Art & Technology - Little Bits Project

My project for our Little Bits unit was what I call the "Late Night Study Hat."  I used several Little Bits parts that were available through our school to create a hat you can wear at night to read using the lights on the side, and also gives you a forehead massage in case you get too stressed out. There are two switches at the top, one for the lights, which is an on/off switch, and one for the vibration, which is a slider switch to vary the level of power of the massage tool.  The whole thing is operated by a 9 volt battery.  In the images below, you can see my process of planning and assembly.  I did not hide the battery for the final project because I did not want to permanently fix the contraption into the hat since we had to return the Little Bits to the school.  However, if I was going to make it for future use, I would have tucked in the battery so it wasn't visible, and maybe added a zipper feature so you can change it as necessary.

Using Little Bits was one of my favorite projects in the class. I feel that it makes creation of functional art very accessible, as they are easy to use and hard to "get wrong", since they only click together magnetically.  I could see using these in any level of classroom, from elementary to high school and beyond.  I really enjoyed being able to create alongside my fellow students as well.  It was inspiring to see what others were creating and it was a great way to work collaboratively, which I think is important for students to learn how to do.  It also incorporates creativity, as I had to basically invent a new item that used the Little Bits we had on hand.  I could see having Little Bits in an art classroom in a maker space or as a project that augments or even modifies the curriculum.  I could also combine Little Bits with art making, changing projects from ones that are purely visual to ones that incorporate sound and motion and even function! 

My drawn plan for my Little Bits project

Art & Technology - Thoughts on Photography/Digital Imaging

"The tool alone is never the artist" (Witte, 1994). 

I have been a professional photographer for almost 20 years, and I have seen it evolve from film and print into scanning and editing in photoshop to digital cameras and cell phone editing.  You can not be a photographer these days and not interact with a digital format in some form or another.  Even film photographers these days scan their imagery into a computer just to share the images with the world, if for no other reason.  We are connected in ways we never were before, and this all happened in the last 20 years.  In fact, a lot of it came about in just the last 10-15 years.  The culture around photography, whether it is for art or commercial purposes, or both, has changed and continues to change as technology changes.  One of the most interesting conversations surrounding photography these days, however, is truth.

When photography was first invented, it was primarily used as a way to capture "truth" - an exact copy of reality.  Portraits were exact likeness, events were photographed as they happened and every detail was captured.  However, it can be argued that reality can never truly be captured by any device.  There is always some distortion - through composition or lens or exposure or focus.  The camera was one of the first technological advances that gave us some idea that representations could be as close to life as possible, and that we can take our memories and freeze them in time - literally.  However, the human touch is never perfect.  There is always some glitch, if you will, within that we bring to our lives, and though we can still take photos to preserve our memories, more often we "paint" in our own version of truth.  

Now, with Photoshop and programs like it, we can literally make any truth we wish, adding images together seamlessly or taking out parts of images we don't want to see.  When it comes to art, we must make these choices purposeful and meaningful, and even more so with photography, because it is under such fine scrutiny from truth seekers.  We have come to completely redefine photography and art from when it was invented, and must bring these ideas and lessons into the classroom.

In the art classroom, I plan to teach photography at the high school level, if I can.  High school students not only have little cameras at their fingertips virtually every moment of the day through their cell phones, they are also very aware of our visual culture which is primarily experienced through photographs.  I want to teach my students to harness the power of photography and digital manipulation to tell their story, express their meaning or truth, and to connect with the community with their art.  I want to show them how they can use the power of visual art to influence and change their worlds, and live better lives.  They can do this through both commercial and fine art.

Reference

Witte, M. (1994). Photography/Digital Imaging: Parallel & Paradoxical Histories. Retrieved from https://webcourses.niu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-5043835-dt-content-rid-37831822_2/courses/20182-ARTE-343-----1/Witte%2C%20M.%20S.%20%281994%2C%20October%2012-16%29.pdf

Art & Technology - Thoughts on Glitch and Glitch Art

"What is the attraction to glitch? Or more so, why are glitch artists drawn to creating work in this genre? Is it the humanizing of what is sold to the public as perfection? The computer as perfection, a precision instrument, capable of executing complex mathematical sequences to such a high degree that we have come to accept the notion of virtual reality feasibly recreating real world experience? Does the glitch therefore become the humanizing element, exposing the machine for what it is, a man-made instrument, a tool only one layer removed from pure data represented as image? Is it the poetic element of distorting images to convey meaning?" (Donaldson, n.d.).

