Wen's 5 questions

1. To Anne: This book refers to lots of the works from famous artists or philosophers in western history. What are the target readers in your mind when you wrote this?

2. To Anne: which was you favorite subject when you wrote the book? Painting, architecture, film/TV or computer windows?

3. To Anne: Assume we have a dummy person who does not know much about the western civilization, how can you help him to apply your theory to his daily work/life?

4. To Ryan: what quality is most import to a Zbrush modeler? Patience, good eyes, Artistic background, sculpture skills, software skills…

5. To Ryan: what do you like to model most? Human, animal or digital sets...



I just found most of questions are multiple choices :)

Chapter 4 Summary

I read Chapter 4 of Anne's book "The Screen." To sum up, the chapter was about how the Window as a screen is different than the Window at a still painting or image.

The screen moves while the viewer is still, fixed in a seat in a theater. Whereas the old Window, the viewer is free to move around and look at the painting, which stays the same.

She also talked a lot about "virtual mobility." That within a screen, shots change which means the perspective and vantage point are constantly changing. The viewer is the camera and moves with each shot. We are close , we are far, we are above, etc. Within those shots are also movement--characters, objects are constantly moving in and out of the frame. We are constantly be taken out of and then stitched back into the film.

She also talked about Edison Train film--when it was first showed, it was said people panic at the site of an incoming train. But were they freaked out because they thought the train was real or because the "magic" of cinema was too much to handle--that they knew it wasn't real but it was too shocking anyway.

She gave some back history about the architecture of Theaters, how they started off as churches or pre-existing buildings that had a projecter and screen added and then how they evolved into new building where the focal point became the screen... everything in the room was made to focus the viewer toward the screen.

There were also discussion on Film vs TV screens. The TV is also a window, but how is it different than the movie experience? There's smaller, the screens were full screen instead of widescreen black and white etc. And there were TV programs instead of movies like in the theater. Its interesting how now Home theater systems are closer and closer to a movie experience--bigger screens, better quality, better sound etc. Anne didn't discuss this in her book, but I'm curious about her opinions on this. What does the improvement and sophiscation of TV mean to Film? In the past it seemed Film took it up a notch, they did color, wide screen, 5.1 surround sound, etc. Where will they take it now to bring back movie goers?

She started to discuss the Computer screen but that was mostly discussed in Chapter 5. Where the image on a computer and the interaction there is even more extreme because we have screens within screens and an interactive world. We are no longer merely observers of the Window but participants with it.

Anyway, hopefully this gives you a good overview of Chapter 4. If i think of more, I'll add it later.

My 5 questions..

These are the questions I've come up with so far, I may change this before Wednesday though. Post any research you've done on our speakers and your 5 questions by Tuesday.

Questions for Seminar

1. To Ryan—can you talk about the differences between sculpting with clay vs. sculpting digitally?
2. To Ryan—I understand the benefits for sculpting digitally (cutting costs etc.) but what about some disadvantages to working digitally? What are we losing?
3. Sculpture—in the traditional sense, a sculpture isn’t viewed through a window, but with digital sculpting, it’s a 3D image in a 2D window…Discuss? (what’s the question here?)
4. To Anne—With the advancements in technology, how you see the relationship between the viewer and the window changing?
5. There has always been a line between what is Fine Art and what is commercial/graphic art etc. Where do you see that line? What defines Fine Art?

Reading Virtual Window

After a few attempts to read this book, here are the questions I comes up with

"This book refers to lots of the works from famous artists or philosophers in western history. To understand this book is a big challenge to me. What are the target readers in your mind when you wrote this? (Philosopher, artist or designers?)

Assume we have a dummy person who does not know much about the western civilization, how can you help him to apply your theory to his daily work/life?"

The web site of virtual window is more intuitive and cool

http://www.vectorsjournal.org/issues/04_issue/virtualwindow/

Z-Brush on youtube

Here's a video off of youtube of a cow head being sculpted using Z-Brush. There are more video links on Ryan's website too that you should check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T47wxQ-NZhc

Ryan Kingslien

Here's Ryan's website. He's a digital artist who sculpts using Z-Brush. He believes "that sculpting is entering an entirely new era with the advent of digital sculpting, rapid prototyping and 3D printers. This era will be filled with new and expressive artists who have been freed from the rigours of clay and the physical world to imagine first, design second and, lastly, create."

Also here's an image of one of his digital sculptures.

http://www.ryankingslien.com/

The website

This week Collin and Wen are making a really rough mock up for the website, simple programming and what not to get it started.

Nahomi and I will start creating artwork for the background of the front page.

Bethany will start collecting sounds to use.