Pipilotti Rist

Although her real name is Elizabeth, she adopted the nickname Pipilotti. Pipilotti Rist studied illustration, photography, and communication arts but she is most well-known for her video art pieces. In her video pieces, which she shoots in super 8, she focuses on sensitive issues such as gender and sexuality. She is a conceptual artist but her video pieces emit a happiness and brightness.

The fact that in her biography Rist wrote "Her favorite number is 54" made me love her right off the bat. I watched the video "I'm not the girl who misses much," and was kind of in shock. She dances around with her breasts exposed and singing in some random high pitched fast forwarded voice. I don't even know what to think of it. Her work is interesting and definately keeps you watching.

Bill Viola

Bill Viola is considered a pioneer in video art. He loves doing huge video installations to capture the viewer in picture as well as sound. Viola recieved his BA in experimental studios and proceeded to study in Italy for a while. Violoa's video projects stand out because of their directness and simplicity. He explores a lot of human activities in his pieces such as birth and death. He is also a writer whose writtings have been published worlwide. Viola also experiments with many different religions in his life as well as his pieces. These religions include Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism.

Bill Viola's videos and photographs are pretty incredible. They are mind-blowing. The contrast in the dark colors and the vibrant colors in most of his pieces work really well together. His pieces are moving and dramatic. Some of them are so powerful in a very odd sense such as "Dillusion" and "Purification" but I love them all the same.

Matthew Barney

Although Matthew Barney works in sculpture, video, animation, photography, installations, drawing, and performance art, Barney considers himself a sculptor. Barney studied at Yale... planning to major in medicine, but fell in love with the arts. He also worked as a model. His best-known work is a film series called The Cremaster Cycle. Barney has done many interesting performances pieces such as one entitled, Drawing Restraint 13: The Instrument of Surrender in which Barney dressed up like General MacArthur and walked the plank into a giant vat of petroleum jelly. Odd? Well... yeah.

To be honest, a lot of Matthew Barney's work really freaks me out. He dresses up for many of his pieces as this strange, red-headed, big-nosed, crazy hair-styled character and poses eccentrically. All his performance art pieces are extremly odd actually. Whether he has hugely extended fingernails or he's making out in petroleum jelly... it's just plain weird.

Learning Flash

Playing around in flash.

Other Flash Websites

Website One:

A stick figure in an intense battle with the flash toolbar-- this flash website was by far my favorite. I've seen this site many times before, but every time I watch it, I am amazed all over again. Not only is it an amazing idea carried out perfectly, it's funny and entertaining. And now that we all know how to use flash, we watch it with a different mindset. Watching it now makes us all think about how many layers that would take! How many keyframes with only slight movement variations it would take to make something this complex. This website is truly incredible. Check it out.

Website Two:

This website is really creative. It's basically shot in many different locations and shows these locations throughout the day. You first choose the location you'd like to see and then dial yourself around a clock to see the location throughout the day. You may go as fast or as slow as you like, allowing you to just capture the sense of the area, or to take it in slowly. The idea behind the website is simple, yet very effective. The shots are very controlled and very clear making it easy to understand. Check it out.

Website Three:

This website is similar to the one I just wrote about above. Here, you follow this woman through the process of her day. You can go in order, or choose hour by hour. Either way, you watch the sun come up, her alarm go off, she wakes up, and then... she goes along with her day. We follow her around the house, see her read the newspaper in the morning, look at some pieces of art, and come home that night. Although similar to the other website I wrote about, I don't like this one as much, but I still find it interesting. Check it out.

Oh the pennies.

Rachel and Cody's Penny Project:

Shows time over different photo sequences with our found object (a penny.)

Here's the set up from class:

Here are the "official" photos, taken at the VCU Graphics Lab:

what is time?

Time studio is a class in which we artistically measure an elapse of time. But when you think about it... what is time? How do you measure something that is different to everyone and basically undefinable?

You could begin by traveling the typical route and defining time with seconds, minutes, and hours. You could then go on to days, weeks, months, years, decades, and centuries. But is that really what time is? Is it a date on a calendar... or a location of the Earth in orbit? Or is time something simpler? Or more complex?

Do you measure time with a watch? A cell phone clock, a sundial, an hourglass perhaps? Or do you measure it with the number of cups of coffee you've drank so far? Do you measure it with the number of classes you've attended or the number of diapers your child has been through? Is time measured by the number of books on your bookshelf or by the number of movies you've watched? Could time be measured by the number of times you walked your child to the bus stop? Or is it the number of miles on your car? Is time measured by the amount of boyfriends you've had or by the number of photos you have on your hard drive? Is time measured with concrete details of your life... or is time measured by something as simple as looking into the eyes of a loved one... and recalling the millions of memories you share with them?

What is time? It's up to you.

PS- props to this guy for the image