WATCH ME.

I don't know if anyone as heard of this or not, but the Empire Carpet commercial sends out secret subliminal messages on frequencies that only dogs can hear.

If you have a dog, try this. It's a conspiracy.

MOOVIE NIGHT

from Gavin's blog:
"So my group and I were talking, and we think it would be awesome if the whole class went to go see a movie (Paranormal Activity) this friday. We were thinking possibly sometime after 6, and the showtimes are 2:10, 4:50, 7:30, and 9:50. I guess we'd just take the Orbit...unless those with cars want to drive? :D

But yeah, we'd love to have a big group go. Anyone want to go?"

Sound Project

I decided to recreate an existing song... damn.

If I would've known this task was so difficult, I would have just made up my own song.

I used the song Planetary Duality I: Hideous Revelations by a band called The Faceless.

One of my favorite bands... I believe I have shamed them by recreating a beautiful song into crap.

I was so naive walking into this project thinking it would be a little simple, but oh how I am wrong. I turned it in the way I wanted it to and I'm not going to try to make it any better because I might just make it worse. So it's whatever right now.

Right now, the dialogue in the song is pretty on spot, but the guitar and bass and drums just sound like the clanging of clutter. I don't like getting all up in my song's grill, but I believe if I chose a simpler song and had more time to think about the process and execute it correctly, it could have been better.

Please listen to the original after if you choose to, so that you're not comparing that awesome song to a not-so-awesome re-creation.
Yessuh Thankya Suh.

here is the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dvw2XChUoM

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

holy shit.

pardon my language, but... holy shit.

I came into the theaters expecting a scary movie, and I got what I deserve.

What a beautiful film. I have never been so excited, satisfied, and frightened about a movie before in a long, long time. It literally gave me chills and generated a little paranoia.

I recommend it. period. no questions asked. go see it. definitely 5 stars out of 4.

And I thought the Blair Witch Project was freaky.

I am going to try to see it again when it comes to ASU (?) if it does.

oh..

and something quite fun I noticed in the movie.

When Micah, one of the characters, tries to record the demon/entity's voice, he uses Audacity :-P

pretty sick considering some of us are using it in class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UxLEqd074

My Deviantart

You should go look :-]
(please)

http://ladylazarus91.deviantart.com

ONG BAK 2?!

This is definitely a must-see.

After a very satisfying first movie (Ong Bak: Thai Warrior), I cannot wait to see this film, featuring one of the world's most beloved creatures, the elephant. Oh, and Tony Jaa of course.

If you'd like to see some elbow-to-face action, or even some knee-to-head, I would definitely recommend seeing the first movie... and then the second :-]

ahhh!!!!

watch these!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtNmH1KuJaA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIVOv1JQgsk

Vector Project 1

The three quotes I used for this piece are:

"It's good to trust others, but not to do so is much better"

"The mass, whether it be a crowd or an army is vile"

"Inactivity is death"

All of these quotes come from the Italian dictator of WWII Benito Mussolini.

DISCLAIMER: In no way do I condone Mussolini's actions or who he was in cahoots with. I just find the whole premise of creating a new political ideology (fascism) out of social turmoil to be quite fascinating...

After hearing that this project had a propaganda aspect to it, I sort of took it seriously :-P

My senior thesis last year was all about the art form used as a propaganda tool, and I looked at many different German and Italian propaganda posters. I used that kind of appearance to produce this piece.

Many of the posters I looked at included very vibrant colors, such as red and yellow, as well as astounding contrasts between black and white.

I utilized the banner to create drastic angles and created text using the free distort tool to take form of those angles.

The font I used was American typewriter to get the effect of the mid 1900s text.

After I had put his name at the bottom of this piece, I felt as if there was a huge empty space, so I decided to include his portrait as sort of a trademark.

I'm happy with the outcome and the simplicity of it.

Vector Exercise

So, this is my first project I did for the vector exercise. I had a monster stuck in my head for a while that I never really drew out and I couldn't get him out of my head so I decided to draw him out. I couldn't think of word to use in an abstract way so I just associated him with the word "creep". I didn't focus much on the word itself nor the abstract idea of "creep", but I just played around with Illustrator and I got a little carried away with the blob brush tool. I used the crystallize and wrinkle tool under warp to achieve the crumbled, broken look of the speech bubble and the word.

