The freedom of Internet culture is amazing because you’re willing to freely express your opinions despite other people having opposing opinions, especially in America. I hear that some countries, however, still restrict certain websites that go against the government beliefs. I also heard that some companies delete certain comments from people if they don’t like it, so the freedom is really based on whoever owns the domain on the internet. The internet really helps empowerment because young people can express their ideas freely, and there will always be people on both sides. However, the risks of Internet Culture come with major cyber-bullying and cancel culture.
I think that the rules of Copyright are good as they are. Of course, there’s always going to be cases where some people have their art stolen and unjustly used based on the license they chose, but they’ve worked pretty well overall.
I’m going to choose the most restrictive license Copyright All Rights Reserved because I don’t want people using my face anywhere.
I made this remix piece using an app called PicsArt on my phone with photos of me and my loved ones. I wanted to remix them so that I could see them all at once on my computer screen. It came out really nice, and it wasn’t difficult at all. I would suggest putting all the good photos in a separate folder in your phone they’re easier to find when making the remix.
For this assignment, I would’ve much rather preferred to go outside and tag something like a public wall, but I’m super paranoid with the COVID-19 situation and wouldn’t risk going out. Back in high school, I was on the cheer team, and we were in charge of making “run-throughs” for the football players. It was just this giant poster for the football guys to run through before their first quarter to hype them up, but this activity reminded me of my time on the cheer team. It would be a really big poster, about 15 feet long and 7 feet high, but we would have so much fun writing puns and drawing the mascots. I only used some highlighters and a piece of yellow paper, so I can only imagine what using actual spray paint cans would’ve been like. It sucks because I know this class would’ve gone to Venice Beach, too, and it seems so fun.
Graffiti in general has always been looked down upon my my family, especially my parents. They see it as vandalism and something that “gangsters” do to ruin public places. However, I was exposed at an early age about how graffiti is actually just some people’s ways to express themselves, so I respect it. (Just as long they are not harming anyone.) Some pieces that I see on the street are very pretty, too, and some have deeper meanings than just tagging their names. Overall, I like to see that it’s become more socially acceptable and considered “modern art.”
What was your idea? My idea was just to carve a small happy face into the sand of a local park I live near. Most parks are closed down due to quarantine with caution tape lazily wrapped around the playgrounds for kids, but the grass and sand areas are still available to people to tale walks/walk their pets. For my art piece, I just wanted to catch people’s attentions and remind them that the park is a place of happiness.
What materials did you choose? I used my feet and the sand.
Do you think your piece was able to express your idea? It’s a pretty simple piece. I’m hoping that seeing something so random and happy will also invoke the feeling into other people. I also think it’s just funny to see a smiley face in the sand, so it’ll probably work no matter what.
How did your choice of materials influence the experience of your artwork? I didn’t want to get my hands dirty, so I ended up carving the sand with my bare feet. It was a really weird experience because I haven’t done something like that since I was a kid.
How long should a kiss last? A long one can last 5. A short one can last half a second.
How long should a great meal last? A good meal with good company can last 1-2 hours.
Does the fact that some things, like ephemeral artworks and human lives, have a finite time and then are gone make a difference in the way we experience them? Most of the time, we don’t even think about the time we have left when we’re experiencing things. I think that experiences invoke feeling no matter the time limit.
Should other things, like clean water, air, and land be sustainable and long lasting? In a perfect world, they should be. However, in our current situation, people are handling our clean water/air/land so carelessly, and it harms our environment.
Can one person, like you, make a difference in a global problem like Climate Change? The whole reason Climate Change is a global issue is because people ignore what they can do because of minor inconveniences such as bringing their own bags to the stores or using reusable straws/utensils. I think that everyone has the ability to change the world because they influence others and also make a small change themselves, so you can add up these small differences and make a big difference of your own.
My theme for my art gallery is that “Culture creates positive influences on art that can be shared with the world. My first artist to explore this idea is the most popular Youtuber Pewdiepie and his Minecraft world.
Now, of course I didn’t get to explore the actual world he created, but many people have copied and published copy-cats of the world free for people to download. Since Pewdiepie has uploaded multiple videos of his creations, it was easy for his fans to copy. A little background on Pewdiepie is that his first major landmark in his Minecraft world was his famous “Meatball” which is that giant brown ball made of Minecraft dirt. He uses this meatball as a symbol of his Swedish background, since it’s such a special dish in his culture. He proceeds to create a Swedish flag in his world, which further pays homage to his Swedish background. He also creates a Japanese-style home in tribute to his love of Japanese culture, having visited many times and even buying a home in Japan for himself and his wife, Marzia. Through these creations, we can see the positive impact that culture has on these virtual worlds since they create such a nice aesthetic. Also, since Pewdiepie is such a popular Youtuber, we can see that the people copying and downloading his Minecraft world must also somehow appreciate the culture that he praises.
