Tagxedo

This was by far my least favorite application that we used. It looks simple to work with, but to add an image was complicated. I ran this off of chrome, which I had to switch over to Safari to use. I never use Safari simply for its lack of speed. I also had to download Silverlight, which I have never heard of. After doing that I still was not sure I was using this application correctly because I did not have the option of adding an image. Apparently I was using the application wrong, and after Googling how to run it I figured out how to add an image. I tried adding an image of one of my urban landscape photos, but without a precise outline of the shape it was nearly impossible to see the image within the tag cloud. I went into photoshop with my image and removed most of the background with the wand tool, in hopes of simply making a silhouette of the image.

Once I had the shape on there it was difficult figuring out how add more words to the tag cloud, I am surprized that I didn't give up on this. One of the most frustrating things was that the text would not take up my entire image. You can see here that my shape has much that is not filled up with text. I maximized my word count and was still not able to fill up the shape. This application took the most amount of time to finish and I am not happy with any of the results.

Here is my attempt. I like that it looks like its falling apart, kind of how this house looked anyways. 

Textorizer

For the first textorizer I used the same image I used for text-image, one of the photos from the urban landscape project. I like this image I took of this old crooked duplex so I tried to play around with it. It was a little awkward working with this application as it takes a while for the new image to load while you're working on it. It took me a few tries to get the image right, and it was hard to get the font to cover the entire image. It was a lot of waiting and being patient, a trait that I am laking. Maybe I am not choosing very interesting subject matter, but I am not too happy with this. But it was an interesting process at least. I think it is interesting in how scattered the words are, it almost makes the house is falling apart, which it might actually be soon.

textorizer 1

The next application we used was textorizer 2. I didn't really see a huge difference between the two, besides the fact that this application didn't have vertical text. The image I chose to use for this go-around was one that was just sitting on my phone that I took during my gallery practices course. It is Crystal, under a tarp, in the hallway joining the TMA to the CVA. It was a funny image, and I wanted to use it for something. I had more fun with this one, probably because of the image I had chosen. I think the outcome of this textorizer looks far better than the first go around. The words that I used for this was TMA, Sol Lewitt, Crystal, and ghost. 

textorizer 2 

Next we used Excoffizer, it creates a vector of the image of your photo using parallel lines, creating a wave-like texture. It is also National Cat Day, so i wanted to use a picture of my cat in here somehow. Nothing is more original than an edited cat photo right?? hahaha well nothing is more original than my cats eyes, which are crazy. they look something like this. (l   ). (   l) But honestly the first sample image I saw on the application made me think that this would be something fun to try. The image was wavy, and the more you messed with it the more the image seemed to move like an optical illusion. Out of all my images I have done, this is the one I am the most proud of. 

Allie, The Mighty Derp.

I had to make this huge to try to make you all appreciate this even more.

On a more serious note I did one of one of our urban landscape pictures as well. 

Its hard to see the original image in this, and when its larger it hurts your eyes to look at, and pain means its working, so I guess this works for me.

Using text-image and glass giant

Glass Giant attempt, photo of my WOOO button

We used the sites GlassGiant and Text-image for our assignment. GlassGiant has a function where it will convert any photo that you place into ASCII format. This format is making up the image with symbols and numbers. I was not too happy with the GlassGiant site, due to the pop ups. I would not use this site again just because I have a fear of computer viruses. I tried using a few different images on this site but I don't think they all turned out very well. The images that I used did not show up well, and I tried to change the contrast and remove much of the background on the images and I still didn't have much success with GlassGiant. Even when I changed the max width of a portrait image it seemed to not change the length of the image, so I was left with some oblong images, I cropped most of them so the oblong isn't noticeable. I tried using my images from our urban landscape but they would not go through the site.





For text-image I used some of our photos from the urban landscape. It was easier to make these images out on the HTML mode because of its use of color. I used one of my unedited photos for the HTML, and it turned out alright. Nothing really fantastic about it. I used the ASCII function with the same image, the first I used it with the default settings, the second time I inverted it and upped the contrast. I did the same with the matrix version of text-image, but with this I had to up the contrast in order to make out the image.

Text-image, HTML

Matrix, text-image. 