This is my second project for the vector exercise I did in a few minutes. I felt bad that my original project wasn't abstract-y so I attempted to do something of that manner. I used the word "nuh-uh" because I use this word a lot and it just appeals to me because it isn't an actual word :-P. I was really just experimenting and playing around with the warp and pencil tools. First I did a black and white layout and displayed the word with opposing colors, and then I messed around with the straight line between the black and white background. I then drew in what looks like hair, or string (I don't really know), and then warped it to make it look like sounds waves (?). I like the outcome, even though it isn't as abstract as I wanted it to be.

I can't think abstract!!!!!! arghhhh.

Kanye is a gay fish.

So, I'm not really one in tune with modern pop culture but after watching the MTV music video awards tonight, I would have to say that I'm not really surprised at Kanye's behavior. That egotistical "voice of a generation" is, in the least words possible... a gay fish.
The fact that he had the audacity to interrupt someone else's speech for something that did not involve him whatsoever just proves this gay fish's need for attention.

In the end, Beyonce's humbleness and professionalism has calmed my nerves about this certain gay fish and I'm glad Taylor Swift got her moment.

anddddd, I'm glad Kanye didn't win anything... because he definitely did not deserve it. >:-[

i can has cheezburger?

This is an amusing site based off of lolcats that I think everyone could enjoy:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

I visit this site everyday because it gives me major lulzzzz :-]

Project Numero Uno

Over a span of 7 hours I took photos of a bike rack outside of my residence hall with a tree.

My original plan did not work out. I wanted to create a panoramic view using three photos during each time interval and lay them on top of one another, but my photos were not sufficient enough to create the panoramas. so I had to work off of the 40 some photos I just had of three different perspectives and I put them together according to what I perceived when I was standing by the bike racks. The one central object I wanted to stay consistent was the tree. I would've liked for a more natural blend between the look of the photos, but overall I'm just glad that at least the tree looks like it has a flow to it.

(Thank you Rafael for letting me use your digital camera :-] )

Disney buys Marvel

ohkayyyyy.

I don't really understand why everyone's panties are in a bunch over this. The wedgie is not worth it.

Sure, Disney is renowned for its image as a family-based institution, but it isn't going to absolutely destroy Marvel's appearance.

I think it's great that Disney and Marvel can both extend their target gender base, producing more sales and profit for both companies.

here are some links for the news: http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/31/news/companies/disney_marvel/index.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/31/disney-marvel-buy-out

What is art?

I believe that art follows a certain kind of criteria in order for something to be considered "art" or "artistic". First, I believe art has some kind of intention. This may be hard to distinguish because "happy accidents" are known to happen more often than not, but I also believe that a piece cannot have absolutely NO intention. Another criterion for "what is art" is response. Every art piece creates a response from the audience. There is a wide range of emotional connections a viewer could experience with a piece of artwork... whether someone finds a piece "fascinating" or "boring", a spectrum of response is essentially inevitable... that is, if you are human and have emotions ;-]. There are of course other criterion, but I believe a piece of art should fulfill at least one.

I wouldn't exactly define art because of any kind of art form could break the conventions of what could typically be "defined" as art. Defining, in my opinion, would be restricting to what could be seen as art.

Determining what is bad or good art sort of comes cliche to me because I think it is all up to the artist and/or viewer... like "in the eyes of the beholder" crap. If the artist has confidence in his/her piece although it may not be aesthetically pleasing to anyone else, than yes, I believe that to be good art. Any kind of astounding, thought-provoking pieces can also be categorized as good art. No matter how simplistic or intricate pieces are, it would be very hard for something to be considered bad art. Don't get me wrong, bad art does happen.

My.Self.Portrait.

I decided to go for a more metaphorical/symbolic representation of myself, because personally I do not like being constricted to a visual representation of just my appearance. I chose a polar bear as the main focus of my self portrait because I believe they epitomize the very grace and brutality of nature... and if I could be any animal it would be a polar bear :-] I also used repetition with the ravens at the top because a lot of the horror movies I see deal with ravens/crows as a representation of death... which I have a slight morbid fascination for. The color filter I used is my favorite color (mustard yellow) and I also used the leaf tool because my favorite season is fall and complimentary colors make me giddy. Finally, I use a lot of word bubbles in my traditional art pieces and decided to have the polar bear saying "awesome." because I overuse that word a lot. If anything, I would say this piece is more of a representation of my personality and the things I enjoy in life. This is my first time using Photoshop and I'm satisfied with the final product.

(4'' x 4.5'')