Amazon Leaps Into High End of the Fashion Pool

SEATTLE — Amazon is so serious about its next big thing that it hired three women to do nothing but try on size 8 shoes for its Web reviews. Full time.

The online retailer is shooting 3,000 fashion images a day in a photo studio using patent-pending technology.

And it is happily losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on free shipping — and, on apparel, even free returns — to keep its shoppers coming back.

Having wounded the publishing industry, slashed pricing in electronics and made the toy industry quiver, Amazon is taking on the high-end clothing business in its typical way: go big and spare no expense.

“It’s Day 1 in the category,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, said in a recent interview. Though characteristically tight-lipped on bottom-line details, Mr. Bezos said the company was making a “significant” investment in fashion to convince top brands that it wanted to work with them, not against them.

The traditional retail world — and many major brands that want no part of Amazon — are gearing up to fight for their lives.

“It has the latitude to set prices and charge whatever it wants,” Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst for Forrester Research, said of Amazon. “That is a huge threat for brands.”

Amazon has sold clothing for years. But recently it has focused on signing on hundreds of contemporary and high-end brands, including Michael Kors, Vivienne Westwood, Catherine Malandrino, Jack Spade and Tracy Reese, and it continues to prowl for more. On Monday, some of Amazon’s muscle was on display as the company sponsored, and live-streamed, the Costume Institute Benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the accompanying exhibit. Mr. Bezos, the event’s honorary chairman, said that he was advised by Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor, to wear a pocket square with his Tom Ford tuxedo (which is not available on Amazon). He did so.

Amazon’s decision to go after high fashion is about plain economics. Because Amazon’s costs are about the same whether it is shipping a $10 book or a $1,000 skirt, “gross profit dollars per unit will be much higher on a fashion item,” Mr. Bezos said, and it already makes money on fashion. While its MyHabit site, started last year, uses a flash-sale model to compete with Gilt Groupe, Mr. Bezos says the company’s new effort is not about selling clothes at deep discounts but at prices that ensure that “the designer brands are happy.”

Amazon has not just size on its side but money. The company has about $5.7 billion in cash and marketable securities, and Mr. Bezos has long taken a stance that investing in the business is the best place to use it. The company can afford to do things that some competitors cannot, like hire a bevy of stylists for the Web site models or investigate replacing the plain brown shipping box with a fancier package for clothes.

Until now, fashion has been one of the few categories that Amazon has tried to dominate without success. In addition to its own site, Amazon bought the shoe site Zappos.com for more than $1 billion in 2009, started the shoe site Endless.com and MyHabit, and bought the boutique Shopbop in 2006.

But many brands stayed away because they said Amazon’s site often looked too commoditized. “It’s not a place where you look at it and are like, ‘Oh, my clothes look and feel really good,’ ” said Andy Dunn, founder of the men’s fashion brand Bonobos, which does not sell through Amazon.

Amazon hopes to fix that problem by going luxe. Mr. Bezos said Amazon.com’s initial forays into the high end had helped raise apparel sales by triple digits.

Amazon’s considerable computing capability, for example, has been turned to fashion and the analysis of enormous amounts of shopping data. The company has also made a “disproportionate” investment in photography, said Cathy Beaudoin, the president of fashion for Amazon. The photography studio, in Kentucky, can shoot more than two images a minute, allowing the company to post new items daily on the Web that were photographed hours earlier.

Most of all, the company is working to improve its presentation, so far most evidently on MyHabit, which Mr. Bezos said represented where Amazon wanted to go with all of its Web design for fashion.

Instead of static product images, for example, models spin and pose to show off the clothing. The model’s body measurements and the clothing measurements are provided to help with sizing. And shopper-friendly advice — does the size 8 shoe run big or small? — is prominent.

The ramp-up has created buzz as the company has hired models, stylists and makeup artists, started using customer data to personalize brand and size search results, and run the first advertisement campaign ever, in print and outdoors, for the Amazon clothing store.

In the retail clothing world, fears are growing that few will be able to compete with a stepped-up Amazon.

For some brands, the company’s size alone makes an overture from Amazon difficult to reject. “The amount of eyeballs and traffic and retail dollars that are generated through their Web site” is impressive, said Alex Bhathal, co-president of Raj Manufacturing, which makes licensed swimwear brands like Ella Moss.

