mzTV,com

I think the television is an interesting invention to be talking about. I actually think the TV is seeing a decline in popularity. We are the generation of portable electronics, and the Internet. Especially in our society where everything is so fast paced and you feel like you can't fit enough in the day, even children are being carpooled from soccer practice to dance class and play dates. I think it would be hard to find an American family who continually sits down for dinner every night together and watches TV afterward. It used to be such a ritual, such a normal part of everyday life, but now everyone is caught up in their own to-do lists that the TV is a thing of the past.

Even as college kids, we cant make our schedule around our favorite TV program, and rarely do we take the time to gather with friends in front of the tube anymore. Even as I sit here writing this I'm thinking of when I can get some alone time to catch up on Gossip Girl...online. That's the other thing, the TV is almost like an escape. Or maybe that's just how I feel. But if I am going to spend time watching a TV show and not be productive, I want to be able to relax for that one hour and not worry about any interruptions from friends. To me the TV shows have become an escape instead of a time to bond.

When I went on MZTV, all of these thoughts came flooding to me. Look at the way the website itself is set up. It allows the view to interact online with a museum. We are all about convenience in this generation. We want things to be convenient for us because we are too busy to think about it otherwise.

I didn't want to write this blog on the history of Television, we have already discussed it. But I think it would be interesting for you to think about how the Television has changed is symbolism in your life.

Ru Paul's Drag Race

Episode 3 Reaction ==>

Even though the assignment was to just watch the last segment of the show, I had to watch the entire episode out of pure curiosity. The show combines competition, fashion, challenges, singing, judging, and basically all the elements of every reality show combined into an hour time slot. Watching the girls on stage at the end is a different kind of performance art then we are used to seeing. The two who were in the bottom two had to lip sync to stay in the competition. It reminded me of when we watched the clip of Mulholland Drive in class and Naomi Watts is watching the singer on stage and she all of a sudden dies. The purpose of that clip was to see how sound is being used in different performances now.

The drag queens had to lip sync their hearts out, and they treat lip syncing like regular singing, it IS a type of performance. You do NEED a talent to lip sync with the passion that they did. When Shannel's hair piece fell off her head she continued to perform. The judges were impressed nto by her confidence, but by her vunerabilty. Shannel didn't stop, she kept going and stayed in her drag queen persona. Performance art comes in all different forms, but no matter what you are performing there is a character you are portreying. Always hold that character throughout your performance because even though she lost her hair we still looked at her as Shannel lip syncing to Whitney Houston.

Fourth Episode===>
I've only watched two episodes but I already have a favorite! Ongina's Mac Viva Glam commercial was fantastic! Celebrate life. We need to always remember that even though we have tradgedy and heartbreak, sadness and defeat, Celebrating life itself can always bring us back to a beautiful place in our lives. I loved her message and I love her overall perfomance.

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Okay, I was writing this post while watching the show and Ongina just won and told on national tv that she is HIV positive. I mean talk about bringing reality into performance art. Looking at Ongina, you look at an artist, the makeup on her face, the character she has made, and the persona she portreys. But after admitting such a devastating disease, we see past her materialistic looks and Ongina became not a performer, but a friend to the viewers.

Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the Oscars last night because of Chapter Meeting that didn’t end until 10, but LUCKILY what I did catch was something that made me smile. I heard Hugh Jackmans voice boom through the television, “the musical is back!” and then came a whole medley of new and old Broadway tunes starring Beyonce, Hugh Jackman, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfield , and Dominic Cooper.

It is a pivotal moment in entertainment industry to proudly declare that the musical genre is taking over once again. After September 11th, ticket sales for Broadway shows saw a steady decline. I think after last nights performance we are going to see Broadway and other theater shows become popular again. With shows being transformed into movies, it is becoming more popular for people to enjoy musicals numbers.

I think Hugh Jackman (well, his script writers) made a good point and a great show. I think it is important since we have been talking about Broadway and now we are talking about movies, and how they are beginning to see less of a line between the two and more of collaboration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKhZtWHmels <======= check it out!

It's Electric..

Electronics Alive has been very interesting so far, I have left each performance feeling inspired and motivated. I love how the way art can make you feel like you're in a different world, in a different element.





Cynthia Lawson.

She describes her art as the space in between photography & video. Her creations were brilliant and really add another dimension to photography. Being a person who loves photography, I was truly engaged by her work. Especially how she intermixed culture as her underlying subject. She said during her performance, "I make interfaces through which people can view and communicate about critical issues, across cultures and language..." At any point in our lives, if we can find a communication between languages and cultures, we have succeed. Cynthia Lawson's ideas and views about communication in culture makes her visual pieces speak multitudes deeper than the images we are physically looking at.



The artisans in Guatemala was definitely the piece that touched me the most. It is visual proof of how our technological advances are something we take for granted. Their craftsmanship in the beading is beautiful art to us. Our technology is art to them. Our cultures collided together when Cynthia Lawson went to Guatemala.


Bruce Wand.

"The New Face of Contemporary Art"
When Bruce Wand began his performance, he explained that amateurs are the largest content creators. Between flickr, youtube, myspace (to name a few), it is the everyday people on the net that are helping to create. I think it is interesting that he opens up with information like this, and then goes on to teach us amateurs (the audience) about a new kind of art. Almost like he is inviting us to begin our curiosity for Contemporary Art.

I thought many of his examples were thrilling, including Charles A. Csuri's piece Horse Play, 1996 and Andy Deck's Glyphiti, which was amazing that his inspiration comes from ordinary people. I love art that allows the population to get involved if they so choose to be. I think Bruce tried to convey this. He insisted that the point of his performance was to "inform and inspire". By allowing the audience to see that we too can be a part of this art, it allows us to feel more connected.

