejects the manufacturing of traditional art objects and instead attempts to establish new human relationships through collective experiences and new interactions. The art puts the interaction at the center of the work instead of the artist or any physical manifestations of the artist's work.

As a member of a group I helped put together a presentation on Relational Aesthetics that we shared with the class.

Two Weeks Remaining...

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 1:43 AM

Two weeks remaining in the class and I finally was able to make progress on writing my own style transfer code. I didn't write it from scratch, I rewrote the existing code I found online to improve the code quality and make it fit my workflow. I'm going to continue working to make further improvements over the next few days.

Hank Willis Thomas: What We Ask Is Simple

Monday, April 16, 2018 9:23 PM

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976) is an American conceptual artist and photographer who addresses themes of identity, history, and popular culture as they relate to African Americans. His work shows the stereotypes used to portray African Americans as well as the uniqueness and humanity of the individual beneath the stereotype.

Bernd and Hilla Becher: In Dialogue with Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt

Monday, April 16, 2018 9:11 PM

Bernd Becher (b. 1931) and Hilla Becher (b. 1934) were German conceptual artists and photographers who worked as a team to photograph buildings and industrial structures. As internationally recognized artists the couple met Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre and engaged each other in an artistic dialogue, supporting each other’s creativity.

Cyprien Gaillard: Nightlife

Monday, April 16, 2018 9:03 PM

Cyprien Gaillard (b. 1980) is a prominent young French artist who makes films, sculptures, and paintings. His work focuses on the artistic expression of concepts of entropy, destruction and humankind’s impact on nature.

Sprint 1

Monday, April 16, 2018 8:50 PM

Our next assignment for Collaborative Design is to write code for a crude prototype. It doesn't have to look pretty; we just need to vet our ideas and build something to see if things work as we expect.

Four-Axis Mill

Monday, April 16, 2018 10:41 AM

This week's assignment is the Four-Axis Mill skill builder. Our goal was to get some experience using the machine.

I milled this simple object out of a dowel rod that was left over from a previous assignment.

Cylinder piece of wood with small pieces cut out of it.

Not everything went as expected. I did learn a lot about the limits of the machine though, and that makes me happy.

Wooden Mallet

Wednesday, April 11, 2018 12:24 PM

My next project is to build a wooden mallet with the lathe. It was quite a challenge! I look at this mallet and am amazed I was able to make this. The wood lathe is an intimidating machine.

wood mallet with thin ten inch handle and fat four inch head.

Feedback Collective Review

Wednesday, April 11, 2018 10:00 AM

Today I am meeting with ITP's Feedback Collective to discuss this project. I'm going to use this blog post to present what my project is about so this post will provide a review of what I've accomplished.

Overview

The basic idea is to take Google Street View photos and stylize them to make them more visually appealing. Although the Google Street View tool is an amazing application the photos taken can be fairly dull looking. Google is working to address this but they are aiming for a high degree of realism. My goal is to take a much more artistic approach.

Readout, User Interviews, and Technology Research

Tuesday, April 10, 2018 10:18 PM

Our second assignment for Collaborative Design is to complete a "Readout" for our project. We now have a name for our project and a brief elevator pitch. We also did a few user interviews and thought about the technology we might use to build a proof of concept.