Finishing the app

Finishing the app Glimpse with my group was pretty fulfilling. It was really cool to see all of our individual parts we did come together to create a final product. As the Research Director, it was definitely cool to see the information I gathered be put to use in the app and to develop the app itself. Here are some pictures of the finished product below:

Group Project

     Developing an app is something that I've never thought I would think about. For this project, my group is developing an app meant to create a community for the artists of New Paltz. Students, and people of New Paltz, to inform them of artistic events happening in the area, on campus, and to expose them to the work the people around them are producing. The app being localized to New Paltz allows for more connections and direct access to things happening close to you.

  My role in the group is the research director, and so I've been collecting a lot of different things such as images of art work from people in New Paltz, artist statements and statements about work from artists in New Paltz as well as conducting interviews some contributors.
To collect these different forms of information, I approached each differently. For photos, I posted a broader post on Facebook asking for New Paltz artists to send me some images of their art work. From that, I got around 25-30 images, which was awesome! Of course since that was for general content I made it more general. For the statements, I directly asked some friends and peers that I knew and asked for a statement about a piece of art, as well as an artist statement. I asked them to describe their work based on their medium, perhaps and process, as well as what the piece or their art work means to them. I tried to prompt them to respond as personally as possible, and I think everyone gave pretty great responses. I wanted it to be what they wanted to say, because the point of the website is that artists upload their own content.

For the interviews, both myself and Jenny have reached out to artists that we know in the community to answer some questions that we constructed. As of now I've had one with my Painting TA, and plan to conduct another interview with a friend of mine who is not an art major, but would identify as an artist. I think getting input and ideas from different people in the New Paltz art community is important because it also shows how many people could be using this app. A foundation student, an art minor, a BFA student, or someone who makes art in New Paltz (or doesnt!) and wants to be connected with the art community, and happenings in the area.

3D prosthetics comparing

     After 3D printing my original design, I made another print with a larger wrist and a larger section for holding the tool. At first the pen only fit slightly and now fits to the point until it gets bigger, making it stay in place really nicely and firmly. It made really nice marks on the paper and the wrist attachment seems to be large enough for a young child's wrist. I would like to think the new design would be suitable to actually help a child in need of this specific prosthetic in the process of art making and using specific tools! 

3D printed prototype

     After test prrinting my 3D prosthetic, it's evident that I actually didn't measure as well as I originally suspected! I think my problem was that I didn't account for the difference between the internally measured space/measured space of a whole part! What I need to change, I think is that the small little loop needs to be bigger to properly fit a tool, and change the section meant to attach to the wrist as a part to use velcro with as well, making it adjustable, more dependable and secure and easy to use by more students.

     However, it was interesting to see my design in real life and made it really helpful to understand what I need to do to make progress and a successful tool for students to use.

DIY Prosthetic

   Based on the activity in class, and that I did on my own exploring limited art making, I decided to make my prosthetic hand something that would be able to hold a paint brush, and a variety of pens. Information about the activities in class/that I did on my own can be read about below on my blog! First, I measured the widest point of the brush/pen (which happened to be the same!) and then made sure the attachment on my prosthetic would be able to fit a tool that size. This was really important because it ensured you weren't just guessing!

   I also made sure to make a wrist attachment (thinking that this is for a student without a hand). Considering my own wrists are very small, I created them to be able to fit mine/someone a little smaller than myself, like a child in an art class!

  To connect these parts (the finger with the part to hold the tool, and the wrist attachment) I created little supports out of the tubing shape on TinkerCad. I copied one tube and then pasted the rest to make sure they were exactly the same and not just a little different.

Although I'm still waiting to see my design 3D printed, I am confident it will do what I intend it to!

