G-4
Craxy Talk
Words by JJ Love, Read By April Sandor
Utter Confusion
G-3
Tantric Meditation Sex Trance
This video began as an experiment in working with the new eZescreen plug in I added to imovie so that I could use green screen. As I worked on different things I began having more and more ideas. This (almost) final piece was what came out. I say almost final because of the little eZescreen logo's in the corners. I am looking for another plug in that won't leave that, but for now, I'll deal. I'm quite happy with the product. There are two videos layered and I toned out the flesh colors in one. So as you watch one video you are watching it through another. I find myself going between the two videos looking at both depending on what happens. Everything I chose, I chose to represent how I see sex, inspired by Ayn Rands theory of what art is, an abstract idea visualized, I decided that this would be how sex is for me. THis is my visual representation of how sex feels and the emotions wrapped up in it.
P-4
Art is masturbation
The painting I am doing is from the abstracted sex series. I decided, when I began painting these pieces to paint with my hands. I blocked in the colors with a brush, but then used my hands. It is something I have never done before. It was a completely new experience for me, but, I thought, this painting deserves something different. Painting with my hands seems more sensual, more personal. There are bits of me in the painting, more than just my ideas and my thoughts. These are also the first abstract paintings I have ever done, which for me, gives them an aura of mystery, much like sex, before you have had it. The paintings have become to me, a visual representaiton of sex, in the video I am trying to capture the sensuality of art.
P-3
This artwork negates itself
I hypocritical piece that tells you it is useless in this day and time. I ask for a revolution, simply because I am bored, yet I do not start one. We are all comfortable in our houses of blindness unaware and blissfully free of the shit in other countries. We complain but do nothing, we argue but do not fight, we ask for change but do not offer suggestions. So does this video.
P-2
I wrote our story across the universe
A visual poem by JJ Love
Every picture is worth a thousand words or so they say, and for every image in this poem there are a thousand different words that go with it. There is so much I want to say, so many things I am unable to explain. The poem would be epic, if written out and I couldn't find all the words I need. The images say what I want to say, they are the poem, there isn't a text that goes with it, there isn't a poem that this is the basis for. This is the poem. The video is the poem, every thousand words, there for you to know for yourself. I have written this story across the world again and again, but I am the only one that can see it.
I slaved over this video. Deciding on every image before hand, which many times I don’t do. I searched for the perfect found footage when I realized I would’t be able to get it myself. The song, to me, is kind of crucial. It was the song, listening to this song and watching the rain pour down around the car on my way home that made the idea real. The rain had so many meanings for me now. It’s not just what it seems. So often I feel LIke I can see things thatno ones else does or that i see them in completely different ways from everyone else. I want to try to help people see things in a different way. It’s not just rain, it’s not just trees, there are so many owrds to describe these things and everything has this hidden story inside of it. That’s what this video is. It is the thousand or more stories for every image I created.
I'm really good at running away 2
I tried it with your suggestions. I like it better in some way. I think if someone else was reading it I would like it a lot more. I just can't get animated enough to make it sound the way I want.
Animation test
This is a rather straight forward video. I tried to make sure it stayed that way. Sometimes it's more difficult for me to do something "normal"… no the best choice of words, but I think you know what I mean. it's much easier for me to make something crazy than something that is understandable by everyone. I tried to make this video easier to understand. I chose the camera angle for two reasons, to see if it would work and to get a different angle of how I work. This would only be one portion of the type of animation that would be done for my big project.
P-1
Below is the first version of this video which I didn't like and the lower resolution version as well. Hopefully this version is good enough you can read and see what's going on.
I struggles with the music, with the editing, with the footage. I was having control issues, I couldn't get anything to look the way I wanted it and though it fit the music, it really seemes less like and art video and more like an advert for the MFAIA program. Then Iggy pop came on and though Lust for life has seriously been overdone with the commercial that has that song in it, I felt it was perfect. I downloaded the song put it into my program and the program crashed. Frustration is not even close to how I was feeling. When I reopened the program however, something happened. Dr Labadie, My mentor from college always called it my happy accidents. I have more than most people. I grabbed the clips I had already worked on out of the trash and just put them on the time line. i didn't really pay attention to where they were, I used the Cunningham chance technique. I decided to start putting other things in the video, ad then I decided the video was about me, not just interdisciplinary art, not Tjae as an interdisciplinarian, but me. It became me and how art has brought me back to life. The way I feel when I am shooting, the way I feel when I am creating anything. It took forever for me to get this videot ot a point where I like it. It still needs help, but at least I don't hate it anymore
OK I'm so frustrated with this piece. The part that I'm uploading is the original unfinished piece that I wanted ot be able to look back at and compare and contrast when I finish my other piece. I tried making it around the music, and I tried making it about interdisciplinary as a nabstract idea to be performed. I'm not getting what I want. I'm ready to scream. So I thought that possibly if I wrote about what I think interdisciplinary is, I will be able to articulate it in the video.
