Week 14: Scratch

I have really enjoyed working with Scratch this week. After trying out a few different things, I ended up creating this fun interactive animation that I would like to share.

One can try out the animation here.

Because playing with Scratch was new to me, I felt excited and empowered by it's capabilities. It reminded me of how I felt while working with circuits. There is something special about having your hand is something that you didn't think you were capable of. Although at first I was a bit confused, I quickly caught on with the help of the tutorials on the Scratch website and was able to customize some of their ideas to be my own.

I can see students feeling this same sense of empowerment while using the software. I love that this is something they could learn in the classroom, but also do at home for free. I think it would be interesting to see how students might customize their animations or games and what images they might choose or create. I think this teaches excellent problem solving skills. I can see this as something every student could get excited about, even ones who are not as interested in traditional art materials or even art in general.

While researching other artists who use code to create art, I was at first perplexed by what that could mean. However, I ended up spending a lot of time checking out different websites and videos and am realizing that some of my favorite things I've seen in museums or galleries have involved code and I hadn't made that connection until now.

I would like to share some work by the artist Zach Lieberman. Lieberman is artist and developer. He has a fine art background of painting and printmaking but was always fascinated by animation and the idea of bringing something to life. Using code, he is able to do just that.

About his process he says, "one of my responsibilities is to get myself into trouble, and then the act of making the work is getting yourself out of trouble."

He describes code as it is like poetry, "the right words in the right order."

The following is an example of his work called Reface: Portrait Sequencer.
A video of the work in action can be seen here.
Reface: Portrait Sequencer is a surreal video masher based on the exquisite corpse. Using its camera is composes endless combinations of the faces of it’s viewers. It records brief video clips of it’s viewers mouths, eyes, and foreheads, and mixes them together.

A sequel to a previous lesson:
A few weeks ago I listed a few ideas about lessons which incorporated design. One of them was to sketch out their ideal backpack, lunch box, water bottle, etc. The second part of this would be to make the product from found materials. This could lead to a "social justice" lesson about sustainability. Or students could take images of their product and use scratch to make an animated advertisement for it. It would be interesting to see students use scratch to animate some of their drawings, paintings, or sculptures they have made in class previously.

Week 13: Catching Up

In our previous class we had the opportunity to hear some feedback from the current student teachers in the Art Education program at TC. It was nice to hear their perspective as they have been in my shoes and have had the "real world" experience that my peers and I are all craving at the moment. Although this past year has been incredibly insightful, fascinating, and fun, I must admit I am feeling anxious to actually get into the classroom and spent time with students.

The two things that stood out to me from our conversation with the student teachers were what they have taken from this New Media class and used in the classroom as well as their student's knowledge of technology in general. It was nice to hear that the student teachers have had opportunities to use technology in the classroom and have even shared some techniques they learned in the class with their students such as scanning and stop motion. I also enjoyed hearing about how much the student teachers had learned from their students. They explained that their ability to pick up on and learn new technology is amazing. Often times the students could show new ideas or techniques to the teachers. I found it exciting to think about how my future students and I can both learn from each other in this way.

I'm looking forward to trying out some of my experiences in New Media with my students next year.

Also this week I've been working on my "Dice Project".
My three words were collage, video, and story telling.
I've decided to create a stop motion collage.
The story is quite random as it was inspired by clippings I found from magazines and newspapers. However, I've really enjoyed making a story out of found objects and creating a scene out of traditional collage materials.

The following are a few images from my process:

Week 12: 3D Printing

Each time I use TinkerCad I am always surprised by how easy it is to use. I always thought that creating something in 3D on the computer was over my head. Even though TinkerCad takes a little getting used to, it seems like something most people can catch onto, including children.

The following are a few images from when I was playing around on the website:

Here is my finished product:

3D printing is extremely satisfying. I would imagine that it would give students a sense of immediate empowerment. By allowing students to create something in 3D it shows them that they can create something that shares their space with them, instead of something that is just flat on the page. This is really exciting for most children and is seen in most sculpture projects.

