Speech Animation in Paintings

For this week’s original posting, I would like to address the technological achievements in relation to art and media. Although this video is only a couple years old, the technology used to create this is unbelievable and to this day not used widely. In this video, the director uses numerous famous paintings such as the Mona Lisa which are digitally altered to mimic actions such as lip syncing to begin talking.

The technology used to do this is similar to that used by CG animators in recording movements for character animations. The major achievement here is the ability to alter a still 2D image and enable it to manipulate the area around the mouth without distorting the original image. The director later uses a still photograph of himself in order to demonstrate the programs ability to manipulate various forms of portraits. This program enables the manipulation of images from various angles eliminating the need to recreate a 3D version of an original painting to achieve the same or similar effect. If anybody watches SpongeBob Square Pants, the opening includes a cheesy version of this which uses an overlapping layer of a person’s mouth to simulate speech, but with this type of technology, we can animate all type of images in a similar fashion. Imagine being able to manipulate an entire scene based on pinpoint interactions and movement from a human source. You could quite possibly reenact an image such as events in the Revolutionary War with proper time and development. As technology progresses, it is not certain what we can accomplish with this type of digital ability.

The Art That Never Was

Upon looking for an interesting topic for this week’s original posting, I became inspired for a specific topic in relation to digital art, media, and technology from an unusual source. When we think of art, are minds typical render the elements of modern art, abstract art, similar to Pablo Picasso, and pop art, which was pioneered by Andy Warhol. These art styles and artist names have been embedded within our memory because of educational influences that pressure these artists, their work, and their lives within our perception of the idea of art. In my research for an original post, I came across what one may not consider art, but most definitely is. Let’s take a GUI in to perspective. Don’t know what that is, how about if we term it as Graphical User Interface? Still no idea as of what I’m speaking of? How about the numerous visual elements that makes up your everyday electronic devices? These lines of code that render out the visuals we see on Cell Phones, Computers, Video Games and much more are most definitely works of art. These GUI’s for short all started out as hand drawn references before they were actually entered into scripting for use in our devices. The GUI’s were not just tossed together without the thought or idea of any artistic styles being used in its composition. Let’s take The GUI of Windows XP for example. The taskbar on the bottom of our monitors surely looks simple, but its design was not meant to be that. In comparison to the interface used in Windows 98, many artistic elements have been used in the later iterations of Operating Systems. For example, numerous bits of colors have been added to icons, taskbars and buttons. Highlights and shadows are now present and our icons for programs have distinct images that represent the program and its function. These all get revamped even more so with the release of Windows Vista, although many numerous elements were taken from Apple’s Operating System. The GUI for the XBOX 360 is (or was) a graphical wonder with its razor like tabs, colorful menus, seamless transitions, easy use, and much more. I say was because this has been updated with an entirely new look called The New XBOX Experience, which utilizes many new artistic styles similar to that seen on the Nintendo Wii, but with mixed responses from critics. This can be explored in much more depth, but I’ll allow the readers’ comments to explore even further as to what we consider art and how we use it.

2D vs. 3D

2D vs. 3D

After observing a post of a fellow classmate, I have begun to realize the amount of popularity that 3D visuals have acquired over the years. 3D visuals such as those in film have pretty much completely dominated the animation film industry, one which was originally powered by 2D visuals. When we look at animated films today, we tend to think of Disney and Pixar films such as Cars and Wall-E as well as a collection of competition films by DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox with releases such as Shrek and Ice Age. One common trait of these films is their stunning Three Dimensional visuals, spectacular special effects and seamless animations. The major situation here is the slowdown of 2D film production. Films such as Aladdin and The Lion King have set unbelievable records in the industry with their unique art styles. These films did however utilize 3D in production, but mostly to give off a seamless 2D effect as opposed to the resource heavy and time consuming hand drawn approach. It wasn’t until after the release of Lilo & Stitch, one of the last memorable 2D animations, in 2002 which saw the switch in tradition. Even though CG animations broke out in demand after Toy Story set sales and visual records in 1995, the 21st century has stuffed us full of CG heavy films such as Monster’s Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. There is nothing wrong with the growing trend in this particular style of Rendering and Animation, but the only source of finding 2D animations are through cartoon short animation which have been converting to CG rendered visuals as well with shows like Jimmy Neutron. With numerous devices and programs powering and pushing CG visuals, it is no wonder to find these visuals being pushed I the film industry as this is what we are used to. If we all stopped playing Bungie’s Halo Trilogy to open up to a 2D version of the game, the reception to the concept may not generate good criticism and ratings, and this is the same structure used in the film industry. It’s all about generating profit, and right now companies such as Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox are generating revenue beyond belief and altering the structure now may be a bad financial move. In other words, why fix something that isn’t broken? Toy Story 3 anyone? This is in production for a 2010 release!