It is interesting to me that glitch has become its own aesthetic and something that is sought out and celebrated rather than corrected or fixed.  The definition of "glitch" is "suffer a sudden malfunction or irregularity." Meaning that, originally, glitches were something that were unwanted.  Nowadays, when a piece of technology or program glitches, we use it as a form of entertainment or art, and as the quote above mentions, a way to "humanize" our machine world.  As mentioned in a previous post, our lives are increasingly dependent on technology.  Although we don't want our devices to malfunction, it does bring them down to our level, and it is up to us whether we consider glitches to be unforgivable or not.  As the saying goes "To err is human, to forgive is divine."  We are in a time where we forgive our glitches and actually turn them into something good.

In the video above, the narrator shows us several glitches in the original Super Mario Bros. game.  At the time the game was made, I'm unsure if these were left in on purpose or not.  These days, it seems that some glitches are left into video games as sort of Easter Eggs to find as you play.  It adds another level of entertainment to the game above normal play, and an air of mystery that is fun to hunt down and figure out.  Other kinds of glitches, such as the ones that are purposely made in glitch art, are another form of showing that even though our lives are run by technology, we can still show machines that we are in charge. 

In a classroom environment, glitch art is a great way to teach about critical thinking about the way we can use technology.  Although a lot of processes that went before are automatic with certain programs or devices, we can more or less throw a wrench in the works and see what positive outcomes result.  This also puts a spin on creativity - instead of finding out how we can create something, we have to figure out how we can break something in a creative way.  This completely redefines how art is typically made and taught. 

Reference

Donaldson, J. (n.d.). Glossing Over Thoughts on Glitch: A Poetry of Error. Retrieved from https://webcourses.niu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-5043831-dt-content-rid-37831821_2/courses/20182-ARTE-343-----1/Donaldson%2C%20J.%20%28n.d.%29.pdf

Art & Technology - Scratch Video Game

The project I found to be most difficult in my art and technology class was the video game made with the online program Scratch.  Not having any experience with video game coding, it was a lot of trial and error.  I also feel that I bit off a little more than I could chew at first with my video game plan.  Originally, I wanted to make a platform game similar to Super Mario Bros. but with the characters and theme from the movie Labyrinth (1987).  However, I came to realize that although the code blocks in Scratch are easy enough to put together, the more complicated the game gets, the amount of code you need grows exponentially.  With our time limits in the class, I was not able to get all of the features I wanted in my game, however, I did end up with a simplified version which I will post below. But first - a little background...

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, Labyrinth is an 1987 children's movie made by the dynamic duo of Jim Henson and George Lucas.  It is a fantasy story of a young girl who is forced to babysit her baby brother, and wishes for goblins to come kidnap him.  She doesn't truly think it will actually happen, but when it does, she realizes her mistake and goes on a quest through a giant maze to where her baby brother is being held - the castle of the Goblin King.  Throughout the movie she makes friends and defeats goblins and overcomes tricks played on her by the Goblin King, who is trying to stop her the whole time. It is similar to the story in the Wizard of Oz.  However, one scene she gets trapped in a bubble that is actually a magical ballroom, where the Goblin King is trying to distract her with fancy costumes and dancing.  At the end of the scene, Sarah remembers her brother and throws a chair through the bubble wall, and breaks it to free herself and continue the quest.  My game is based on this scene.

One of my favorite things about the movie Labyrinth is the feminist theme running through it.  The hero of the story is a girl, she overcomes a male authority figure by saying "You have no power over me" and gains self confidence and maturity and friendship.  She isn't won over by some handsome prince and she doesn't need to be "rescued."  At the beginning and end of the movie, the Goblin King transforms into a white owl, which classically is the symbol for wisdom, patience, secrets, mystery and observance, all of which are running themes through the movie.  Wisdom is her final prize in the end.

