Category: Uncategorized

Reading Response: Teen Titan & Listening and Longing

After reading this article on Scooter Braun, I have grown to admire his managment. He was able to successfully mold Justin Bieber into stardom using ethical values as his foundation. I say ethical because when the author juxtaposes Scooter and other managers, such as Colonel Tom Parker, Scooter seems to really have his client in his best interest. Scooter likes making money and is good at it, but he does not over do it and let greed take the best of him. He takes a 15-21% cut of his artist’s makings unlike Parker who took 51%. He donates to charities with every deal he makes. He paid for Justin Bieber and his mother’s housing while they were in the United States. Bieber even looks to Scooter as a “close uncle.” I really respect Scooter’s relationship he seems to have with the artists he manage. He refers to his belief in karma and this reflects his mindset of sharing success. I feel like Scooter and Bieber exhibit an ideal manager and artist partnership. He is definitely the opposite of a Svengali type of manager.

In terms of the Listening and Longing reading, I found a lot of it to be a foreshadowing of today. The excessive obsession with a public figure such as Jenny Lind mimics today’s Bieliebers. The critics that rose from Jenny Mind Mania mimic the millions of negative comments or paparazzi that we are exposed to everyday. The very staged photo with Jenny Lind, Ossian E. Dodge and Phones T. Barnum mimics magazine covers and photoshoots celebrities have to add to the image of their brand. It is so interesting to me that after all these years, from the antebellum period to present day, that we have carried the same behavior. This makes me wonder if celebrity fandom will ever die down?

Final Project Documentation:

Tongue Twisted: You Need Some Reverb With Those Bars?

My original concept for my final project was a clay sculpture of a head with its tongue sticking out, which ould play a song that I made. The texture of how the lyrics sound could be altered when the user moves around the tongue. When the tongue is flexed due to a flex sensor inside, the timbre of the voice will change.

This project is for anyone who likes to touch things. I can see this project is a bigger installation in a gallery, where the scale of this project is bigger and there are multiple sculptures that all tell a different story and hold their own aesthetic.

I wanted to do this project because I wanted to challenge myself by making a physical aspect and renew my knowledge on serial communication. Also, I really wanted to actually make music and expereince he process of making a song.

My first step was to make the sculpture. I used clay from Blick Art Materials and aluminum foil to stuff the center of the sculpture. This is how it turned out.

I then went on to make the song. My friend, Ryan, and I made a sampled a song and used FL Studios to create it. This took three whole days, but I really enjoyed using the equitment and learning the software. The song can be found here:

file:///Users/hildadelvalle/Downloads/darlin%20instru%20V%3F.m4a
file:///Users/hildadelvalle/Downloads/darlin%20instru%20V%3F.m4a
file:///Users/hildadelvalle/Downloads/darlin%20instru%20V%3F.m4a
I added my lyrics later on.

Next, I worked on my circuit. I needed my arduino to connect and receive information from my flex sensor. Here is what my circuit looked like:

This is a video of my circuit working. My computer was picking up the values my flex sensor produced when bent.

I then went to work on connecting my circuit and P5.js sketched that played my song. I used different sources such as:

View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
https://medium.com/@yyyyyyyuan/tutorial-serial-communication-with-arduino-and-p5-js-cd39b3ac10ce

Unfortunately, with much effort, I did not figure it out. This obstacle made me alter my design and overall project. I decided to do a 2D model instead. I used P5.js and built a model around my original concept. I used the sound library, key pressed functions, and the reverb effect. When the song played, the user was able to click the screen and add a different value of reverb to the lyrics with every click. I was successful in doing that and the sketch can be found here: https://editor.p5js.org/yunglizard/sketches/BggAC-m64

This final project retaught me how to built circuits and use the arduino. It also taught me that I really like making music. I learned so much about FL studios and smapling. Most importantly I learned that my time managment skills are pretty horrible. I think that if I had given myself more time, I would have figured out the serial communication aspect of the project.

For my future works, I want to finally get serial communication down. I think that would add a layer to my projects that makes it more interactive. I also want to make a series of these clay sculptures and songs that may be part of a bigger story. Maybe even be in a gallery one day.

Tickle ME!

A gallery for people who like to touch things. There are two types interactive sculptures placed throughout the space. One is more narrative and the other allows the subject to have a personal experience with the art. The narrative sculptures, which can be made latex, are different characters that are stamped with certain instructions for the interaction. The subject interacts with the sculpture and a sound is triggered. The subject can manipulate the timbre by manipulating the shape of the sculpture. The personal experience sculpture is a box with an unknown object inside of it also stamped with instructions for the interaction. The subject places their hands in the box and when the object is touched, the sound is triggered. The subject then will be able to form an image in their head that corresponds to the texture and timbre of the unknown object, letting their imagination run wild.

Presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_y9Ya1paVRyLLCAzku7xhIETZHM7tOfr9gw2bObtv40/edit?usp=sharing


Timbre Interactive Response

After playing around with Spectrogram and Adding Harmonics, I have a better understand of what timbre is and how it works. I have always noticed that sounds were so different from one another and wondered why that was. I never had the vocabulary to describe it as timbre, but now I can better grasp the idea of why there is such difference between sounds. I never thought of sound to be a combination of different frequencies. In Spectrogram, it was so helpful to have the densities of the sounds be visuals. It actual helped me hear the sound differently. The trumpet visual was the most surprising to me because it wasn’t as concentrated as I thought it was. The undertones were very spread out. With Adding Harmonics, I liked the interactive part of it. I got to change the tone myself and that was a very valuable learning processs. As I changed the sound, I had a different feeling and I had different imagery. This made me think of hearing as a sense overall. It made me think of how sound can trigger different emotions, images, or memories for people. Sound is a means of communication that is global. I feel like everyone can have a similar feeling when hearing a particular sound and I think that is magical. Timbre allows people to have a personal expereince by giving the listener a specific feeling or memory attatched to the sound they hear.

On The Fence

For the last project, I wanted to actual gather some supplies from the art store instead of using the usual cardboard, miscellenous objects, or wood scraps found around the shop. I went to Blick Art Supplies and I knew I wanted to do some sort of sculpture. When I was in the isle for sculture supplies, I found modeling metal mesh, which I ended up buying and using for my project (as seen below).

What inspired me was an image on the modeling mesh cover.
I picked up some foam board
and some modeling clay to use in my sculpture.
This is the sketch I came up with based off the materials I gathered and inspiration from the modeling mesh cover.

I started out by measuring 2 7inx7in squares on the foam board.

I used a saw to cut these pieces out.
Once they were cut, I used a sander to smooth out the edges.

I used a hot glue gun to connect the two bases.
Next I took the modeling metal mesh and cut a smaller piece to work with.

These are the tools i used to shape the modeling mesh.
I shaped the mesh very simple to mimic the shape of a nose. Then I used clay to cover nose outline.
I continued to build on the face.
To cut holes and twist the modeling mesh I used this tool.
I added details to the eyes.
I used black and white acrylic paint to add this pattern to the background.
This is how it looked with the background layer.
This is the finished project.

Glam Shot!

Conclusion:

I’m glad I finally got to experiment with sculptures and clay modeling. I realized that it’s a pretty hard thing to do. I’m not sure if it’s just the type of clay I got or if it was just me, but the clay was a difficult thing to navigate. I also used my hands during the whole process so maybe using clay sculpting tools would definetly have changed my expereince with it. I like the 3D aspect and different textures of this piece. I can see this piece hanging on a cafe wall or something. This is my favorite project out of all the ones we did because I feel like finding out a way to use two materials that we usually don’t use force me to push to be more creative.