Writing about the AV Club

The AV Club at Santa Fe Community College was honestly very successful for its debut showing last Saturday. I was gifted with an inside look at the process of how the show was set up, and can say that a lot of hard work went into the preparation for the show. Beyond that thought, I won’t say anything more about my experiences behind the scenes the event. I intend that this blog post in going to come from the perspective of an attendee rather than as a post mortem to the event. With that being said, let me get on with my review. The selection of artists covered a wide array of styles. From the distinctive, native sounds of the “Hear Hums” to the relaxing, melodic tunes played by Nicole Miglis on the piano, there was definitely a big sampling of musical tastes. From a continuity standpoint, the event was well divided and pretty balanced overall with the way the AV Club dispersed the acts. The electronic music artists, DJ, and VJ sets (Hear Hums, Euglossine Industires, Ghost Fields, DJ Adrian Villaverde) were all framed by more traditional acts involving pure lighting (and occasionally some projection) work like Nicole Miglis’s piano pieces, the Infamous dance team of Santa Fe College, and UF’s hip-hop poetry group, Signs of Life. Regarding the VJ sets for each artist, they were amazingly well done, and really helped to augment the experience of audience members as the artist played their music. I personally thought that the best sets were the VJ sets for Ghost Fields and DJ Adrian Villaverde, which were just mind-blowingly spectacular. While there were some hiccups at points, considering that it was all done real-time, the VJing was very well put together. The lighting also worked out extremely well, and was excellently cued for the most part, as well. The only criticism I can say about this event was that the spare DJ playing during the break-times really didn’t have much to work with, as moments between acts varied between long and abrupt starts. At times it left me wondering, “Why bother having the DJ anyway?” “Why not just play a prerecorded intermission track?” Nevertheless, like I said before, the event, overall, was just plainly awesome, and I’m definitely looking forward to the next one whenever that may be.

-Nathan D.

Color Theory and the Designer

Color theory, as I understand it, is the understanding how to mix colors and how such combinations can affect, in our cases, one’s design. Honestly, being that much of the human experience of digital work is viewed through the eyes, it is important that, as designers, we select the right colors or combinations of colors to be aesthetically pleasing to the audience and set the appropriate mood or atmosphere for the performance. Colors can very much evoke emotions of which we should be aware of, and utilize as a tool to make our work expressive and multidimensional. One can also argue that colors carry with them common associations with objects such as the sun with yellow, blue with ocean and sky, and green with grass. The aspects too can be used to effect in one’s piece. While it is great to know how colors are combined and associated with each other on a color wheel, I think that a next and necessary step for us as designers is to “feel” the colors as much as we should know them.

-Nathan D

Here's the color wheel poster that Dr. Pagano showed us in class:


P.S. Mine is definitively the best! It's 1920X1200. Thus better! QED, Gentlemen!

Video Projection: The Evolution

Hi class, my name is Jay and I'm a third year, marketing major. My plan is to make it into the video game industry as a marketing field rep. Thus, I figure taking these digital arts classes will help me understand the industry better and how the people work in it. First impression of this class is that it seems complicated, but I'm going to trust Pat that if I can understand this first part, everything else will be smooth sailing, which brings me to discuss our first article reading.

First of all, I never knew video projection was considered an art form. I just thought of it as a way to make screens really big for large crowd-viewing purposes. I like how video projection contrasts with traditional art forms such as 2D displays on a canvas. The fact that the beauty of video projection lies in what you see and that it continually changes to tell a story as opposed to analyzing a still image. It's a lot more thrilling to say the least. However, video projection can also be very abstract as Gary Hill demonstrated through his piece, Tall Ships. I'd like to call it moving art just because it seems fitting. Today, art has branched out so far and I feel as if traditional art has lost its prominence, but video projection seems like a promising field in this generation.

It's funny how video projection started centuries ago with the Magic Lantern, and how it was basically used to troll people. The wikipedia article even states that Johann Georg Schröpfer tricked people by depicting spirits of revolutionary figures with the magic lantern mounted on a trolley. Maybe this is where the term, "trolling," comes from. Anyhow, it's just amazing how they came up with this device back in the 17th century and how it has progressed since then. Here is a picture:

Introductory Blog and the Magic Lantern

Hello Class,

My name is Nathan Dolorfino, and I am a fourth year History major without a specific concentration. I am taking Projection Design because I have a deep interest in digital arts and media, and in spite of the major I hope to be designing video games one day. Now that I have briefly introduced myself, Professor Pagano asked us to blog about this little thing below.
















That “thing”, as most of you probably know by now, was called the “Magic Lantern”. The Magic Lantern was an early image projector made in the 17th century. It used a light source, a slide with a printed image, and a concave mirror to focus the light to produce an enlarge projection of the image on the slide. While simple by today’s standards of digital projection the same principle is still found in classrooms throughout the United States, i.e. overhead projectors. Since that point we have evolved image projections into fully animated images, provide a depth of field to the audience, and wow them with spectacles of three dimensional images projected in space before them. Nevertheless, it is humbling to know that all our projection media today came from something as simple as casting shadows on a wall at a campfire.

Here’s a video talking about the MosAika Sound and Light Show at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, CA. This is just an example of Projection Design and how far we have come.



Another Example is the Vocaloid concerts in Japan.



Regarding the paper we read as a class, "The Emergence of Video Projection", I found it to be an excellent introduction to the idea of Projection Design and its relationship to art. The author attempts to point out the artistic merits of video projection by explaining its uniqueness as a medium. One of the explanations that really intrigued me being a history major was the authors comparison of single frame classical art forms such as paintings with video projection. The author states that classical paintings and sculpture required an understanding of the stories and myths behind them in order to gain an appreciation for the works, and that without that understanding one relied on symbols and features to try and interpret the work. Video on the other hand provides the artist control of the story and thereby the intended meaning is conveyed better to the audience. While I do enjoy paintings and sculptures, I have to agree with the author in that video does provide accessibility to audiences beyond its time in the way it is able to convey an intended narrative. Paintings and sculptures on the other hand can have relative meanings to the audience if the work is not fully framed in its period very well. This article has really shown me how video projection is in itself a true art form.

While reading this article, all of you have probably come across the names of different artist of this medium cited by the author. One of my favorite of the bunch was Bill Viola. Though I could not find the exact works cited in the article by Bill Viola online, I came across a few nonetheless. I particularly liked his works called "The Reflecting Pool". It uses simple effects by today's standards, but it still interest me how he was able to tell a narrative through the focal point of the video, which was a pool of water.



Well, that all I have to say for now. See you all in class.

-Nathan D