A link to the project: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/l9XyDujNveT-super-sango

Limited Art Making

  Stemming off of an exercise we did in our Digital Visual Cultures class, to understand the perspective of making art with a physical limitation, I created water color and pen drawings with only my right hand, which I taped up to only give me access to one finger (ring).
  The art that I make, to me, relates a lot to topography and the feeling of maps. I really am in love with the idea of things and places connecting, and making those connections myself, so that is what I try to make my art about. I enjoy using micron pens because of their variety of sizes, I can get a variation of lines within each other, that also do not bleed into the water color.

  So, I tried my best to create art using these same ideas that I include in my own art. There were many aspects that made it very difficult and different in comparison to using two, fully capable hands. But before the actual art making, the setting up and preparation were also much different. Only using one hand (one limited hand), things like filling up a cup, controlling the sink, opening and closing pens were more mentally taxing. You had to be very aware of how you were going to do the action, instead of just knowing what and how you were going to do it without thinking. Using my mouth for things such as opening and closing pens was really helpful, because it was like holding one end with my hand and pulling with my other. When holding the pen, it also was helpful to also hold the cap within the bend of my finger as it filled up the space more and was more secure in my hand. 

One of the most difficult parts of the actual making was that I could not hold the pen in different ways to create smaller marks using my fingers. It was more about the movement of my hand/arm rather than smaller movements. At first this was frustrating but it was interesting to discover new ways to create the same effects. I tried to not stop moving my arm and to keep making line as this kept marks looking a lot cleaner, and made for interesting places in the drawing. The end product was definitely not as refined and clean as what I usually do, but still pretty interesting to look at actually! 

When looking up close you can see how the marks made are definitely a little "messy", but I really enjoy what I made with my limitation. This definitely made me realize how much differently I would think about my art making as an artist if I truly did have this, or another physical limitation. It was interesting and frustrating to find ways to overcome what is frustrating you- especially when you're used to working in another very specific way. 

Cleaning up these materials was not that difficult, actually. The brush, being small, with a few good spins in a water cup was clean, and the water just needed to be dumped down the drain. The watercolor container was a little tricky but the only real difficult part was making sure the cap was snapped on. And the pen caps, when simply on the pen were made securely closed by banging it a little harder on a table surface. 

All in all, this was a really interesting experience and made me consider not only how lucky I am to be an artist without physical limitations such as this, but also has me thinking about the way I go about making art. 

Finalizing Videos

  After about a month of learning about videos, I finally completed 3 videos (one restricted by theme for a Videofreex exhibition in the Dorsky Museum, one as a Demo, and one Documentary short). I have posted on the blog about the Demo and Documentary, but not much about the Videofreex. I was very proud of how all the videos came out in the end, but the Videofreex was something that was really important to me. The Demo (made for a younger audience, about texture) and the Documentary short about Social Media Culture and our consumption of it can be found below.



   It was really interesting to consider how to put together both of these videos. After working on one, it gave me a lot of ideas for the next. So being able to work on more than one project was definitely really informative when learning about video editing over all.
   Okay, so, the Videofreex. The theme I chose to create my video for was Conclusions. There a lot of ways to look at something so ambiguous, but I chose to focus on the idea of a concluding life as well as a concluding thought, both of which are concepts I wanted to feel "at peace" at the end of the short 1 minute and 22 seconds.
  I wanted the story's narrative to be dictated by the letter the character in the video is writing. As the shot goes from the letter being composed, to mundane every day activities, I wanted the voice to feel as if it could be talking to anyone- an old friend or an ex lover. It does not blatantly point towards death (at least I tried to make it not) until the character leaves and drives to a cemetery. "Whether it's far away, or soon, either way, I'll see you then", the words I chose to end the video with, to me, have the meaning that you never know how short or long an individual life will go.
   I was really proud of the shots as well as the words in this video. Although it is short, I really want people to watch it and feel something, even if it is short. Putting everything together for this video was definitely easiest as I had a more concrete idea of how I wanted things to go. In comparison to the Demo and the Documentary, it was easier to decide to make a change.
  Overall, I am really proud of what I ended up making!