Amazon can also offer brands more attractive terms than many other stores. For instance, Amazon does not ask for “markdown money” when items do not sell, or return unsold product to a brand, said Ron Friedman, an accountant at Marcum L.L.P. who advises brands like James Perse and American Rag.

And to woo brands, Amazon is willing to make big buys. Jason Cauchi, the creative director of Dallin Chase, had been selling some merchandise to Amazon’s Shopbop. Recently Amazon said it would buy items from the entire collection, which Mr. Cauchi said was a rare offer and difficult to refuse.

A retailer like Amazon would typically pay brands a wholesale price for clothes, then set the retail price itself (although more powerful brands often mandate a minimum retail price).

While brands sell some of the same items to different stores, they are increasingly developing exclusive colors or styles to avoid price-comparison issues. “A manufacturer does not want to kill a business, and the best way to kill a business is to have the same product selling for less on Amazon,” Mr. Friedman, the retail accountant, said.

But Mr. Bezos said that, despite having taken a low-price approach in other industries, Amazon would not in fashion. “There’s a sophisticated markdown cadence in the fashion industry that we think makes sense and we’re basically following that established approach,” he said.

There are many disbelievers, given Amazon’s history in other industries. Mr. Bezos, moreover, has to deal with the fact that he is no fashion guy. Asked in the interview about the brands he was wearing, Mr. Bezos could not name the brands of his shirt or shoes, which he said he bought in New York years ago. The jeans, he said, were Prada (not available on Amazon); his blue “Jeff” security badge was dangling from them
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nytimes

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It's so interesting how things are rapidly changing and advancing with the use of technology and the digital world. This article probably is going to affect me very negatively as a former shopoholic before I decided on graduate school. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Amazon is taking over so many industries. They mentioned the company has been hiring models, stylists, makeup artists, etc. while these transitions are occurring but I wonder if people are being laid off on the other end of things. This concerns me. I hope the hiring of people outweighs the amount being downsized. This has been a huge issue America needs to be addressing. Amazon is also stepping up their aesthetic which I am a little excited for. People under estimate good design. I wonder just how really far this makeover of their company will take them. I have a a feeling very much being in such a visually saturated world. 

My Students

For my final project, I put together a short clip representing Community. I volunteer on Saturday mornings, teaching at a free children's outreach program located in Flushing, Queens that provide various classes and activities for the families in the community. Most of our community consists of immigrant families and those who speak english as a second language. This program called Powerhouse seeks to empower kids to pursue their passions and to walk alongside parents in enabling their children to reach their full potential, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

There are other activities that promote community-building throughout the year such as Kid City, Fall Festival, Christmas Spectacular, Princess Tea Party, Great Adventure, and much more. Their purpose is to raise up thousands of NYC kids ages 4-14 to transform their world.

What Kind of Teacher Do I Want To Be?

When I ask myself what kind of teacher I want to be, I think back to the good ones I've had in my lifetime and what made them so good. As a high school student, I remember one teacher who I knew genuinely cared for me. I knew this because of the way she looked at me when we spoke together. Although she was so much older, I felt that she had a sense of respect for me has a human being through her gaze. That was a huge deal now that I think back because I was so young. She had much more wisdom and many more years of lived experience than I. When I talk to some of the high school students that I teach, I catch myself saying things that separate us into levels of "experienced" categories without me knowing. I'd say things for example, when I was your age....or trust me, when you get to college....or you're old? What about me?! Just silly things like that. I recall not feeling too great when teachers would say those things. I think it sets us apart into different paradigms and sets boundaries.

It is definitely important to set student and teacher boundaries, which I've found one of my weaknesses as I always find me wanting to befriend my students. It often prevents the students in learning to respect you as a teacher as opposed to being a friend. I think I’ve realized these things the hard way but teaching is a little forgivable where I know I can learn from my experiences and just do it better the next time. I think the best relationship is when you find that place where the respect is present while trust is built in just enough. I believe gaining a child's trust and respect is one of the hardest and most delicate things in the world. They are so much more intuitive than adults will ever be. Children can sense all types of emotions but can't necessarily figure out why. I think I've felt that way many times as an adolescent.

I think it may actually be easier to know what kind of teacher I want to be by thinking about what kind I don't want to be. I know that I definitely don't want to be one that doesn't listen to the students and is one that just orders or commands what is to be done. I definitely want to make sure I listen to their interests, concerns, and stories. Isn't that what we are about? I am worried though, that as the years go by I would subtly become a type of teacher I do not want to be. I hope that I can remember to keep myself in check and not fall into a jaded place. In order to implement a student-centered learning approach, it's vital that we listen and learn how to meet them in their worlds. I want to be a teacher that sets students up for success in the words that I speak and guidance I bring forth through our conversations.