ASCII, text image, inverted and upped contrast

ASCII, text-image default

Learning about generative art

For this assignment we were sent to three different websites to create. We were first sent to

Scribbler

Scribbler

Scribbler.com where the user is able to sketch a simple drawing onto a small "canvas" space, then we are able to watch as the image "scribbles" itself. In the scribble the lines of your drawing start to create small fibers which connect to the neighboring lines. The user is able to control the level of messiness of the connections as well as the color. I am not sure why but I chose to draw bunnies for

ScribblerToo

these assignments. It was difficult to draw these on the track pad of my computer but it was interesting to see the outcomes. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out Scribbler that I sort of ran out of time to complete the ScribblerToo part of the assignment. I was
able to complete a sketch on this website but I was not able to put forth the effort that I would like to. On ScribblerToo the user is able to control the scribbles more easily by using them to sketch your object. They also have a feature where you are able to trace an image. I tried to trace one of my previous drawings from the original Scribbler site to make something with more volume. I ran out of time to complete the assignment, but I think I was able to show some level of volume to it. I think I liked the original Scribbler site as a whole better, just because the randomness of the image seemed more fun to me.

ScribblerToo

Flame

I tried uploading the image onto ScribblerToo but I was having issues with it. Once the image was on my canvas I was not able to remove it so I could just see my work. That was really frustrating to me.  I will probably revisit the site later. The last website we visited was Flame online, where the user is able to paint with a flame like tool. I tried doing multiple different images on this website but I was getting frustrated. It seems difficult to try to get anything representational on here, and I thought that the simple movements on the tool were very soothing. Flame was fun, and very zen.

Learning about video mashups.

Mashup from Sara Orzo on Vimeo.

For this assignment we were to take video clips and mash them together to give them a new meaning. To get copyright free videos we used archive.org, or you could use your own videos. I opted to use the archive. There were a lot of videos available for anyone to use. The ones that I thought were most interesting were the old TV advertisements. A lot of them seemed awkward, and while putting them together with the awkward song I created for the last assignment I thought that worked out well. But for the overall assignment I wasn’t super pleased with my results. I have never tried to edit a video before, but it wasn't that difficult. I am using a Mac so I had to use iMovie for the assignment. iMovie was simple to use, the only things that really confused me at first was arranging the clips as well as figuring out how to save the finished movie. After a few youtube tutorials I figured it out though. 

I don't think that my video was very successful, probably because I didn't really know where I was going with these clips. I just started to find the awkward clips or just clips that I thought worked well with the clip before it and put them all together. Maybe the process would have been faster if I had a goal in mind for the whole mashup, maybe not. Either way this whole process took me a long time to finish, and I learned how to edit videos. I know how to edit them now, but not super well. I don’t know when I will have to edit a video again, but if I do I’m sure I’ll use iMovie again. And if I have to make another mashup I’ll but sure to look at more of the strange and old footage on archive.org. 

Learning about the origins of a house cat

We all know that dogs were domesticated from wolves, but have you ever wondered where our cats came from? Well, I did at least. From a few different google searches I think I learned something about it.

Todays house cat, or domesticated cat, or felis silvestris catus, are all decedents of 5 different wildcat subspecies. These subspecies originated in Sardinia, Europe, central Asia, subsaharan Africa, and the Chinese desert.

These wildcats would start to hang around human settlements, just like our feral cats today, to catch mice. Humans don't like mice, therefore the cats were encouraged to stick around. When people started traveling from their native lands the cats followed (or were brought along, whatever). Genetic analysis shows that that our domestic house cats were derived from at least 5 founder cats that were in the Fertile Crescent, where humans had traveled for fertile land.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/qt/cat.htm

Here are the ancestors of your cat. 

Sicilian Wildcat

African Wildcat

European Wildcat

Chinese Desert Cat.
(There aren't too many pictures of these guys,
it was between this and one that looked scared shitless.)

Central Asian Wildcat

All of these wild kitties created my derp-eyed creature. Thanks, wildcats.

Learning about Soundation

Doing this project took me back to when I was in first grade and my parents had me take piano lessons. I remember sitting at home in front of my keyboard in tears because I was not able to play it after hours of practicing. I was then forced again to try an instrument in middle school band which was required. I tried the trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, and was not able to play any of those. I had to settle for bass drum because that instrument only had one note and I could handle that.

This project was not fun for me. I am what I like to call musically challenged. I enjoy listening to music, but putting it together is not where my few skills in life lie. This is easier than actually trying to read and play music, but I still think you need to have some type of musical know-how to do this.

Soundation was pretty easy to use, I only had one issue on trying to save my file. The site has many different audio samples that are free to use. Simple drag the audio file onto the dashboard to add it to your song. Then you can save it to your profile and share it with the soundation community.

Overall I think I learned you need to have patience to make this type of music and keep trying different things to achieve the right sound. I tried, I don't think I succeeded, but thats okay, I still learned something.