3D Printing relates to sculpture in the sense that you can use it to make a small model before creating something in large scale, you can turn a sketch into a 3D form, or you can just explore different shapes and how they relate to each other simply by using the TinkerCad software.

An artist I found who uses 3D printing creatively is Kevin Mack. He is most interested in digital painting, sculpture, and surrealism. By incorporating 3D printing into his work, he has been able to bring some of his structures in his paintings to life. His goal is to "create compelling psychoactive art that inspires imagination, fascination and contemplation. " Here are some examples of his work which capture that:

If you have the time, you can watch this video which allows you to move through a space full of Mack's colorful forms.

I think I am drawn to Mack's work because it reminds a lot of what I've been seeing in my Ceramics class this semester. However, some of these structures could never be achieved with clay. Also, I think it is interesting how he transfers his digital painting ideas into 3D forms. 

Often we ask students to turn a 2D idea into a 3D form. Kevin Mack might be a good example to show them.

Week 11 Assignment: Open Assignment

One of the projects I enjoyed most from this semester was Stop Motion exploration. When I rolled my dice, I realized that a good way of incorporating collage, video, and storytelling together might be through stop motion. I thought it might be interesting to set a scene and tell a story with scraps of paper and random objects, creating an animated collage.

I decided to use this idea to do a mini exploration as my open assignment to see if this was a successful idea. 

I found that lighting and stability of objects is my biggest challenge. However, I look forward to exploring this further for my final project!

I come from a design background and am often thinking about how I can incorporate what I know about design into the classroom with children. While I think younger children can learn the elements of design and how to incorporate them into their artwork, I think it is the older children who will have more of a connection with how design is used in our world.

A few ideas I have are as follows:

-Create a logo that best describes you, print it out on a 3D printer or t-shirt

-Each student gets a mason jar, they are asked to create the packaging for any material that might be sold in the jar, the more unexpected the better!

-Exploring type with image is an important part of design. Students can do this by cutting type out of magazines and juxtaposing it with drawings or other images they find to make a collage.

-Product design, students will sketch out their ideal backpack, lunch box, water bottle, etc. Extra credit if they can make it from found materials!

-Illustration prompt, all students read the same article or poem and come up with visual responses based on what they read, these images might be seen along with the article or poem in a magazine

-Build your own chair

I have been thinking a lot about my Impact100 project and have chosen to work with Ashley as we both would like to do a project based on positivity. Although we've come up with a lot of ideas, we are having a hard time coming up with something that has not already be done before and that can be accomplished in the next few weeks. We want to get people involved in the "art making" but realize that in order for them to participate it can only be for a few seconds or they will likely not be interested. Still working through some of these ideas...

Technology In The Classroom

This course has not only given me the opportunity to work with technology creatively in my own work, but also to reflect about it through class discussion. It makes me excited about using technology in the classroom as a teacher. Through technology there is so much to offer in terms of helping students to better understand themselves and others. I do believe that most things students learn from a technology specific project, they could also learn through traditional materials. However, these days I feel it is important for us to teach children to be comfortable with technology.

Through art we can let them explore, be creative, solve their own problems, and feel at ease with different software. We can help them discover differences and similarities in interfaces. We can create a problem in which students will naturally turn to technology for the answer, guiding them to learn more about it instead of forcing them. We also have the unique opportunity to incorporate traditional materials with modern technology. By not providing these experiences for our students, I feel we are doing them a disservice.

The teacher I observed this semester found it important to find a balance between technology and traditional materials. She found that some students connected with technology while others became easily frustrated or were un-inspired by it. For example, she described to me a video project she did with her students in which they created a video about their neighborhood. Some students got really into this project and loved talking about it with me. They were very proud of their end result. Others were the opposite and just did the bare minimum to complete the project.

This project spanned the course of nine weeks. While I understand that the neighborhood video is a big project, that is a long time for students to be working with video and video software. I wonder if there was a way to alter the project to incorporate more a balance between video, video software, and more traditional materials.