A quality I would like as a teacher is the ability to be aware of a student's short-term and long-term growth. I want to be able to understand the learning and changes that a student is undergoing and to see how every moment of learning fits into the larger picture of their lives. I want to be in this mindset when developing curriculum and lesson plans; not only the pieces but the whole. I also think it's important for us as educators to be connected to the world they live in. We need to be able to know, see, think, and feel what they are feeling or at least try to get a closer sense for it.

I believe that no matter what, we will have our weaknesses as teachers. We should continually be reflecting on ourselves and endlessly refining our presence in our students’ lives. I also believe it’s important for us to learn from our students and is significant in the role of a reflective teacher. Making sure we are addressing the needs of every child and creating a classroom space where diversity is embraced, is a key component to good teaching.  As an art educator, one of my goals will be to offer imaginative and creative lessons for students to be excited for; not only excitement, but opportunities to identify who they are and are becoming as individuals in society. It is our responsibility to facilitate an environment where all ideas, cultures, and differences are welcomed. I hope that my teaching encompasses all of these things and more. My students will be the judge of that.

New Media in Art Education

I believe New Media should have a presence within Art Education. If educators want to address adolescents in their stages of development and meet them where they are, they need to be delving into New Media and the possibilities it holds in learning. We live in a society where visual culture is rapidly defining and shaping what people think and feel. The type of visual culture and language that we experience today is channeled through much new media. Technology at it's peak of advancement and the rise of the digital era affects the way students live their lives and begin to make sense of their worlds.  I think that in this 21st century era, New Media in the art classroom is a part of child-centered learning.

Taking this class, gave me a taste into the foreign realm of technology as a means to create art. It's like visiting a new place and only having taken a tour of the main attractions and sites. It was exciting to see it all, but I wish we had more time to linger into each area for longer periods of time. It would have been nice to explore as individuals and collectively during class times possibly having work sessions together. It was also great to see how everyone took the same prompt and applied it so differently according to their interests, personal experiences, and thoughts. The diversity within the class cohort made the experience more interesting in terms of learning.

In terms of taking steps further from this point of departure, I'd like to explore what it is that young people find interesting and engaging now. I find myself exploring with social media applications such as twitter and tumblr in hopes to experience and understand better what kinds of connections adolescences are feeling. I'd like to explore more into what kinds of issues they deal with being exposed to their surrounding visual and sonic cultures. Also, I'd like to gain more experience in using different kinds of software so that if students are looking for outlets to project their thoughts and ideas into, I'd have more options to offer insight to best address their concepts.

The Morgan Library & Museum

On Friday we went to The Morgan Library & Museum on Madison for the first time. We looked at mostly Dan Flavin's collection of sketches, drawings, and paintings. It was amazing how much of his work was compiled for this show. Seeing a wide range of the breadth of work he's produced over time was in little ways, almost breathtaking. It really felt as if I was in his secret room, where he would go and escape from the world into his drawings, thoughts, and imagination.


Dan Flavin was best known for his fluorescent light installations. His collection consisted of hundreds of drawings of light fixtures, landscape, and portraits. Along with his work, Flavin's personal collection of artwork was also displayed. Seeing the work of other artists he chose to collect, made me wonder if and how much ones possessions can tell about someone. As an artist, he exhausted himself, drawing for hours on end. What I liked about his drawings was they were not about "likeness". He draws or records energy, emotion, feeling, and atmosphere.


"With a dashing pencil I have such a sense of freedom."
"I worked through being tired until I trembled but I felt relieved and pleased."
- D. Flavin


We have to be observers of our own work, in order to know what our interests are.
I think of the discussion we had about our printing class session in New Medias. We discussed about how printing can be part of the process in figuring out what it is we are looking for. I'm really indecisive when it comes to how I want my work to look like. I may still be in an exploratory stage as an artist. I'm still exploring and trying to figure out who I am as an artist. Recently, after working with generating movie clips, I fell in love with it! It's so much fun and I want to keep learning and getting better at it. It's been a while since I've felt this way about something before. I may have found a step towards who I am as an artist.