The second world I explored and am featuring in this Virtual Art Gallery was made by Badger027 in the popular Sims 4 game. While most players use Sims 4 to create and build singular households, Badger027 took it upon themselves to reconstruct the entire town based on German culture.
They used the originally generated Town in Sims 4 and completely reconstructed it to mimic a German town. They took influences from real German towns and landmarks and created the world for people to enjoy for themselves. Although there is no personal background as to why Badger027 used German influences, it still supports the theme since people can now download this world and see German culture from an architectural design.
The last virtual world I explored is from NintenTalk in the more recently popular game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons!
NintenTalk started off their world without a specific theme in mind, but as the game progressed, they started to gather ideas from small-town American homes and streets. They organized the villager’s homes in a way you would see it in old-fashioned suburban locations, and they posted a video on the Internet to share. This supports the theme that cultural influences create a positive impact because this helped their create her town, and they could share it with the world to see.
My goal with the vlog was to create a compilation of videos over the course of my first year of college featuring all the great friends I’ve made.
I did. It was a little hard gathering all the material I needed, but it was a good amount at the end.
Instead of the title card in the beginning, I think I would try to actually talk instead of just using text.
I’ll probably vlog again.
My favorite youtuber is David Dobrik.
He’s really authentic and distracts me from a bad day with this outgoing personality.
I would try to apply myself more into the vlogs, but he usually vlogs his friends more anyways, so it’s the same.
Authenticity is when there’s a genuine vibe coming from the person where they aren’t faking any of their personality or beliefs for a certain topic or presenting it to be anything more than it is.
Performance is a more emphasized version or perhaps completely fake version of a certain belief or topic.
I think Authenticity and Performance can co-exist in a way that benefits the spread of beliefs and systems of ideas. A performance basically catches the eye of the viewer, but it doesn’t mean the inspiration behind it is any less authentic.
I believe the 2 clips of Jennifer Aniston on the Jimmy Kimmel show – one in the studio and one from home during the coronavirus pandemic are both authentic. On shows, yes, the cameras and the lighting and makeup enhance the features of the people, but it doesn’t make them any less authentic as human beings. They can still say and believe the same things regardless of wearing work clothes or PJs.
I decided to do my drawing with my best friend Emily because it had been a while since we got together and talked. The experience was a fun one – we were laughing a lot and it was hard to go with the flow if one of us wasn’t taking control. She thought that we were going to take up the whole paper if we didn’t stop, but it turns out we didn’t even take that much room on the paper.
Our masterpiece came out to be this weird cartoon guy with eyes, nose, mouth, and even feet. We didn’t expect to make something living with a real figure, but it ended up that way. It kind of looks like an uncomfortable Spongebob Squarepants.
Artist: Sienna Browne Exhibition: Product of the Palette Media: Painting Gallery: Black Umbrella and Tattoo Art Gallery Website: http://www.siennabrowneart.com Instagram: @siennabrowneart
Sienna Browne is a fourth year student in the School of Art’s Drawing and Painting. She wishes to use her degree in arts to be an art teacher. Sienna is also a beach lifeguard, middle school youth leader for her church, and a student assistant at Long Beach State. She started her art in her early years while she was home-schooled, which sheltered her from societal influences until she went to middle school and high school. When growing up, she developed a eating disorder which affected her paintings subconsciously. Most of her paintings are works that reflect how she feels and other outside influences that affect her life.
Sienna has many different stages of her artwork, ranging from painting to sculpting, and her ideas are completely separate. She talked about her first series being the paintings with food on top of people’s heads. This was a more realistic approach. However, to compare, the series of “Nuudles” is completely abstract and references to the idea of self love to one’s body. She uses very bright and outstanding colors that first peak the interest of the viewer and then continues to draws them in. In her ocean series, a lot of smaller and more refined details are put into the sea animals to convey the complex nature of the connection between her and the ocean. This goes to show the effects of being a life guard and it is conveyed through her painting.
One of the more notable works of art that attracted my attention was the “people balancing food on their head” series because of the way she spoke about the subconscious influences while she was painting. During this time, she suffered from major eating disorders and poor body image, which was reflected in her work. I think having people balancing foods on their heads was something fun at first, but it goes deeper into showing how food and its influence on her was always on her mind. This, in turn, was therapeutic for her. Another artwork series in response to her eating disorders was the “Nuudles” series which embraces self love and welcomes all body types.