In doing some online research, I have found that most teachers share my beliefs of finding a balance between traditional materials and technology in the classroom. They feel it is important for students to learn "21st Century" literacy which includes technology. Most importantly, art teachers have the opportunity to teach technology naturally. Other teachers are feeling the pressure of standardized testing and may not be able to incorporate technology in their classrooms the way they would like to. Art teachers can help their students to learn how to use technology in innovative and thoughtful ways.

Week 10 Assignment: Circuits and Interactive Wearables

Last weeks workshop with Deren was really exciting for me. Having limited knowledge of circuits, I was empowered by the fact that I was able to accomplish I had never done before in just one class period. I kept thinking about how it could be incorporated into the classroom. I would imagine that students would feel the same empowerment I felt. There is something special about making something you didn't realize you could.

Apart from empowerment, I think it is important for children to be encouraged to think in these ways. It gives them an opportunity to problem solve while still being creative. Also, they could incorporate these circuit skills into their artwork.

I was particularly excited by our brief experiment with the Makey Makey. We hooked up the device to a number of different objects such as bananas, oranges, and bagels. We all took turns trying it out and then we all held hands and let all of our bodies connect the loop.

I really liked this idea of using the body to connect the loop of the circuit in order to make something work. So I experimented with how I could incorporate that into my wearable.

I came up with the idea of make a "Brain Powered Headband" which lights up when you put it against your head, using the forehead to connect the circuit. After trying it out, I realized that the equipment I had wasn't powerful enough. I even tried adding in another battery. The light would turn on, but it was very dim.

So instead, I stuck with the idea of light up headband turning on when placed on the head, but instead did it by using a wire which stuck out slightly from the headband until it was pressed against one's head.

The following images show how one might make it themselves:

This is a sketch I created to help me stay on track. The most important thing to remember is that we are creating a loop. We are using two pieces, connected by various conductive materials. The two pieces are a battery and a light, both include a positive and a negative side. The ultimate goal is to connect to the two positives together and the two negatives together, creating a circle.

Sew the light onto the outside of the headband using conductive thread, starting with the positive side.

On the inside of the headband, beneath the light, sew the battery, connecting the positive of the battery to the positive of the light. This connects the two positives together.

Sew the negative side of the battery to the headband 

Sew a line along the length of the headband the length of your wire. Because my wire was long, so was my line of thread, but if you are using a shorter wire, your line short.

Place a piece of conductive tape from the end of the thread line to the bottom of the headband, running the width of the headband.

Sew the thread into the top of the tape, continuing the circuit into the tape.

Make a whole underneath the negative side of the light.

From the back of your headband, stick your wire through the hole and wrap it around the negative side of the light. 

On the back of the headband, the wire should run towards the tape. When it taps the conductive tape, it will connect the circuit as the negative of the light is now connected to the negative of the battery.

Fasten the wire into the headband by sewing around it. This does not have to be done with conductive thread. In this case, the conductive thread is not serving any service other than fastening the wire, it is just what I had available.

Bend the end of the wire so that it is not touching the tape.

Test it out: press the wire down as it would when pressed against one's head.

The circuit is complete and the light is lit!

This exploration was really fun for me and I learned a lot. I even learned after creating the directions that I could have changed a few things to make it easier. This is definitely something I would like to work with further perhaps incorporating sound or movement.

I enjoyed searching for other examples of wearable technology, but found this Wearable Forest Dress most interesting. The following is a clip of a youtube video demonstrating the dress:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/5634278

You can see the full length video in which the artists explain how the dress works here.

Artists Ryoko Ueoka, Hiroki Kobayashi and Michitaka Hirose from the University of Tokyo created this Wearable Forest dress which not only includes led lights and embedded speakers, but is connected to wireless link to the internet which streams the sounds in real time from a remote forest. The speakers play the sounds from the forest and the lights reflect the sounds.

The idea here is for the person wearing the dress to be able to connect with nature, even in the middle of the city.

Although the video is hard to see, I think the end result is quite beautiful.