What am I doing here?

OK, so this is more about my state of mind right now.

I'm feeling a little lost regarding direction and purpose here at art school over the last few weeks, particularly after doing crit.  Which on a side note, wasn't helpful at all and if anything helped me to lose confidence in what I was exploring... but that's another issue.

So, I'm not saying that I'm questioning whether I should be here... it's clear this is where I want to be but I'm finding it difficult to be motivated right now.

With second year finishing in a little under 4 weeks time, I'm fully aware that this isn't the time to feel this way.

But what is the root of these feelings? I think it's because it feels like I'm just going through the motions, going from one assignment to the next, caught up in the regular domestics of daily life ouside of uni too, with no time to explore the various creative ideas I have... working for others only, not for myself.

In an effort to regain some control over an aspect of my art practice, I started a new photographic series involving the compost bins within Toad Hall, which I was finding quite fun.  I mistakenly mentioned it at crit and it was seen as stronger than the work I'd spent three weeks working on for uni.  The resounding suggestion was to explore the compost more... thus uni threatens to take that personal project from me too...  I guess I'm wondering where am I in all of this?

I could just need a break... which I'll get in 4 weeks... but that fact is still not motivating me.

What to do?

My gripe for the day: Animated PNG's (APNG's)

Ok, so I've been looking at how my rotating jars look if I convert them to GIF format since it gets round the issue of my desire for transparency and also the Quicktime symbol loading... all fine, except that it's exceptionally grainy on the bigger images.


This led me to start researching what other options I had in the area of animated images.  Turns out there is a file format called Animated PNG's... which overcomes the issue of the 256 colours limit on GIFs...  Definitely piqued my interest...

The downside, they don't animate in Internet Explorer or Safari.  I'm not too fussed about IE but I guess it is a major issue if even Safari doesn't recognise them as animations.

So, how do you make them I hear you ask...  Well, there are various plugins and a few windows tools... too difficult a proposition to enter into and not widely supported so why bother.

Here's an example of an apng:

How awesome does it look? How good is the transparency and colour depth? Why haven't the major browsers and image editors jumped onto this one?  So annoying!

Interested in looking into them anyway?  Check them out here: http://animatedpng.com/

[UPDATE: With a bit more tweaking I managed to make the animated GIFs look OK but they're between 1.4 and 6MB, compared to 168-868KB for the QT videos... Hmmm... Bloody Hell!]

"Quickies" Third Edition @ SwankFilms

Came across this guy's channel on Youtube... some funny stuff...

Tesseract

After posting the odd black ball floating in space, I was reminded of the Tesseract... just as mesmerising.

Animated Ball

Thanks to Diana for pointing this one out for me... Very exciting/cool animated GIF.

Makes me wonder whether some of my animated objects couldn't be presented in such a similar manner... ie, hovering in a virtual room... Hmmm.

DUPLICATION and disCONNECTION by Xing Danwen

During the City Sites theory lecture, Xing Danwen's work was featured. I liked the collections of items that she was photographing.




Note though, she has some freaky stuff in her Personal Diary.

Club Dark Chocolate Ad

I've been meaning to post this one for a while 'cos I see it all the time on Foxtel and am always impressed.

"DIY PVC skater dolly" by Martin Taylor

Awesome invention on like cool:

The Simpsons - Inspiration city!

Was watching The Simpsons, this intro was brilliant. It in their lounge room... pans out goes into space and ends up back in their lounge room... great.



That same episode had a piece which showed Homer every day for years...



I was looking for its inspiration, these are two I found... The second one is more interesting.






Another cool Simpsons video sequence I watched tonight was the equivalent of the Evolution of Man, The Evolution of Homer:

"Time Away"

As the VMan article highlights, this is a short film inspired by Bjorg's latest jewelry collection.

The underwater dinner party was a very nice touch.... particularly loved the drinking out of a glass underwater.

VMan: Fashion film from designer Siki Im

I'm not sure what it all means but destroying an office is probably one of a public servants dreams though I wouldn't be so obsessed with shredded paper. Love the shot of the keyboard falling and coming apart. Very nice.

Gingers are evil!

Here is the music video for M.I.A's "Born Free"... very creative.

This is an awesome screen shot: 


I wonder where the anti-ginger joke originally came from, other than South Park... Anyway, here's the video:


Thanks to VMan for bringing this video to my attention via the article "May Be Disturbing to Ginger and Non-Ginger Alike".

"And I Want To Be A Super Hero" by photographer Remi Lamande

This is a good concept... superhero-related fashion. Nice model, nice portraits.

VMan - A Day on Wall Street by Josh Olins

The VMan post only has two photos but I like the colour and situation... Some photographers really have it.  His website is kinda boring with nothing on it which is disappointing.

The Shaving Cycle

Another from AcidCow... Sooo true!

Obese Disney Princesses

Found these on AcidCow... I couldn't find the original artist though...

Mark Mawson - Aqua/Splash Art

These pictures (grabbed from other blogs) are truly amazing.  They are part of his portfolio collection called "Aqueous"...



Check out his "Smoke" portfolio too while you're there... I must show this to Paul.

 

Fictional Business Cards (Lost, Terminator, Fringe, etc.)

These are cool. After finishing watching Fringe yesterday, I'd like a Massive Dynamic one! :)

Turtle Pics with Emotion

In light of the "Wow" tortoise doing the rounds, here are some pics of turtles showing emotions, here's a couple:






If you've missed the "Wow" tortoise video, see it here:


Another funny one can be found here:

Kylie Minogue - "Get Outta My Way"

Another video from Kylie.

As much as I don't like some of the effects, she has some interesting effects generated by using some form of interactive projection.

Her videos stand out at the moment because they don't conform to the current trends.

The Future of DJ'ing?

Now, this is a cool gadget.

I'd like to think that the future of computing is much like this, using panels shown here:

Some cool stuff from LikeCool (3 Sep)

Game Characters Live Draw: Mario in 9 minutes


Steampunk Mr. Potato Head


Dimitri Tsykalov - Skull Apple


Yoda Fountain


Leica M9 iPhone Skin

"Peacock" by Katy Perry

Not the best video ever but it is funny in parts, if not disturbing. The choice of sets is creative.

Dancers in Motion by Bill Wadman

The photographer here is Bill Wadman... Check out the original post on LikeCool.
As I've said previously, I love this motion stuff. Brilliant!

Carbohydrate Chrysler Building

Cool use of pasta! :)

Found "Carbohydrate Chrysler Building" on PrairieMod.

Details.com - "The Agony of Zac Efron"

I'm always impressed by photo-shoots for magazines (Details.com)... I don't know why. Maybe I've subconsciously bought into the stereotypical ideals of beauty, etc. Maybe that's all it is, beautiful people in cool clothes, posing in odd locations.

Movement Pics "What the Naked Eye Cannot See" on AcidCow

Movement pictures as found on Acidcow, entitled "What the Naked Eye Cannot See".
By way of a sample, here are three of the twenty pics posted... Beautiful!