This exhibition stood out to me because I actually really relate to her stories about having poor body image and eating disorders. I’m glad that she found an outlet through art, and it inspires me to try it out. Her ideas are very personal, which makes her art even more personal. I haven’t experienced an artist that puts their own personal experiences into their artwork during my artist conversations, so this was a good change of pace. I look forward to seeing her exhibition.
For this project, I didn’t really dress up or make my self look any nicer. Instead, I just wore a green neon vest and walked around Bolsa Chica Wetlands. I watched this video where a guy dressed up as a janitor and he was let into a lot of random events and venues just because he was dressed like a janitor, so I was trying to go for something like that.
A lot of people actually approached me first to ask for directions for a volunteering event. Obviously, I had no idea what they were talking about, and they were just as confused as I was when I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about. I guess wearing the green neon vest made me look like I had knowledge I don’t have. When I told people about my project, they thought it was pretty funny because I really didn’t change anything about myself, but I just had a different look to me.
When I made people guess my major, a lot of them thought I was in environmental studies. (Probably because I was wearing a green neon vest in the wetlands). I made people guess how old I was, too, and I got a lot of 20+ ages, even thought I’m only 18. The green neon vest also makes me look older, I guess.
My experience overall was a good one. I thought it was so funny that people thought I knew stuff about nature just because I wore the green neon vest and walked around the wetlands. I felt bad that I couldn’t help the lost folks, though. I hope they found their destination.
For my art, I decided to paint nature onto a Hydro-flask to emphasize the idea that using reusable water bottles can help nature. I usually like painting on non-canvas items because it’s fun to navigate my way around the objects. It’s also a double win to have nature painted on a Hydro-flask because it shows you are saving what painted on top.
I hoped to communicate the idea of drinking water out of reusable water bottles instead of plastic ones for the obvious reason that plastic is a pollution and reusable water bottles help prevent that.
I think that you would really have to concentrate on the idea to figure it out. My art is more insightful than shocking, but once you get the idea down, it’s shocking.
I think that I would’ve made a giant sculpture made out of plastic water bottles just to fulfill more of the shocking aspect. However, I would’ve had to find the water bottles from litter instead of buying the water bottles because that defeats the purpose. The project would’ve taken a lot more time than a week, so I went sweet and simple.
Another controversial concept I wanted to explore was women’s right to abortion. I feel like the graphic imagery that already comes to mind and making art out of that would easily become shocking art.
Artist: Ana Alvarez Exhibition: The Enchanted Borderlands Media: Animation Gallery: Dr. Maxine Merlino Gallery Website: N/A Instagram & Twitter: aadorisart Email: aadorisart@gmail.com
Ana Alvarez is a student in the School of Art’s Illustration/Animation program as a senior undergraduate. She wishes to create a show under Netflix and help tell a story through her character design and visual development. This exhibition was inspired by the combination between Western genre and Fantasy. While both of these genres are very popular individually, Ana’s team noticed that the genres were rarely ever combined. Thus, this exhibition was made. Ana is a big storyteller, wanting to influence those who are interested in her work. She also decided to scrap this work and create new characters, coming up with newer ideas.
Her artwork consists of character design and visual development of the surroundings. Most of her character designs are cartoons with round faces and intricate clothing pieces. A lot of detail is put into what they wear and the expressions that they give. In this particular artwork, small details such as pointed ears further emphasize the fantasy portion of their exhibition. For non-human-like characters, more details in coloring is put in to make them pop out. Most colors used are on the neutral palette to match the Western theme. For fantasy-related creatures, the colors become more bright. Overall, the nature of these animations pull the viewers in by combining aesthetically pleasing colors and using fine detail in the characters.
Again, this exhibition was created from an idea to combine two very popular genres – fantasy and the Wild West – because we don’t see these genres clash very often or at all. Ana worked on this because she wanted to work on the character development and their stories. Since she’s a big storyteller, she was happy to help create this whole new world. While this exhibition was not her idea initially, she still helps follow through with the planning and the aesthetics of the exhibition. Even though she doesn’t plan on continuing this idea, she has upcoming ideas for new characters. I learned that she wants to tell her stories to help people get through daily life and responsibilities but also teach them life lessons and morals as well.
This particular exhibition stood out to me because I’ve never really seen art dedicated to The West or western themes. The animations made it seem like something from fantasy, but the actual settings placed the characters in a western world. Personally, I thought the clash was very funny, and that’s why I decided to talk to the artists to find out the inspiration behind it. The nature of this exhibition made me feel very nostalgic of my childhood, but it also opened my eyes to a new theme of western art, which I’ve never really com in contact with. Overall, it was a good experience to look at fantasy in a different perspective.
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