Spring Show

Tuesday, May 15, 2018 10:27 AM

I created a software program to apply a Neural Style Transfer algorithm to Google Street View data to make an animation that looks like you are traveling inside a painting.

Google collects panorama photos from all around the world and makes them available through the Google Street View service. Although they visit many interesting locations, the photos often look dull. My project involves obtaining these photos through their API and using a coherent style transfer algorithm to make the sequence look like a painted animation.

Becoming Maurizio Cattelan

Monday, May 7, 2018 9:30 AM

Maurizio Cattelan (b. 1960) is an Italian artist who is well-known for his sculptures that on the surface seem humorous or satirical but on a deeper level address the bigger concepts of life, love, and death. He is one of the most famous and successful living artists in the world, and remarkably, he has achieved this without any formal art education or training. His success can be attributed to several factors. First, he is very knowledgeable about art history and has made a careful study of the contemporary art world. Second, he has a charming and engaging personality and has been able to use his character to build a network of people who like him, support him, and want to see him succeed. And third, he has been able to craft his artistic persona and brand to establish himself as a key figure in the art world. Sometimes Cattelan is criticized as a flamboyant artistic con-man, but I see him as a resourceful and motivated individual who initially floundered and struggled to find his place in the world but took some risks and worked very hard to build a successful career as an artist.

Final Presentation

Wednesday, May 2, 2018 9:14 PM

Today was the final day of our class. Our team presented the reLive business we developed over the course of the semester. The presentation included user personas, a UX design, a technical prototype, and a business model.

I'm proud of our team and how well we worked together. We all had other classes and responsibilities competing for our time but we all pitched in and worked when we could and we were forgiving when others couldn't. We had a good dynamic and were able to explore ideas effectively and efficiently.

Our presentation is available online. The code for our prototype is available on Github.

End of Class Presentation

Tuesday, May 1, 2018 10:13 PM

The semester is over and I am giving my end of class presentation tomorrow. I decided I'm not going to call it my "final" presentation because this project is nowhere near over. I've built a great platform for working with Google Street View data but haven't done anything with it that demonstrates its potential. I'm going to continue working on this over the summer and beyond.

Carrie Mae Weems

Monday, April 30, 2018 11:31 PM

For the last class I prepared a short presentation on Carrie Mae Weems. Weems is a African American photographer who addresses issues of sexism and racism with her work.

Pictured below is a selection of her work from The Kitchen Table Series, (1990). The series depicts staged scenes of a romance narrative.

various scenes of a kitchen table with a single light above it, a bird cage in the corner, and with a woman sitting at the table along with a man or her female friends. — The Kitchen Table Series (1990), by Carrie Mae Weems

This is the last meeting of my History of Contemporary Art class with Roselee Goldberg. Although I still one more paper to write, the class is drawing to a close. It's been immensely enjoyable and I am very glad I signed up for this. There's a lot to learn studying art.

Wooden Box

Wednesday, April 25, 2018 10:26 PM

For my Subtraction final I made this decorative box:

square wooden box with lid leaning on edge of box.

Every time I look at it I'm amazed I made it.

The reddish-orange wood comes from a Padauk (pah-DUKE) tree commonly found in Africa. It also goes by the name Vermillion.

Sprint 2

Wednesday, April 25, 2018 12:22 PM

This week we put most of our efforts into designing the user interface. We put together a presentation to share with the class to show our progress.

More detail is available below.

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.