Reading Response Two

Art Studio: The Artist’s Perspective: Multimedia Assignment Form for ARTS-235			Date: 2/17/2010 Name: Michael Widener Major: MMDD Specialization: Computing Year: Senior
Type of assignment [ ] Semester project √ Blog entry / Reading response [ ] Technical evaluation [ ] Exhibition			Title of the assignment: Julius and Orenblick Blog entry / Reading response
A description of the assignment. Throughout the semester, readings will be assigned which correspond to the area of multimedia we will be discussing or to the specific project you are working on. The readings will be discussed in class and the student will post a response to the reading on his or her blog.
Content of the assignment. In "What is Sound Art," Julius "follows three considerations of the term by three artists who take sound as their primary medium". Annea Lockwood, Max Neuhaus, and Christian Marclay define sound art for Julius through an evolution began in the 60s when the form was hardly recognized. He distinguishes between music and sound art that music aim to perform, to entertain, to achieve a set goal whereas sound art aims only to share aspects of itself, a texture, a technological trait, for example. He went on to point out that a sound art need not achieve a narrative like music in order to support the artist. If one only need catches a "collector's (or curator"s) attention, the person who created it can make a fair amount of money from it". He further drives the point home saying "Sound art rarely attempts to create a portrait or capture the soul of a human being, or express something about the interaction of human beings". Sound art then "rejects music's potential to compete with other time-based and narrative-driven art" and can be defined into three categories: 1. An installation sound environment 2. A visual artwork that has a sound-producing component 3. A visual artwork that has sound as an extension Ohrenblick's essay "In the Blink of an Ear," is an intellectually aggressive disassembly of standards for understanding sound. A reader comes away with the distinct feeling that Ohrenblick intends this with enthusiasm. One becomes frustrated with the bashing of convention and grasps for order. This frustration is best exemplified by the author's definition of a "sound walk". This art form, as Ohrenblick puts it, 'rambles' away from music into a subgenre of its own. It manifests in purposeless walks through a city, strolling the city simply to experience it. In a way, sound art aims to transpose the experience one may have to another without the other person actually having the same experience. In a sense, it is the most unassuming and faithful sharing of the experience. It neither attempts to shape nor narrate the experience. Depending on how you value the humility of it, sound art is decidedly humble.
	Biography of the author.	Michael Widener was born and raised in Berkeley, California. He is a thoughtful, quality-focused web programmer with accomplishments in computer problem solving and Internet business start-ups.

Work of Art featuring Sound

A SOUND MAP OF THE DANUBE

Annea Lockwood, recording, mixing.

An aural tracing of the Danube, interleaved with the memories and reflections of its people. 59 sites and 13 interviews, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. Includes large fold-out map, with translations of the interviews.

Semester Project One

Art Studio: The Artist’s Perspective: Multimedia Assignment Form for ARTS-235			Date: 2/1/2010 Name: Michael Widener Major: MMDD Specialization: Computing Year: Senior
Type of assignment √ Semester project [ ] Blog entry / Reading response [ ] Technical evaluation [ ] Exhibition			Title of the assignment: Semester Project One “Download This”
A brief description of the assignment requirement. Students are required to create multimedia projects and present for class critique and discussion.
Content of the assignment. Jin Jiangbo - God, Go Ahead with Chatting. Installation Art. In his piece, God, Go Ahead with Chatting, Multimedia Installation artist, Jin Jiangbo, displays laptops hanging from a ceiling, funneling into a person’s head. The person is sitting with their head down on the table and eyes shut. The uses the laptops as God’s tool to download chatting software into the person’s head. Literally, this is the virtual trying to enter the physical. Conceptually, this is a higher power reading down to upgrade the person’s ‘computer.’ Downloading software is often how computers are updated and upgraded. My piece extends his work by reversing the literal meaning and the conceptual one. In my piece, I attempt to literally download soft ware into the computer after waiting too long for regular software to download. I literally attempt to place the physical into the virtual, a reverse of the other way around as represented by Jiangbo’s work. Conceptually, I am trying to add ice cream to a computer, which definitely not an upgrade but a downgrade. As ice cream would in no way help a computer operate more productively nor serve a technology purpose in this context. What’s important is that virtual and physical realities can never converge. We can simulate real things with higher fidelity. But that doesn’t make it real. There is no substitute. Further, there is no way to cram something real into a virtual world. The boundary cannot be crossed even though we attempt to as a matter of objective in some areas of pursuit.
	Biography of the author.	Michael Widener was born and raised in Berkeley, California. He is a thoughtful, quality-focused web programmer with accomplishments in computer problem solving and Internet business start-ups. He produces mix CDs which can be previewed on his Internet radio station or website.