Interdisciplinary is drawing from several sources to create one thing. It is using information from across the board to add to your work. It is being many different things at one time. Most people, moms especially are interdisciplinary without even knowing it. Most educators are interdisciplinary and call it integrating curriculum.
This isn't working. The footage is saying something else, I just don't know what. And for the first time ever, I can't find music or sounds to back it up. So I deleted the project and am starting over from scratch… well kinda, I still have the footage, I just have to build again.
HaHA!! My savior came in the form of iggy pop. here's hoping it works this time!
This is the low res version. I am working on a higher res one. Hopefully it will be up soon.
After typing punk into my Last FM account, Iggy Pop chimed in with "Lust for Life" and I knew my issues were over.
America in a fishtank
Tjae is an ex-military man. He served for four years and left due to irreconcilable differences. Mainly, the fact that he is an anarchist and his superiors didn't respond to well to his attitude in the armed forces. In my life, I have rarely had the chance to be surprised by "the pretty face." In most cases unfortunately I have found that the stereotypes are true, even more so in men. The male models and "pretty boys" I have dealt with through my years in dance, art and photography have reinforced my belief that the brains are given to one group, free will to another and looks to a third. Tjae is one of the rare people I have met who seems to have all in abundance. The images and the words seem to not fit at first but upon deeper inspection I feel that they coincide very well. As he talks of the government, the hierarchy inherent in all forms and the superior qualities of anarchy, the worlds greatest predator gets closer and closer, making the viewer somewhat conscientious of the smaller more vulnerable fish, if not themselves. The shraks as metaphor for government. Then again, you can view all the fish as self-governing people. Those who choose to be in groups, those who are loners, they all follow their own rules. The turtles are the argument between church and government. The two sides, always at odds, but one always trying to conquer the other. Nature in video VS. Man in audio. The vision of how we should be, as creatures of nature free and flowing. But all the while they (in the video) and we are caged, bound by government, controlled as much as we can be. �13� I am good at running [[embedvideo]]
I'm running through the woods, trying to find that certain tree, but my mind won't stay focused, I keep seeing him, his hands, his face, the memories assault me so hard they knock me over. I stumble and start running again. The things people said to me about us, the things he said, it all pops in at random and without cause. I just want to find the tree so I can end it all.
"I'll Attack" lyrics
by 30 Seconds to mars
Used in the video
I won’t suffer, be broken
Get tired, or wasted
Surrender to nothing
I'll give up what I
Started
And stop this
From end to beginning
A new day is coming
And I am finally free
This is how I assume he felt when he left me, when he forced me to walk away, because he was where he wanted to be and I had no home. So I ran away.
Runaway, Runaway
I’ll attack
Runaway, Runaway
Go chase yourself
Runaway, Runaway
Now I’ll attack
I’ll attack, I’ll attack
For eight months after he left me, he attacked me in one way or another. He stalked me via the internet, keeping tabs on what I was doing. He sent me anonymous messages and pretended to be someone else on AIM so that he could get me to talk about how much loved him.
I would’ve kept you forever
But we had to sever
It ended for both of us
Faster than a…
kill off this thinking
It’s starting to sink in
I’m losing control now
But without you I can finally see
This was how I felt, like I wanted forever, and like when I was with him I was unable to see. I completely lost control of my life for that first year. I could hold down a job or even take care of basic things around the house. I was stoned or drunk the majority of the time and I spent much of it driving to the places he and I use to go, just so I could feel close to him again.
Runaway, Runaway
I’ll attack
Runaway, Runaway
Go chase yourself
Runaway, Runaway
Now I’ll attack
I’ll attack, I’ll attack
When I thought it was over, I had not heard from him in a couple of months, I got a message from his new girlfriend. She was wanting to be friends, wanting my forgiveness wanting me to talk about him. But I couldn't do that. We weren't suppose to be together in te first place, no one could no we were. he had denied it, why shouldn't I.