I also really enjoyed Bruce Wand's Buddha Light Paintings, by showing us the grid and how he reflected the light in certain areas for certain reasons, it gave more meaning to the art. I love art that has some sort of message embedded in it.

Finally, I liked the point he made when he said, "We are at a pivotal moment of digital art. Digital art will eventually become contemporary art as the word 'digital' becomes less and less used." We are in a generation of transformation in every aspect. Between the government, freedoms, technology, inventions, and everything that is continuously growing in our everyday lives, it is wonderful to know we are also part of an art revolution.
Our generation is the face of contemporary art.

Christina Nguyen Hung

I always tell people that my mind only works on the creative side, that I don't understand chemistry or biology. To be able to see an artist use scientific experiments for her inspiration and collection, I was inspired. Christina Hung's creativity is undeniably refreshing. Her ideas to create messages, both poetically and politically, through a petri dish are brilliant. I sometimes get frustrated when I can't understand how someones mind could possibly work to create something so unique. But that frustration soon turns into awe. I wish I could come up with something as creative as Christina has.

You could also tell from the way Christina was speaking that she has passion and desire for work. From all the speakers I saw, I felt it the most with her. She kept explaining that she wasn't perfect at her art yet, and she will continue to make mistakes along the way. And I like that truthfulness. Every artist will come across some leaps and bounds they will hurdle to get to satisfaction in their art, and her explaining that even successful artists feel that way too really made her easy to connect with.

Her story about Steven Kurtz really struck me as something from a Twilight Zone book, or the type of movie where the police are the bad guys. Art is expressive and needs no explanation, so for the law to actually demand this man give up his work and hold him in jail for it, was absolutely appalling to me. We can hope that in the years to come we won't see artists being questioned so heartlessly. I loved how Christina used her own work to speak her mind as well. She truly showed the freedom of speech through her art and I applaud her for that.



Overall I found Electronics Alive invigorating and inspiring. I look forward to tomorrow night's events.

My Flip Book

Finished! It feels good to have finished this project, and although I was nervous about it in the beginning, I ended up enjoying it. Once I had an idea in place and decided to just go for it, it ended up being a piece of art that I am proud to have finished. Here it is...

Why the vast difference from 1951 films to 1971 films

To figure out how Gene Kelly's performance of "Singing in the Rain", transformed so drastically over a twenty year period on the clips we saw of A Clockwork Orange, I really tried to find out what had changed in the movie industry between 1951 and 1971.





In 1951 the Motion Pictures Production Code PROHIBITED films concerning abortion or drugs. Just from that fact it is clear why there were never films with Clockwork Orange's content made back then. But then in 1953,at the height of the Red Scare, movies about murders and kidnappers began come about. Still, there was no cursing, drugs or abortion but we can already see a shift in the content of films. Later on in '53, the film From Here to Eternity tested these restrictions by including corruption, violence, prostitution...but the film was deemed unsuitable for audiences.





By the mid 50s, around 1955, Frank Sinatra starred in a successful film The Man With the Golden Arm, which was a controversial film for its time. Fortunetly, the success of it helped the Motions Picture Association of American loosen its rules and allowed prostitution, adbortion and light curse words, to be used in films.





A little over a decade later, 1967, Bonnie & Clyde, had the slogan, "They're young. They're in love. They kill people." This movie glorified beautiful people and the act of killing. Also in the same year, The Trip, came out which showed for the first time on film, the use of taking LSD and narcotics.





So by the time A Clockwork Orange was filmed, a lot had changed since 1951. Kubrick's movie still brought a lot of controversy, due to its extreme violence. But because of the progression and freedom films were begining to allow, it is now easier to understand why A Clockwork Orange's rendition of Singing in the Rain was so drastically different.

dates and facts came from http://www.filmsite.org/milestones1970s.html

TED: MIT Students Turn Internet Into a Sixth Human Sense -- Video

My first reaction after reading this article was, "how can someone be so smart to actually make something like this happen." I think with my right side of the brain. I am more creative and less mathematical and scientific. For someone to come up with this idea is absolutely out of my element. I think it is brilliant, and brilliantly scary. With all the technological advances we have seen over the past decade, it is incredible to think that one day technology will be the one controlling humans.

I think this projector of information can be very useful in work, and for work related purposes. But when the article mentioned, "When he encounters someone at a party, the system projects a cloud of words on the person's body to provide more information about him -- his blog URL, the name of his company, his likes and interests." I got very uneasy about this new invention. I mean talk about intrusive. I think it is enough that you can google someones name and have a plethora of their past and present pop up on your computer screen, but to actually be talking to someone and in the middle of a conversation bring up all their information from the computer right into the moment, it feels so dehumanizing.

Text message, Facebook, Email, and all other communication websites have completely taken away from the communication between humans. Phone calls are becoming more rare, it is easier to make a date over facebook, and email are a simple way to not have to directly talk to someone but still let them know you are thinking about them. Maybe that is why relationships have gone so awry in the past few years. Communication by word of mouth has become like an extinct species. Saying I love You is a simple text message or email. Everything is easier said written in words instead of spoken, and our communication has taken a toll for our advances in technology.

I think this "sixth sense" is going to be the next big thing. People are going to love it, while other people are going to hate it. But it is definitely the next step in our advances in technology. I just hope we can utilize it and not abuse it.

Flipping Out

All I could think about during class was the 200 page flip book we are going to make by Thursday. I'm having anxiety over it because I have no idea what I am going to do... does anyone else feel overwhelmed by this project?