Saturday, October 27, 2012

Freytag's Pyramid



Such an understatement when I say "...a lot has happened in the past two weeks." An incredible amount of processing with school, family, freelance work, school, family, freelance work (wait, I'm feel redundant here). I'm trying to let everything soak and percolate in my mind while purge everything toxic out of the body, mind, and heart. It's tough. But I'm finding that practice and failure are two things I've grown accustomed to. Now, when I use the word failure, I mean it in a way that is productive. There are many instances where I feel as though I have failed miserably but choose to learn as much as I can. 

In any case, it's all about (what one of my professors would say) 'productive failure'. I wanted to share one of the gems this week - Freytag's Pyramid. Surprisingly, my professor is having us map and chart the tension, complexity, and/or rising action to our works. While it's proving to be a pretty awesome exercise, for my obsessive compulsive brain, it's going to be an exercise in teasing (and failing productively) out what is most important. Wish me luck. Above, you'll find a handy illustration. Enjoy! Feel free to drop a note if you've studied Freytag's Pyramid or want to share any thoughts about your writing process. :)

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Creative Time Summit ~ Blog Posting on Arts Research Center UC Berkeley Muses Blog


It's been about a month since my last posting but I thought I would share something I wrote for the ARC Muses blog. The posting served as my registration and participation in the Creative Time Summit this Friday. I wrote, specifically, about 'making'. Please read the intro text to learn a bit more about the summit and feel free to share your thoughts.

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On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers -- including artists, critics, writers, and curators -- to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Dorothy Santos, New Media and PR Strategist for Art Practical.

Keyword: Making

Artists, writers, and technologists are expected to create with certain parameters before bending and breaking the rules. With new media art, programming, creative coding, and open source culture seem to be exploring new ways that are redefining contemporary art. The interactive and immersive works prevalent in new media works offer an entirely different experience of art. Yet, what happens when the body performs and serves as the catalyst for the production and creation of an artwork? How is the mind expected to reflect on the work when the body becomes a part of the work itself?

Since the idea of art making and creating is so vastly different with advancements in technology being made each day, it’s imperative to discuss how the body of both the artist and the the viewer are implicated in the works. Although an ambitious and arduous task, it’s extremely important to find ways to incorporate discussions in new media and digital arts and traditional art practices. Comparing and contrasting the art practices may lessen the gap between traditional artists and the artist-technologists. Having recently read philosophical text and theory on the body and disembodiment, I’m struck by how much the body plays a role in new media works that seems to cross over into actual functional use of everyday objects. Collectively, much of the public is so accustomed to the design and convenience of interactive products and commodities, it would be interesting to discuss how this revolutionizes or hinders the artist - any artist (not only new media artists but any artist). Is overuse of the body a hindrance or progressive when it comes to new media arts, specifically, or is it too reliant? What is new media addressing or not addressing in practice and in theory? Or, how it is working against traditional models?

Despite the availability of interdisciplinary studies, the way in which things are made is extremely important to the overall discourse of how the arts have changed alongside the emergence and popularity of other new media modes of art making (including crowd sourcing and interaction design). In particular, being situated in the Bay Area, how is it that there are not very many galleries exhibiting new media works? Although there are valiant efforts being made to showcase and foster the discussion and exhibition of new media and digital arts, it is important to learn the history and methods of how these works have been deemed art, by whom, and the models that may hinder or enhance progression in the arts.