Your promises
They look like lies
Your honesty’s
Like a back that hides a knife
I promise you
I promise you
I am finally free
He promised me forever, but don't they all. He hurt me worse than anyone ever has hurt me before. I finally began to feel free from him when I could go to those places and not hurt anymore.
Runaway, Runaway
I’ll attack
Runaway, Runaway
Go chase yourself
Runaway, Runaway
Now I’ll attack
I’ll attack, I’ll attack
I will attack
Your promises
I promise you
In the video, the still images represent the present, the now, the dullness in black and white, the staccato rhythm that throws you off and doesn't feel right. You just keep missing the beat. I run, constantly, trying to get away from his memory. I have ran away from him time and again, over and over, but would most likely go back again if he called. That's why the memories, the bright, harsh
memories are so clear still. The places where these things happened that were forbidden and cause me to loose my life in so many ways. The woods represent many different things to me, our tree, our private space, the place I went to die. The mile markers are significant, they are years, they are signposts, they are there to remind me how far I've gone. the wooden planks are the treacherous road I walk everyday, just trying to survive. This video was suppose to be made a year ago, but I wasn't able to make t till today, because I didn't know what I was trying to say. I believe the only way I can sum it up is to say, no matter how far or fast I run, I will never be rid of him.
The mounting of the camera for the trip
When I began, I intended this as a tutorial, but it ended up more funny, so I went with it. How serious can you b when your rednecking your truck anyway. So I chose to keep the voice over where I'm explaining what's going on and used my favorite tool, fast forward, to fit it all in. Just a little shot to commemorate the camera mount.
G-2
My video rant/essay on some general conclusions for this packet period. Doesn't really sum up so much as brings together for more questions.
If by chance it does not work or gets taken down it is also here…
http://www.dailymotion.com/decadantzombie/video/9598330
The new video has some minimal nudity and isn't allowed on youtube. I'm having some isues with the other service. Considering the time constraints rather than spend a lot of time trying to get it to work, just go Here to watch it. Thanks!
Fleeting
The beauty of the Odalisques, the beauty of youth, beauty… fleeting things that have an enormous value to many people. Women starve themselves and have surgeries performed and applly chemicals to their bodies and hair in order to create their beauty longer than nature intended they should have it. Anyone can be beautiful with enough money. Anyone can look the way they want… but for how long. No amount of money will keep age away forever, sooner or later we all age and fall apart. Time washes away our beauty the way water washes away paint. Paintings of beauty will last longer, but one day they too will fade and crack.
I used non-toxic acrylic paints, the kind I let my kids paint with, to create the images. The camera did not capture the entire work. The bottom of each painting has been cut off. Each female represents a certain type of nude, ending with a portrayal of myself which is turned into a soaring phoenix. In the video, the word phoenix is spelled wrong. This is an odd quirk I adapted to my work several years ago. I will often misspell a word in a title of a painting and even my regular internet name is misspelled. I did several phoenix themed works which hung and showed in galleried. The pheonix misspelling became a point of interest at some of my shows. Many did not believe I purposely spelled it wrong, other just thought it was an error by the galleries. I was finally asked to comment on it. I said, I feel more ownership of the word this way. I have created my own pheonix, it is not the pheonix of old, she is new and alive again in me. My misspelling, and it is mine, makes this word, and this idea more mine.
This is another of those bizarre quirks of mine, that people just don't get.
Struggle
Unlike the last video which was basically documenting my process and the painting was the finished piece, The which was made for this was just a player in the finished artwork. Part of the purpose for this piece was to practice using the stop action style which I plan on using in the big final, portfolio project that I am thinking about.
This is a work of black humor. The character, which has yet to be named, is born into a world and struggles to understand it, only to realize he must find himself first. He works diligently to find his "position" in the world only to realize it took his entire life to do, and he dies. The abrupt end to the music, symbolizes his death and the way death seems to happen far too soon for most of us. Cutting us off in mid thought or sentence. I gave the video a dark look, I was going for almost a silent movie feel, with the peephole around the figure and the black and white. In the background to the left are objects that represent life, death and mortality, along with pieces of the doll as well. Discarded things that he no longer needed. The butterfly, beautiful even in death, sits silent beside the spiral shell, the mortal coil. Behind everything is a work of Japanese Calligraphy which says, "I want to be a drop of tear born in the cradle of your eye, passing along your face to die on your lips." To the right are objects of birth and destruction. (For a character such as ours) a pencil and scissors. It seems as if he is reaching for them sometimes, if only for a split second.