Thinking About Context

"Media art is often site-specific and sometimes interactive. As mentioned in class, the circumstances of how a work of art will be seen or presented determines the appearance of the work itself."


My video piece was actually more of an exploration of the iMovie program. I had never used video-producing software before and the thought was overwhelming upon receiving the assignment. However, the way I know I personally learn best, is to when dropped into the wilderness of the unknown and forced to figure things out on my own. This is basically what happened with every kind of software that i've grown to learn and used throughout my life. Reflecting back, I have self taught myself many things . Part of it is because I get bored easily and am not fond of tutorials or instructional classes. I feel like such a teenager sometimes...a lot of times....


Through creating the video piece, I tried different options that iMovie offered. Honestly, it was really exciting for me to manipulate a video template and to make it my own. Getting a sense of it, I felt I gained some power or ability. I want to refine and learn further how to use all the possibilities to my advantage. I really found a new interest in video making and it all started with this exercise. 


In terms of where I would place this remix video.....
I imagine it to be projected largely on a blank wall. Possibly an exhibition for a late adolescent audience of Pop Culture presented through new media. It would be one of many surrounding work representing new media. I think it can be a source of inspiration and possibility for young people to discover what kinds of things are possible for them to have the power to recreate themselves. 


My sound piece was also an exploration of mixing sounds together through Audacity. I've used Audacity to cut and attach songs for my dance performances in the past. I recorded sounds using my iPhone and imported them into the program. I realized the idea of using my iPhone as a tool to capture or record things for the use of art making was very new to me. It is still fairly a new concept. The applications along with functions of the iPhone are rapidly advancing at this very moment. I still feel hesitant about sound art and it's still unfamiliar grounds for me. I guess every artist has different mediums that speak to them, and feel they can best speak through. I've been learning that lately. There is so much out there. So much art that can be produced through endless means. It's all about how one connects and is able to express through it. 


If I were to place this sound piece......
I remember the Carsten Holler exhibition at the New Museum. There was a piece where you entered a small dark black room with headphones and vision goggles. You would see a pathway through the goggles as you listened. I think I can see this sound piece in a similar setting, arranged for the audience to experience viewing a scene while listening to this sound. 

New Media Final Project

For my New Media final project, the words I rolled were:


Community
Painting & Drawing
Photography


I'm excited to have gotten these three because they each relate to me in different ways. I wouldn't have thought to bring all three mediums together but it could produce something worth exploring. Community is something that really hits home to me because my mission and long term goals directly aligns with building community. Community can mean many things. It can be local or global. I've been involved in building both the local and global communities through various projects i've been a part of. 


Powerhouse is the inner-city outreach program in Queens that I'm teaching at. I have a compiled database of my experiences in working with the students there including their artwork, photographs, and clips of interviews. I wonder if there's someway I can connect all of it together.


Because of my new found love of video-making, I really wanted to try and make a small clip representing what community looks like? I'm not sure about what theme I want to explore or represent. 

Teen Power

       I can’t believe it’s already the end of April, almost the end of my first year in grad school. who would’ve thought I would be here. God works in such mysterious ways. reflecting on these eight months, I can’t wrap my head around all the things that have happened; things i’ve learned, realized, thought, felt. It’s been a ride. I was a bit distracted at one point but I’m getting back into school and being engaged again. school was never for me but I know grad school’s different. I feel my mind absorbing and growing, finding myself wanting to listen to professors about what they have to say. Yea…I have never felt that. It’s a weird feeling- pretty foreign to me…maybe it has to do with the fact that I’m realizing now, that I’m paying massive amounts for every word spoken.

yesterday in development of adolescences we had a few high school students from the frank sinatra high school come in our lecture to speak and answer questions. I was really taken aback by their level of maturity through the way they were able to express themselves. they were so insightful and well articulated. their visual language and  repertoire of vocabulary was far more advanced than even some of the grad students in our program....

Roberto- 11th grade
Margarita- 12th grade
Samantha- 10th grade
Zahra- 10th grade

a few words from our dialogue from the awesome teens:

“You say what you don’t wanna say in artwork.” – R.
“You get to try out different personalities like you try on your clothes.” – Z.
“I wanted to mix the colors and seems like the hues are swimming together.” – S.
“Watercolor is still difficult for me, its like dancing on the paper.” – S.
“Anger and frustration help me make the best artwork.”  -Z.

“It’s important to inspire your students to want to do art.” – M.
“Advice I would give you is to make yourself available.” – S. 

 they brought in some of their artwork to show us.

