Slide-Rock Bolters

Below is the story that the movie/pictures are based on.

Way up in the mountains of Colorado lurks the slide-rock bolter. This creature has a huge head, slits where its eyes should be and a wide mouth with long, sharp teeth.

The diet of the slide-rock bolter is Colorado tourists. The slide-rock bolter will lurk at the top of a mountain peak, secured in place by its forked tail which has hooks in it, and watch for tourists. An unwary tourist, innocently sight-seeing through the Rockies, might suddenly find himself confronted by a slide-rock bolter tobogganing down the mountain towards him, its wide mouth gaping open. Before you can say George Washington, the slide-rock bolter will have scooped up that tourist and be resting on the next mountain peak, waiting for dessert to stroll by.

For a while there, some folks tried to rig a trap for the slide-rock bolters by stuffing a dummy with poison or explosives, dressing it in bright, touristy clothes and putting a guide book in its hand. But soon enough, those slide-rock bolters were seeing through the disguise and began eating the trap setters as appetizers, so they abandoned the practice.

Chapter 3 Response

In chapter 3, the book now discusses the more intricate part of digital technology. I think it is very interesting how technology has evolved from the dawn of time. Before text was for documents. Text and data has evolved into a medium of art. Who ever thought that something so simple as text would be considered art? I am sure no one could fathom the thought of it 50 years ago. I think it is entertaining that anything and everything can be considered art.

Another part of this chapter that I thought was interesting was the fact that the world has evolved enough to begin making artificial intelligence. So far AI has not evolved as drastically as shown in some of our favorite sci-fi movies, but I believe that one day our technology will break through that evolution. Hopefully, our earth will not decompose like in Wall-e and hopefully robots wont try and take over our world in IRobot. Whatever happens with technology, I hope the world is prepared for the things that we created.

Chapter 2 Response

I think it is really interesting that the book states that the words "interactive art" as something that the viewer can not only interact with physically, but is also a mental event as well. I think that is really interesting because I actually think that all art has some sort of interacting between the piece and the mind, not just digitally.

Out of the entire book, I really liked all the art shown by Perry Hoberman. My favorite is the installation called Catharic User Interface. It surrounds the frustrations that people have with technology. The viewer gets to throw mouse's into a wall that totally looks like a 100 computer keyboards. I think that is a really cool idea, since everyone has ran into computer problems at one time or another. I feel like throwing objects at my computer on a regular day to day basis. I think it would be cool if he turned it into some sort of video game.

I also really like the installation by Toshio Iwai named Piano. It is ingenious. I have a real passion for trying to create art that incorporates my main background, music, and my sense of creativity via the digital world. This piece, is awesome because it focuses around the same idea.

Spherical Illusions

So I decided that since I was learning how to use Flash in a different class that I would put the skills that I have learned into something that is computer generated for this project. I only used Adobe Flash and Illustrator for this project. I made the animation into a video on youtube. It is very short because it doesn't loop like it does within the browser (.html).






In illustrator, I used the rectangle tool and created a a rectangle and then used the rotation tool to get the rectangle to rotate into a circle, thus creating the circle. I actually got all of this "How-To-DO" site. I just kept repeating the process until I got enough circles to choose out of. I used the same technique for the circles on the top. As with all of the circles, I had layered 2 different rectangles on top of each other to make the interesting design of the circles. The bottom circles were made with the spiral tool and layering 2 different ones together and then taking the rotate tool and rotate them.

In flash, I made about 14 different layers, each one having 1 circle or motion tween on it. All I did was rotate every circle, individually, on each key frame. It wasn't that difficult, it was more time consuming than anything.


I made may different colored circles with many different styles but below are the ones that made the cut.

Project 2 Process

So I originally had this entire project set in after effects and made it a video with a series of still pictures. I am bummed that I couldnt get the audio to come through and actually work. It would definitely help put the pictures into perspective.

So I found the couples image on Google. I arranged Pachelbel's Canon and Beethoven's fifth and mashed them together, in order to create the happy-go-lucky and talk to me and die themes going on in the movie.

I wanted to have a subtle yet interesting way to portray a bride morphing into bridezilla. So all I did was use the quick/magic selection tool and select the eyes and the flower. After that I used the color replacement tool and changed the colors in the selected areas. I did enjoy playing around with different effects with the background from b/w and having only the selected areas and have them pop with color.
Of course, I did use a fire brush that makes the final picture look like she is about ready to explode - kinda like veins of her eyes just vamped up quite a bit. And I used the liquify tool to bring out her eyes and make them bigger. Overall, I think I did pretty well for this being the first time using after effects.

Chapter 1 Response

The item that I found most compelling about chapter 1 was the piece by Michael Rees - A life Series. It is very intriguing because of the interesting shapes of the figures. The pieces make you stop and think about what is actually before you. This idea or type of technique is really interesting because the artist can and did take it into many different directions to keep the audience more involved with his pieces. I definitely would have to stop and think about the actual piece and try and figure out what the piece actually means.  It is a very odd and interesting piece of art. Of course, I also like the piece by Robert Lazzarini - Skulls. It looks like the skull is coming out of the wall. It is only obvious that it was digitally formatted. Like it says in the book, it gives the realization of a virtual state. It draws the viewer in because they want to see how it is constructed via 3D. I also like the piece and technique by Andreas Muller-Pohle - Blind Genes. Once I stopped and looked at it for awhile, it did make me think of Braille. I think this is an ingenious concept to use because it is taking real everyday actions and putting them to use in art.

Brush Exercise