In the past three years I have lost a lot. 2 family members and 3 students have died. The other day I came home and saved a bunny from my cat, only to have it die in my hands from shock. I held it close to me for so long before I finally buried it. My youngest daughter was with me. She put a stone on top of the little grave and wrote on it with sharpie. "Bun-bun, I loved him." The bunny had only been in our lives for maybe 10 minutes, bt in those ten minutes she and I found a profound love for something so little helpless that we only wanted to save. I know many people do not think of animals in this way, but I hope that the bunny felt some of the love we had for him before he died.
Struggle is dedicated to those people who find themselves with a dead bunny in their hands thinking, well shit, that didn't turn out how I wanted.
Orientalism of today
This video was crwted more as documentation of my work rather than to state a message. Computer malfunctions and sickness caused this video to be less than I had expected it to be. As a documentation, I think it does it's job well. I hope also that it is somewhat interesting.
Orientaliam
The two pieces that have come out of the odalisque project so far are this video and a digital art piece. Although they are the same in many way, I see them as having two completely different messages. In the above video, the work is dealing with childhood, play things and our perceptions of them. I have always, even as a child, seen Barbie as a sexual thing, person, toy, what have you, she has always represented sex to me. My children tend to see Barbie as a demolition toy, they like to rip them apart and throw them away. In the video, which is a continuous span of several hours you see me getting together a found art assemblage. You also see the goings on of my house, and my children playing with their own toys. I'm playing with a toy and they are playing with toys. I chose to highlight some of the sections of the children playing by inserting the footage back into the video in various places and giving the images more of a playful quality. This not only serves to break up the monotony of the video, but also makes more apparent the underlying dichotomy of child verses adult, play time verses work time. The works Main mesage is one based more on parenting. I chose to use a TV as the setting of the work because so often parents use the television as a babysitter for the kids, where they often see things that their parents, knowingly, would not let them see. "La Grande Odalisque" Is tame in our modern day society, but many parents still would not choose to take their children to see the work. However, parents will plop their children down in front of television shows which being labeled as "Family" many think make it safe. The television had become the art of the masses in America, and though they may recognize "La Grande Odalisque" the chances are many would recognize it due to it's use in commercials, ads or referenced in movies and tv shows. I chose the Barbie doll because as I said earlier, I have always see Barbie as a sexual thing, fake and plastic, but sexual. I have taken the depth from Ingre's work and replaced it with a generic, idealized version of sexuality. But in hind site, isn't that exactly what the odalisque was? The paintings are not true to the life of a real odalisque. Most of the models were from France and the setting was in the artist's studio. The odalisques were what the men wanted them to be.
My newest experiment with music by Pink Floyld, played and sung by Paul Root
"wings"
Music by Paul Root
"Running"
Sound experiment
In the following four videos I found it interesting to see how sound affects the visual. I began by using footage and editing it without and music in mind at all. I basically created an idea and a pattern in which to edit it. I then went through and found different types of music and put them with the video. SO the following four video's are the same, but the music with them is different on each.
Videos were not changed in any way. They are all the exact same except for music
The Titles are Homo-sexual, Bi-sexual, Tri-sexual and the entire piece is called Tri-sexual
Homo-sexual is the past, the sexual experiences from my first life, the beginning. Bi-sexual is my present, how I feel now, the way tings are for me in the present. Tri-sexual is the future, the unknown, the experiences that await me (or at least I hope await me) in the unknown.
I am so proud of myself. I made something kinda complicated and it looks cool! Yeah ME!!
One of the clips that's going to be in the final project… but not with this background. Here is the image that will hopefully become the animation.
A test to layer animation over video… sketchy but it worked.
My first test video in flash since 2006… or something like that. Very simple.
G-2
The original "La Grande Odalisque" and my reproduction done through found art assemblage.
This is a short flash I made to compare the two works. No mine is not exact. But considering I found everything in the found art assemblage, and didn't go out and buy anything, it's pretty close.
G-4
Animation of the toasterman!
Yes, this was done traditionally… How the hell do these guys do it?
G-2
This is Failed experiment, due to my new computer. When I upgraded computers my final cut pro has decided it can't work anymore. I didn't realize it until I had already made the animation. It was meant to be layered over the Orientalism video, transparency tweaked and speed tweaked so that is played over the points in which there is not much happening. This was when the video was nine + minutes long. I managed to cut down the time after the fiasco of loosing almost all of the work I had done forced me to start over.