1. Samantha's Self Portrait

Acrylic on Canvas board

2. Zahra's Portrait of a Celeb

Acrylic on Canvas Board

'Caravaggio'

Rafaël Rozendaal

Rafaël Rozendaal 
Born 1980, Dutch-Brazilian, lives and works everywhere.

Rafaël Rozendaal is a visual artist who uses the internet as his canvas. 

His artistic practice consists of websites, installations, drawings, writings and lectures. Spread out over a vast network of domain names, he attracts a large online audience of over 15 million visits per year.

His work researches the screen as a pictorial space, reverse engineering reality into condensed bits, in a space somewhere between animated cartoons and paintings. His installations involve moving light and reflections, taking online works and transforming them into spatial experiences.

"The idea is that you believe that you make something. Some people think the work is sort of a puzzle, and you have to pass the work and get to the meaning. The work is the meaning and the meaning is the work. It's as big as you want to make it." -R.R.

"I work on my computer so I can work anywhere. Tropical areas are usually cheaper."

BYOB: Bring Your Own Beamer

"Everything is cool. Let's just make chaos. It's just like a thrift store. Just bring your own mess and choose what you like. If anyone wants to do BYOB they can do it." -R.R.

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Website Projects

COLOR FLIP

VIOLENT POWER

LIKE THIS FOREVER

PLEASE TOUCH ME 

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I love his websites! They're so much fun and not so serious in the way that Art can be sometimes. Some of them are just so aesthetically beautiful. He uses vibrant and bold colors that awaken a part of your senses. 

Lesson: Emotion Through Sound

I chose to explore my second potential lesson: 


Objective: Through recording a sound they hear in their daily lives and depicting a memory or event that relates to it personally, using an audio recording device, students will learn that the sounds of their everyday can be experienced in different ways when put into other contexts. 


My Sound Clip: Nightmare


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About My Process


I used two sound clips I hear in my everyday. The first clip was of the water faucet running and the second was of my footsteps. It was really good to try out this lesson because I realized more closely the restraints and freedoms it would give students. In reflection, I know my motivational dialogue and association need to be refined in a way that will guide students  imaginative and creatively. 


The memory or event I chose from my personal experiences, was a series of dreams that I've had since my adolescences. I've dreamt many times about finding myself in mysterious places where I'm running from something. I don't ever quite know where I'm going and I'm running from different things all the time. In these dreams, I often feel anxious, scared, nervous, and excited all at the same time. I wake up with my heart beating as if I were running. I still remember specific moments in the dreams vividly. 


I combined the faucet running sound with the steps. The faucet sound clip had a crescendo effect that created a climatic sensibility. I felt it evoked similar emotions as those I've felt throughout events in the dream. I really liked the relationship of the rhythm of the steps  and the faucet sound, and the way they emerged together creating a suspensful stage. 

Class Discussion: Sound

Ideas we discussed in New Media class that stood out to me:

Visuals are local. Sounds are global.

Visual Culture Vs. Sonic Culture

Sound is something that puts us in our place. It's a force. Something that we can't always choose to tune out like we turn away from visuals. 

Think about the concept of listening.

When we listen, we are simultaneously thinking about other things. Other thoughts roam through our minds and we are constantly multitasking. It's difficult to tune out the noise of our own thoughts and to just simply listen. I think it's especially difficult for us living in a city such as New York where we're juggling different things is a constant in our lives. 

Talking about types of communication, there is the visual and auditory. I don't think we think about the auditory form of communication as much as the visual. Possibly because we're here in an art education program, and in a generation where the visual culture is blowing up. 

"Sound helps us to connect better to our feelings."

What does it mean to really listen? 

What does it look and feel like when you tune yourself out and really listen to someone else. 

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Silence can be healing. 

Richard shared with us a story of when he was living in Austria by the trains. It took some time away from it all, being immersed into silence for these sounds to be accepted into his everyday. 

The Absence of bodily noise; healing can come from the presence of sound. 

Sound can be also seen and considered as a type of pollution. 

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Websites to help with sound projects:

www.myfavoritesounds.org

www.nch.com

www.soundcloud.com

www.opsound.com

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"People who speak in their main language can get lazy.

You can only translate what you are certain of." 