Representations of Digital Identity

D. Boyd, M. Chang, and H. Goodman present an extremely explicit view on the term identity and the usage of personal identity in a media driven world in their article titled “Representations of Digital Identity”. A lot of the focus in the article deals with the construction and execution of a personalized identity system called Computer-Mediated Communication or CMC for short. Although, I was and still am a bit unaware of the origin and usage of the system, it provides a lot of paths in which people take to identify themselves in any setting.
The article is most definitely an eye opener for within the first few sentences the authors point out the various common usage of identity in the real world and compare it to that of the virtual world. In doing so, you can clearly see explicit similarities between the two. Many elements in personalized identity in the virtual world are borrowed from what we learn about people in the real world. D. Boyd, M. Chang, and H. Goodman connect identity as one of the biggest forms of communication neglecting the need for verbal communication. Some of the basics in which we have grown up knowing is that we often times create an identity of someone based on their age, gender, weight, height, body build, dress code and much more. The article explains that these same traits make their way to the virtual world in the form of avatars, message board usernames and ranking codes, gamertags, email address and screen names. It was also interesting to note that in the real world, a sense of extended pressure is placed upon legitimacy of one’s identity and proof of one’s identity is often needed to continue communication.
Well, in a world now dominated by technology and the internet, these same elements are used all the time. For instance, we can take ebay for example. One may immediately jump into this giant online auction website to purchase and or sell goods, however, the quality and outcome of a purchase greatly depends on the reputation or identity of the seller and or buyer. Approval ratings known as feedback is listed under the avatar of the buyer and or seller and the higher the rating, you can bet that your item(s) will be legitimate and will be delivered to you and it won’t be part of a scam. An even larger scale of legitimacy on ebay is the use of PayPal which requires one to route their checking account to the system in order to become a “verified” identity. This is only the beginning of the use of personal identity and communication in our world today.

What is the point of art in the media age?

This article composed by Dieter Daniels pushes the thought of the significance and impact that art has on the media age. Daniels writes in his article that people such as Daguerre and Morse are artist that we do not consider artist. Daguerre's daguerrotypes are considered by many to be the first form of photography although that is much debated as Nicéphore Niépce played a major if not nearly complete role in the discovery. Daniels views morse code as a form of art as sound is converted into a form of communication, but I seem to view things much differently.

In my opinion, Daguerre and Morse were not artist at all and shouldn't be considered such. Daniels points out that we do not link the accomplishments created by these "Artist" with there work as we do with other artist and their work such as da Vinci and Warhol. This is because there intentions were not art related. The photograph, which is obviously a technological phenomenom at the time and to this day, did not have much use as a form of art during the time of its development. Photography's origin can be seen more clearly as a science procedure which is why we do not link the inventor with the invention with art. As with my opinion on Daguerre, Morse's main intentions on developing Morse Code could not have been anywhere near art. Art in relation to this form of communication could have been the last thing on his mind and Morse Code became a science project.

In today's society, you can definetly try to link art with technology as you can link art with just about anything. The graphics we view on the television and computer screen for instance... art, the cars we drive... art, the clothes we wear... all of it is art as it all had an artistic template in it's design and manufacturing. Art in the media age to go deeper into Daniels article is a necesity to keep the media age moving. You cannot really create anything this day in age without a template. Technology is based off of what technology came before it and those forms of technology all had a template or an idea to construct such a thing. This may not necessarily be considered art, but it most definitely helps to manuever the way we view art, be it to enhance or to completely change the way we view it. Look at how we view photography today. It is seen as a form of art as well as documentation, entertainment, and income. Technological advancements helped to spread photography around into different fields as photography did not start this way, but found its way to this point.