Assignment 07 - Group Installation Project "Pandoras Box"

Pandora's Box
3 Channel (2 Monitors, 1 Projection)

Assignment 06 - Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson Official Website

Laurie Anderson Wikipedia

Laurie Anderson "O Superman"

Assignment 05 - "Dead Wrong"

"Dead Wrong" by Onemena Ofurhie
8 minutes 20 seconds

A self portrait of Onemena Ofurhie. The viewer watches a crime scene investigation full of descriptive events about the author.

Assignment 04 - "A Painful Look into my Writing Process" by Chel White

Through my time in New Media: Video, I have been attempting to find a balance between artistic and commercial. Artistic is more organic and more true to self and is what people seek when looking at artwork. The commercial side of me, however, wishes to explain things to people in a clear way so it will never be misunderstood. Both are difficult, and I constantly try to find where the medium is.

It was this way of thinking that brought me to envy this video by Chel White. He was able to create an easily comprehended piece that still counts as an art piece. I'm not sure how he accomplished it really. I feel it might have been the amount of work it must've taken to collect and engineer all the photographs and images he used and to form the visual narrative and the work it must have taken to specifically choose and place them as desired. This aspect is only quantified by the fact that my experience with editing assists me in understanding even how much more difficult it was. The second, and strangest part to me, is how honest the piece actually is. Whenever I listed to it again, it sounds as though it was made to make the audience laugh, sadly I won't actually know unless I become a writer. Then again it's completely possible that is, in fact, what he does and it is actually that outlandish.

In the end, however, it is an inspiring piece that helps in pushing the idea that being true to yourself doesn't mean you have to be cryptic.... and I shall work to find a balance that, in turn, works for me.

Assignment 03 - About the Author

I was brought into the world for the sole reason of making it awesome. I was raised as an urban Nigerian and despite my larger than life frame, was given a smaller than significant character. This contradiction began my never ending desire to forever defy expectations and all that could be presumed from me.

After a 15 year period of being groomed with the most elegant living and the most pathetic and emotionally scarring aspects of the Nigerian-British education system, I was then sent to Texas to finish off my hi school years.

Hi-school was where I first realized my potential. It seemed that all I had learned in my past residence had taught me the evils of humanity and the frailties of all people. So while I apprenticed under my aunt, one of the greatest chefs of them all, I also worked on manipulating and controlling the minds of my fellow colleagues. I also learnt the benefits of hard work as well as creating the illusion of hard work and finally, where the balance between the two lay.

Once I had arrived in college I realized that all that I believed I had learned was for nothing. As it turns out we all end up is the same boat as everyone else. The differences only mean different techniques must b e applied to reach out goals. Kinda saddening... but also kinda Nice.

I mean, it means this world is balanced in the end. No group is overpowered.

Unless god decides to Nerf Asian gamers... those guys are just too good.

Pogo - Expialidocious

Pogo is an Australian gentleman who has taken sounds and words from the movie Mary Poppins. His process is to use personal sine wave bass and custom drum sequences to assist the sounds from the movie in creating a full fledged song. In the way that it has been utilized, it is far-from its original piece.

While the video is not very subtle, the song itself stretches to greater heights through his tremendously melodic arrangement. He uses all techniques from reversing and looping a particular section of background music, to finding words that, once taken out of context and set on repeat, are more musical than they are logical. The latter techniques is one of the most fascinating aspects of his videos. His ability to use words yet not truly have any coherent sentence, therefore forcing the listeners mind to accept it as a musical rhythm. The fact that this is the main point of his work makes him unique in a way that the movie piece had little-to-nothing to do with.

Pogo has made quite a number of these songs. All available for free on the internet. While some of them are quite obvious over where their sounds were extracted from (Alohamora) others are even more cryptic and stretches farther away from their origin (White Magic). However Expialidocious seems to have hit that sweet spot where it is its own creation yet still receives attention because of its original forms popularity.

BLOG ASSIGNMENT 01 - Back for Another Semester

Once again I return to New Media video to try to fail even less than I did last time. How cruel it is, in such a case that the first thing I am to do is lead a team of otherwise hopeful people to doom by appointing me a "leader".

Let it be known that I am a tremendously gifted follower. I have the ability to follow instructions to the teeth and to take such amazing initiative. It would be fair to say that I am the stuff that makes leaders and the society they represent successful. However when it comes to NOT being the follower, I am wracked with confusion and uncertainty. I still consider unwilling leadership to be more frightening than public speaking.

However my team were very sporting and helped things move along gracefully. I most likely embarrassed myself multiple times but the fact that we completed the project the day and that far along says something worked.

I think next time I'll feign novicity.

Wait... that isn't a word!