Assignment #6: Wikipedia Entry

In the Wiki article, "Jungle Juice", I added the word "everclear" in the third sentence.

Presentation on The Archive

Assignment #5: Close Reading of a Digital/Hybrid Art Piece

            The digital art piece, 125 years AA (After the Apocalypse), by Raymond West idealizes the concept of hybrid art by beautifully blending in old, new, and science fiction themes within its boundaries and mediums. This piece of artwork was discovered through a Google “hybrid art” search result, via digitalart.org; this site specializes in digital art mediums, which are specifically graphic/computer based and lists several different themes which include science fiction, abstract, surreal, nature, fantasy, fan art, photo manipulations, and miscellaneous. This particular piece is categorized under the science-fiction grouping.

            At first glance, this painting has a tremendous amount of symbolic detail within it; noticeably, it contains a unique, aesthetically pleasing artistic periphery that brilliantly blends the themes of old, modern, nature, industrialism, animal, human, subhuman, trash, and treasure. Beginning with the digital painting’s outlying boundaries (top to bottom), Raymond West chooses to utilize the ‘heavens’ and the horizon with the sun shining intensely in a dim, ominous sky that seems to possibly foreshadow a large storm trailing behind the clouds. At the bottom of the work, the entire surface is lined with trash; though it does not seem to be any regular type of trash, if one looks carefully one will find that the trash is an assemblage of old (possibly recycled) materials that are commonly used in construction, such as rubber (from wheels), plastic, tarp, metal, iron, stone, brick, cardboard, etc. This layering of used construction materials parallels beautifully with the factories and natural stone formations which lay directly under the gray skies; this type of positioning may point to the cycle of life and death which is also seen with stone cliffsàwhich are then broken down into piecesàthen taken to factories to be maneuvered withàwhich are later converted into building materials and lastly, end up as trash, washed up on a shore (which they seem to appear in this painting). The right side of the piece also displays a large, modern concrete complex which looks somewhat like an office or living space; this building also reveals the final result of industrialization (which is obviously, not all trash) and the true beauty of architectural minimalism in the pre-apocalyptic world. Also, the blue construction machine placed next to this concrete building, reflects the end of all beings (even man-made buildings) and the destruction of society altogether.

            In the middle of the painting, there exist the categories of species, after the apocalypse; clearly, there lays a great deal of ambiguity within the distinctions between man, animal, and other. First of all, the female placed on the back of a rhinoceros seems strangely reminiscent of an ancient, early human who once existed circa 10000 BC, because she is holding a spear, wearing bright tribal colors on her clothing, and has a tan colored skin tone. Diversely, she also appears to be completely modern because if one inspects her closely she wears hoop earrings, a bikini top, board shorts, and black fur boots; additionally, she is definitely the most obviously digitally-constructed character or item in the entire painting. In fact, it is not truly clear whether or not her and the rhino are natural beings or cyborgs; they are after all facing the opposite direction, so can be alien or sub-human, the spectators will never know. Perhaps the most disturbing trait of this piece is the six oversized, black balls of mass placed parallel to the woman/rhinoceros, laying half way in what appears to be mud or quicksand. These black objects are completely ‘uncanny’ in the fact that they indeed erupt life where viewers would expect there to be other beings, but also they resemble the rhino or even a turtle in appearance, but don’t seem lifelike. These objects symbolize the unknown of the future world and the uncertainty of all beings/species as a whole. Oddly enough, all three of these ‘beings’ placed within the foreground of the piece reflect both lifelike/real and digitally enhanced attributes within the appearance; as a result, each object has the ability to manipulate the viewer of this painting into believing that they are either real or machine.

            As a whole, this digital work of art successfully reflects the concept of hybrid and digital artwork because it would ultimately cease to exist altogether without the technology, multimedia simulation, photographic enhancements, etc. that work together to create the painting. In all, it blurs and disfigures the boundaries of real vs. not real, life vs. death, and human vs. machine, and instead creates a pseudo-reality that disrupts any previous concept humans in general may have had concerning the apocalypse. Without a question, this art piece effectively employs the individual visions of industrialization, the natural, raw world, environmentalism, and humanism to create a new, innovative, semi-surreal, semi-mythical, and yet completely indulges in chaos, disintegration, upheaval, and constant ambiguous conflicts as well. 

First official ENGL 3116 post.

Assignment # 2:

            After viewing my follower’s site, http://carmenwarren.blogspot.com/, I noticed great differences between my own personal avatar and hers. First off, neither image reflects any direct physical resemblances between us and rather reveal an unknown, unidentified cyber-persona of what we picture in our minds. The true beauty of avatar creation is that it is completely sporadic, instantaneous, and impulsive, yet the end result always seems satisfying to the creator. Having both utilized a website called, http://www.doppelme.com, our images have the same basic structure and characteristics, though mine is much more simple than hers, which contains a scenic background, a fore ground, and a complex outfit. Perhaps the more intricacies contained in Carmen’s avatar may reveal: her availability and greater amount of time devoted to the project, the more intense brainstorming she did before and during the project, etc. Should Carmen receive a higher grade on this assignment since she created a character that is much more complicated, pleasing to the eye, and unique? According to David Bell, no, because ‘cyberspace reflects the poststructuralist critique of the subject’ and we in turn, “can be whoever we want whenever we want”. Since the poststructuralist theorists, like Bell, view the subject as constantly undeterminable, unstable, and changing, they would likely characterize each existing “avatar” out there in cyberspace as only ‘temporary’, much like our own personas. Likewise, my own refusal to spend more than five minutes creating my avatar may reveal my own internal perspectives and awareness of the temporary position of the avatar, while Carmen may have chosen to better prepare a literal re-presentation of herself in her avatar and attempt to get a better grade (?). So, perhaps the real question one should ask when critiquing someone’s webpage, blog, avatar, etc. is whether or not it (in any way) reflects that person’s personality and identity. Personally, I would argue that cyberspace personas typically have no correlations with real life personas. The poststructuralist notion that puts great emphasis on identifications, rather than identities, strongly supports my argument. In the case of avatars, we definitely include some specific attributes that may define our physicality (e.g. I chose short, brown hair to reflect my own), but mostly, we choose other traits according to liking, desire, unusualness, etc. In conclusion, both mine and Carmen’s avatar reflects a temporary mind-created image of ourselves, in which our interests and group identifications are established.

My Avatar