- R. Jochum

Sound in the Classroom

Reflection: 
I am not really quite sure how I feel about using sound as a material. The concept is so unfamiliar to me since I've never tried it and haven't seen much of it as an artist myself. The first step for me would be educating myself of the range that is out there within sound art. I can go about starting a sequence lesson with sound art as the main material. I can go about the umbrella theme in different ways: 


1. I could start by introducing some sound artists that may spark interest to the students as a start, to expose them to it as a form of art as much as I can. I imagine the culture and atmosphere of every class to be different. I would carefully need to arrange what kinds of artists would best suit them to motivate accordingly. 


2. I can have students listen to sound art, immerse them into the art without giving a framework about it. We can discuss and dialogue about their experience in hearing it. I imagine this to be interesting to hear. I would call this lesson 'First Impressions'. 


Potential Lesson Ideas:
Material: Sounds


1. Objective: Through editing a sound that reflects a theme of something they feel strongly about, using an audio recorder, students will learn that sound can be used to represent a variety of feelings. 


2. Objective: Through recording a sound they hear in their daily lives and depicting a memory or event that relates to it personally, using an audio recording device, students will learn that the sounds of their everyday can be experienced in different ways when put into other contexts. 

Ryan Leslie

I'm not sure what the difference is between a sound artist and a musician. Don't they both make music with sound to make art?

Regardless, this is one of my favorite music producers. 

Kitundu

Sound Artist: Kitundu is a sound/visual artist, graphic designer, composer and instrument builder. He uses an interdisciplinary approach to develop compositions-installations-instruments that blur the boundaries between media. He has constructed elemental turntables that rely on wood, water, fire and earthquakes for their power and pitch. Kitundu is the creator of a family of Phonoharps, beautifully crafted multi-stringed instruments made from record players. He strives to reconnect the technology of new music to fundamental principles from the natural world.

Marina Rosenfeld

Sound Artist : Marina Rosenfeld is an artist based in New York. Her hybrid visual-musical works have been at the forefront of the redefinition of musical practice within the field of contemporary art since the ’90s. Her performances, sound installations and objects, including lenticular photographs produced in tandem with vinyl LP compositions, and custom loudspeakers deployed in public and often monumental spaces, have worked to recast social and sculptural relations as musical, blurring the line demarcating the improvised or incidental from the composed.

Marina Rosenfeld -- leading her infamous electric-guitar ensemble, the Sheer Frost Orchestra

My Remix

This was my original video from youtube.

In college, I watched a lot of dance clips for inspiration when choreographing for my dance team. I often wondered what different moves would look like moved to different songs. This video remix project allowed for me to try one out. I had lots of fun with it....I think you'll be able to tell. Hope you enjoy!!! :D

 

A

Video Projects in the Classroom

I'd like to incorporate videos in the classroom connecting to what they're interested in. I would think of a list of projects high school students can incorporate using video as a tool. This would be an example of one of them: 


1. What are is an issue that teenagers face? How do you feel about this issue? Portray your perspective on this issue through a video clip. How do you want to represent this issue? What images, visuals, or audio would you want to help get your ideas across?


I would want these projects to be focused on what is important to students and help relate to things that they are experiencing. Creating a video of any sort takes much analysis and orchestrating different things. I think it would be a great tool for students to think deeply about certain topics or to explore in depth about anything they are concerned with.




A

Ken Allen Studio

As a class, we visited the Ken Allen Studio located in Brooklyn. It was really interesting to hear about the different processes that a printing studio goes through from start to finish. As an art student, I was always at the other end as a customer/client requesting prints of my projects. It was nice to hear about the different paper in association to the images being printed. It was informative and felt it would be essential to keep in mind for future printing of my work. Throughout Ken's talks, I kept thinking printing is very relative and depends on many factors. According to the customer/client, it can be a real tedious process for the printing studio. Everything comes into play and must be thought out: the paper quality, the image, the relationship of image to specific paper, the aesthetic desired by the artist or photographer, etc. Catering to artists must be very difficult especially if they are very particular. 


Ken also touched upon important photography techniques to improve image quality accordingly. I've learned the functions so many times but when it comes down to it at the moment, it's hard to stop, make everyone wait, and change around the functions. I guess it depends on what kind of photos you're taking. If it's for your art, I'm sure you would have the time. I'm not much of a photographer so I usually take pictures to capture the moment. From what Ken discussed, I can see the processes of photography almost as baking a cake. Everything must be set from the start, and once it goes in the oven it's only a reflection of the ingredients put in and amount of time baked according to the heat. I see photo's going through quite a similar process. One must be very thoughtful in setting each function according to the environment, and also in playing with settings on any photo editor before printing. It's nice to be reminded of these processes although I am not a photographer myself. I'm afraid it may be because I'm too impatient to be thoughtful of all these factors that come into play. 