My game ended up as a single screen game, where the goblins come to dance with Sarah, which she defeats by hurling chairs at them.  Then, the Goblin King appears and throws hearts at Sarah, which stun her from moving.  She has to simultaneously throw chairs at a few cracks in the wall (look like lightning bolts), before the time runs out.  At the end, the Goblin King turns into the white owl and asks Sarah to obey him, but she responds with her signature line.  There are a couple glitches in the game, which I left in for now as an homage to glitches in general, and also because I have yet to figure out how to debug them!  I found the game to be a bit more enjoyable and challenging while using my controller for it, but I hope to go back in and make changes and updates as I investigate further into the Scratch program.

My frustrations were a lesson for me as a student, but also as a future art teacher.  I realized that my issues I had may be ones that my students have some day with lessons like these or other art and/or technology media, and the fact that I can say "I was frustrated at first too" is one of the best ways I feel to reach someone that you are trying to teach.  As a program, Scratch is great way to see how video games are created through simplified code, but also to see how they are much more complex than one might think.  They are a lesson in patience, creativity, problem solving and the ability to adapt and be flexible.  All of these traits you would find in a traditional art classroom, but combining them with a new technology greatly modifies how these lessons are taught.

Screenshot of my game with some of the code in Scratch. If not working visit https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/221756998/

Art & Technology - Thoughts on Body Movement and Engagement in Digital Game Play

"Edutainment, for example, stands to benefit from methods aiming to support and facilitate task related movements in the user" (Bianchi-Bertouze, et al., 2007).

In the article "Does body movement engage you more in digital game play? And Why?" by Nadia Bianchi-Bertouze, Whan Woong Kim and Darshak Patel, the authors conclude that

"body movements appear not only to increase the players’ level of engagement but also to modify the way they get engaged. The combined results demonstrate in fact that the controller itself plays a critical role in creating a more complete experience." (2007)

I have played several video games in the past, including ones that use non-traditional controllers, such as the guitars in the game "Guitar Hero."  Although I can't speak to the nuances of the level of my engagement in every video game I've ever played, I can say with certainty I definitely felt like more of a rock star while holding the pseudo instrument, more than I may have felt like a plumber jumping over pipes in Super Mario Brothers.  This immersion in games has been even furthered by the advent of Virtual Reality, where the visual and audio is part of the game, as well as the operations of the hands and feet, as the games often react to where you are reaching or the hand movements you make. 

However, when I think of the what children use today for entertainment on a daily basis and for much of the day, even in school, it is not a video game console that is dedicated and has specialized controls.  It is the mobile tablets and phones that have games and videos that they can take anywhere and interact with on a more intimate level.  Although there are stylus pens that can be used with these devices, most of the game play is with touch of a finger or two.  The "educational" games work in much the same way, and focus less on physical tasks and more on academic or thinking tasks.  I don't know what the future holds, but for now there seems to be a burgeoning disconnect between what the children are playing on and how it teaches them to complete real world practices. Not that Guitar Hero taught me how to play guitar, but it was closer than pressing a button on a screen.

My professor, Nicholas Leonard brought up an interesting point - are the physical tasks we are asking children to learn going to even be necessary in the future? (Leonard, Personal Communication, 2018).  Are we perpetuating an old stereotype that in order to live a full life, we must be able to engage with it on a concrete, physical level, or can we live completely with minimal effort from our bodies?  That is something that I think will continue to be a subject of debate as we advance more into the technological future, and things will become easier and easier.  Will our bodies evolve to adapt to these changes?  Will the inevitable failure of our technologies (because we all know how unreliable technology can be) be the downfall of our humanity if we grow too dependent on it?  Being a person born in the 1970's, I have lived through a time where cell phones as they are today did not exist, and now practically everyone has one.  I am starting to forget a time that there were no cell phones, and feel like I can't function properly if I do not have my phone on me.  Are we perhaps becoming integrated with our technologies and will there ever be a step back?

Those ideas are big ones, but can definitely be addressed in a classroom of artists.  They can make up their own ideas on what the future holds, and critically examine our lives today and in the past.  How we interact with each other and our bodies and minds seem to be an afterthought as technology takes over.  The students can then redefine their own curriculum and their own lives, based on what they would like their future to look like.