I Wish I Was Born in a Hollywood Movie

I Wish I Was Born in a Hollywood Movie is a site created by Maja Bajevic. Maja's work often deals with the boundary between what is public or advertised and what is private. This particular site is her first piece that uses the web as her medium. She addresses the Hollywood "dream machine" and how the scenes we are exposed to in Hollywood affect us. She explores how the glamorized representation of reality is portrayed in movies and compares it to actual reality. The site displays photos Maja took in Mexico City, Paris, Venice, and other places. Then it shows images found in tourist brochures, movies, and etc.

At first I was confused when I viewed the project because you cannot really distinguish which images she took and which images are from other sources. They are not really organized in any particular order and they are not still images. If you click on an image another series of images pops up. The random order at which this was arranged confused me. After thinking about it and exploring the project further, I started to understand her reasoning behind this more. Her objective was not to show the public images and compare them to the real images. Instead, she was showing how the line between the two is so blurred that it is sometimes hard to distinguish which is which.

banksy.co.uk

Banksy is a website full of quirky artwork. The site shows artwork that portrays a comical or sarcastic point of view to some of the problems in our society. It consists of three parts: outside works, inside works, and a shop page. Both the outside and inside pieces mock certain aspects of todays society such as corporations, classes, government, the police force, and many others. Each image is threw the eyes of the artist and refers to different subject matters.

A lot of the pieces on this site played with how corporations and government are viewed. One image was of a government meeting, but in place of government officials, the artist placed monkeys. The one that I found most interesting was a black and white image. It consisted of a huge Mickey Mouse and a huge Ronald McDonald holding both hands of a naked, crying little girl. Mickey and Ronald are smiling and cheerful while this poor child is clearly suffering. This image stuck out to me because both of these figures are meant to make children happy. Maybe here in the U.S. a mouse and a clown can lift our children's spirits, but they don't do much to help the children who have nothing in underdeveloped countries., some of which work for their corporations.

Publicity Images

In a book called Ways of Seeing, John Berger discusses publicity images and the way people view them today. He discusses how we see these images every single day and only briefly take them in. We get so accustomed to these messages that we usually do not even notice them. When we do, it is because a specific image or piece of information sparks an interest. He compares publicity images with paintings and he points out the similarities between them. He also discusses how these public messages always refer to the future and yet nothing is really achieved.

I found this expert from Ways of Seeing quite eye opening. These images that we see everyday have become so routine that we rarely stop and listen to the messages. We let publicity influence us with out even noticing. Publicity images propose new things to us everyday. Sometimes, we are so consumed by the artificial message that we actually allow ourselves to be persuaded into doing what they want us to do. These images us sexuality, envy, and even art work to grab our attention and persuade us.

Wrestling with the Blob Beast

An artist from Brooklyn, New york named Ezra Johnson created Wrestling with the Blob Beast. He created sixteen different screen savers. Each one is available for viewers to install off of his website. Each screen saver represents Wrestling with the Blob Beast in a different way. Johnson started out as a painter who did fixed images, but he discovered how to use animation as a new means of viewing paint. One of the screen savers is a painted ocean that is moving calmly until being disturbed by a painted boat.

After watching some of his screen savers, I noticed how each piece is painted in the same way. He has a messy way of putting his images together, but the animation makes it work. Its as if he is taking the viewer through the process he goes through when he paints. His paintings are very expressionistic and although there is technique used, they seem child like. My favorite one was the more literal one. It was to hands actually wrestling with a blob of paint that turned into a beast. For me, this piece makes sense of the title of the site. I enjoyed watching these animations and each one evoked a different emotion and feeling.

Rosalind

Rosalind started in 2004 as a small networked project. A small community of interest came together and created a new vocabulary for communicating what they are and what they do. The project was hidden to ensure that the vocabulary could grow in a private space without interference or exploitation. The site has grown into world of made up words and definitions. You can even register and contribute your own terms and definitions.

This site was put together very well and its purpose is clear. Rosalind is the name of the site and they refer to it as a she. On the home page they tell you to offer terms and help Rosalind to mature. I really appreciated the story line included with the project as well as the project itself. The site allows you to view the list of definitions that people have contributed. A lot of the words people came up with were very interesting. The definitions people match with their terms almost make them seem like real words.