A

The Daily Keemo

Looking to the Summer

Text Rain

Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv 1999

Text Rain is an interactive installation in which participants use the familiar instrument of their bodies, to do what seems magical—to lift and play with falling letters that do not really exist. In the Text Rain installation participants stand or move in front of a large projection screen. On the screen they see a mirrored video projection of themselves in black and white, combined with a color animation of falling letters. Like rain or snow, the letters appears to land on participants’ heads and arms. The letters respond to the participants’ motions and can be caught, lifted, and then let fall again. The falling text will ‘land’ on anything darker than a certain threshold, and ‘fall’ whenever that obstacle is removed. If a participant accumulates enough letters along their outstretched arms, or along the silhouette of any dark object, they can sometimes catch an entire word, or even a phrase. The falling letters are not random, but form lines of a poem about bodies and language. ‘Reading’ the phrases in the Text Rain installation becomes a physical as well as a cerebral endeavor.

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I like the artists' unconventional way of portraying a poem and having it be an interactive piece with the audience. I think it's beautiful the way it plays with movement and the delicacy of the falling of text.

A

Urban Projection Mapping

Urban Projection Mapping is the art of creating video displays that make buildings come alive in light, color and motion. Armed with powerful technology, a handful of enterprising video artists create vivid, visually arresting video displays that are projected on urban architecture.  These videos tell stories, form abstract imagery and in some cases, sell products. 

The building is manipulated by a pair of hands that sink into its structure and rearrange its facade in a stunning, grid-style fashion.  The display was awarded a Silver Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival in 2009.

Resultant permeability of the solid facade uncovers different interpretations of conception, geometry and aesthetics expressed through graphics and movement. A situation of reflexivity evolves - describing the constitution and spacious perception of this location by means of the building itself.

555 KUBIK

Production: urbanscreen.com
Art Direction: Daniel Rossa
Technical Director: Thorsten Bauer
3D-Design: David Starmann
Sound Design: Jonas Wiese
Realized with mxwendler.net mediaserver

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I love this piece because it is such a dynamic public display of pushing boundaries and a presentation of transforming an ordinary building into a grand piece of art. The concept of "How it would be if a house was dreaming" was also interesting to think about. It was just amazing how the artists really worked with the buildings' specific qualities to create a totally integrated video projection that was as convincing. 

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Angki Purbandono

Angki Purbandono, Indonesia’s most prominent artist specializing in scanography – the process of producing artistic digital images by means of an ordinary flat-bed image scanner – has now taken his scan-art to the realms of noodles.

Placing noodles directly onto the scanner’s glass is like setting up a mini stage where the artist plays the stage director. Such a thought comes to mind as one looks at the works currently on show at the Garis ArtSpace. Entering the space, one is first struck by images of elegant dragons seemingly playing with noodles. In the Western tradition, dragons are often thought of as awful monsters, but in the Chinese tradition, they carry with them the meaning of luck and welfare. The dragons in his scan-art, he says, are descendants of the Chinese Golden Dragon, raised in Europe. 

He lets them dance, with the noodle(s) falling into place playfully. 

Liz Atkin

 

Liz Atkin is a visual artist based in London. With a background in theatre and dance, physicality underpins her creative practice. Skin is her primary source for corporeal art. both as metaphorical membrane and physical boundary. Her work centres on a multilayered exploration of the possibilities of marking, extending and transforming the skin so as to question the limits of the body and the potentials for communication across and within the porous textures of light and surfaces. This personal investigation explores body focused repetitive behavior resulting in a sometimes violent rendering of the body in order to condense it to matter for resculpting.

Black & White Tea

 

 

I chose to use tea bags as my first scanography project. I've used teabags in previous projects before but in a very different way using a digital camera. What attracts me about tea bags are its delicate qualities. In such a small pouch there are fine entities that have abilities to transform a body of water. It has a source of power that is catalyzed by the touch of liquid. I see them as small things with large capabilities.

I explored the use of composition with three tea bags on the flatbed. I played around with the way they lay and position themselves. I think they make beautiful images as they interplay with the intensity of light. 

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