Art Event 1

I went to Todd Forsgren’s talk and it ended up being very interesting to me personally. Todd is an artist with a background in biology and, majoring in biology myself, I found his talk very interesting. Todd went to Bowdoin College to major in biology and ended up receiving a bachelor’s degree in biology. He focused his studies on the ecological areas in biology and while doing research in the field discovered his love of photography. He found it much more interesting than biology, although he still retained many biological aspects of biology in his art and was still interested in learning more about biology. He received his visual art bachelor’s degree from the same college and went on to earn his post-baccalaureate degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He has taught at many different colleges, including St. Mary’s, and is on many different academic boards throughout the country.

Todd’s art focuses on ecological aspects of biology and perceptions of landscape. He wants to create a type of art where natural history and art history are combined into one piece. One of his subjects in photography is ornithological pieces. In these pieces he used birds and portrayed them as being caught in web-like structures. These web-like structures were types of nets created by scientists that could not harm the birds and were meant to be able to capture the birds for studies. Todd would take pictures of the birds in certain positions that one wouldn’t normally see a bird in naturally. After taking photography in Australia for a while he decided to try and visit a more industrial place and went on to do more projects in places like Boston. He found it interesting that, even though they were surrounded by buildings, there were still some natural aspects in the city when he found many types of natural gardens.

I found many of Forsgren’s pieces very fascinating. The fact that almost all of his work involved the natural aspects of the world was amazing to me because you don’t see too many artists focus so much of their time and attention on natural things. I found his ornithological pieces very interesting because of the way he captures the birds. His photos almost make it seem as though the birds are drawn because of their precarious positions in the net and the unnatural positions they are in. Because of the lack of surrounding area in these pieces, it allows you to put all of your focus on the bird which is what I believe he wanted. You can see the texture of the individual feathers and the stimulating colors of certain birds. I enjoyed Todd’s work very much because I was able to relate to it so well. It stimulated my interest in biology even more and made me think more about the natural beauty of our world and the fact that some of us don’t even realize what’s there at our disposal.

Web Designer Blog

Brett Gullan is a principle consultant and creative director of Brett Gullan Communication + Design. He has had experience in graphic and communication design, printing, and new media technology. He has worked for companies all over the world for advertising and design studios. Brett is currently a member of the Hong Kong Designers Association and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. He received a Diploma of Art in graphic designs and a Master of Design in graphic communications. He has also received formal training in photography, computer science, and project management.

Brett has worked in many different categories of web design but focuses his interest in media and advertisement. He has many projects with creating advertisements and web sites for businesses and creates very interactive sites because of his background in graphic design. He believes communication is the key to everything and wants to be able to communicate with his audience through the web sites he creates. Brett likes to use social media in many of his websites because he believes social media sites are the key to the future. When creating advertisements for companies, Gullan can create a wide variety of designs and does not have any typical style to his work. He does what the company wants him to do in his own way.

I really enjoy some of the interactive sites he creates. Each one is very unique and nothing like any of the other sites. Some of his sites involve the use of 3-D modeling to show the inside or outside of a building. Others use backgrounds such as pyramids or waterfalls and allow you to go into them to view the inside of the structures. Gullan's work involves the use of so many ideas and designs and it is amazing that each design can be so different and unique to another site.

Messed up the background but it's almost done

Final Vector Project

Final Edit 

Identify Yourself

This blog was a very distracting, yet interesting, blog. It was very unique in the sense that it had that weird column scroll on the right side that was a little confusing at times. While reading I did not really understand what the point of the right column was at first and then I thought that maybe it was about the same topic as the section next to it just from a slightly different perspective. Then again maybe I'm completely wrong. This article, to me, was about technology being associated with our everyday lives and how we can do pretty much nothing to prevent it from taking control. Krystal South goes on and on about how our lives become so intertwined with technology that things we don't even mean to put on the internet can appear there without us ever knowing they existed. This could include pictures or very personal information about yourself.

I analyzed the section titled LIFE=GAME and GAME=LIFE. I play computer games a lot so this was one of the sections that interested me most. I tend to play video games mostly involving soccer and I have never really played Sims all that much. But I do know people who are obsessed with playing the game and know that it can pretty much take control of their lives completely. They tend to live out their wildest dreams in the game instead of taking the time to pursue the dreams in real life. They think they cannot do it without even attempting to try and decide that it would be better if they just pretended to live out their goals in a video game. To me this seems like a way of escaping their reality because they don't think very highly of themselves. In the section GAME=LIFE South is telling us about how she escapes her troubles by playing video games. This goes along with my theory about people taking the easy way out and playing out their lives through video games instead of going out and actually doing things. She also compared how playing against real people in video games can relate to the real world as well. You need to constantly think about new ideas and evolve new strategies to get through gaming situations.

Overall, I enjoyed this reading because it  can relate to almost everyone on the planet. Our lives are constantly being affected by technology whether we want them to be or not. Technology is something that people born after our generation grew up with from the time they were born. Eventually our lives may end up being just one big simulation in a game and we won't even have to get up our of our chair from the basement in our parents' house.