nik elvy MA

New Media ARt

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:47:00 +0000

Had a good read of some books that I recently got through the post about new media art. Have had major learning revolutions.....

1) that new media art has been around since the 50's, 60's and 70's and is not all that new in some ways, and

2) that new media art is often created by those who use and really understand the technology, i.e. techies and programmers. It seems that alot of the art comes from playing around with existing functions and actions in ict, such as making a visual image from the collection of certain data.

This has led me to what could be a new conclusion for my assignment: who is responsible for the teaching and learning and creation of new media art-art or ICT departments. If the level of ict skills and knowledge are so high is it possible for art depts to deliver new media art projects as they occur in the real world?

I have been under the misapprehension that Creative ict in art depts would include, photo montage and manipulation, film, e sketch books, digital photography and animation. It's not that these would not be valuable but that they are superficial in comparison to what is happening and has happened even decades ago in new media art. Many new media artists relate to the Dadaists in art historical terms, as they change and juxtapose the materials available. The art is not necessarily in the visual or the image created but in the technical process that has been subverted.

Even here in example from 1965, Nam June Paik applied a large magnit to an ordinary domestic T.V. in order to distort it's usual signal into an abstract form on its screen.

Anyway besides that here is a contender for my Assignment intro/foreward

intro%20to%20MA%20eportfolio.doc

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:45:00 +0000

here's some stuff that I've been making using creative ICT.

The film is for part of a theatre performance of Red Riding Hood.

The image is for my own art practice

called "what a donut!"

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:08:00 +0000

I made this painting today and took pictures of it in progress then made this movie

e portfolio

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:24:00 +0000

Well today I made the structure of my e portflio!!! I am really tired now from sitting in front of a screen all day but it's been worth it. It is actually a very creative process but there are lots of repetitve tasks that you have to do which I find a bit difficult. In my own creative practice I tend to avoid repetition if I can.

In order to build the e portfolioI have used the following programmes:

Photoshop

dream weaver

microsoft office picture manager

New skills that I have learned are:

how to create hyperlinks

file management

using tables for layout

image optimisation

use of different file types (gif, jpeg, png, swf, htm)

I have had alot of help, Martin has been available to help me every step of the way and I would need to repeat the process in order to test my proficency.

have a look at the home page

all ict'd out so going to stop staring at the screen now.......

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:45:00 +0000

Draw every day film link
This film was shown to us in our seminar and it was the part of the influence for my assignment
http://www.chewtv.com/index.aspx

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:48:00 +0000

WOW E SKETCHBOOKS! what a great idea.

From the NSEAD.........

Electronic Sketchbook and Electronic Portfolios
IntroductionTeachers of Art & Design are already very familiar with the concepts of sketchbooks and portfolios. While sketchbooks are used to record observations, ideas, reference material, sources of information and inspiration, etc., portfolios serve to collect together examples of exploratory and finished work that can be presented to others for discussion, evaluation and assessment.
Developing electronic sketchbooksAn e-sketchbook is an electronic version of a traditional sketchbook. It might include:
a compendium of images and related texts;
references to the work of other artists and designers;
original visual material created by the pupil;
sources of reference material gathered from the internet and elsewhere;
comments made about the work by others; The images may be scanned in from original drawings or paintings or could be digital photographs, or generated directly on a computer. The content could also include animations, video and sound and interactive web pages. Electronic sketchbooks should not be seen as replacing or detracting from the importance of conventional sketchbooks, but as an extension to them. Paper and electronic sketchbooks can be used together to record responses. The process of assembling content is similar in both, but as well as traditional media the paper sketchbook can include:
print outs of scanned or digital pictures of ideas and responses;
word processed text and scanned articles / images;
collage samples of digitally produced images, for example, pastel, or pencil overlay and scanned and printed again before adding to the sketchbook; Teachers can encourage the regular use of e-sketchbooks by:
creating a separate electronic folder in advance for each pupil, topic and class;
reminding pupils that they should save all source materials to this, as well as regularly saving work at different stages of development as a record of process and progress;
encouraging pupils to add any word-processed homework or on-line research to the appropriate folder; As well as getting pupils to name files and folders appropriately It is also important to develop their skills in describing their work using keywords, or 'tags'. With the high volume of digital files being produced and saved, intelligent keywording is essential to enable pupils, teachers and managers to locate pieces of work at a later date without difficulty. An electonic sketchbook needs to be a resource that pupils can use all the time they study art and design. This means they must each have file storage space on the school or department network to save their experimental and final work. There may be considerations of space, depending on the capacity of the school network, so it is worthwhile talking to the school ICT network manager before encouraging pupils to save large amounts of 'memory hungry' images!
LinksThe Virtualartroomhttp://www.virtualartroom.com/e_sketchbooks.htmNational Curriculum in Actionhttp://www.ncaction.org.uk/subjects/art/ict-ops.htm

This changes some of my current opinion on what the use of technology is in art education. It is not just about new visual media but also about traditional visual forms such as the sketchbook using different tools. This is a proper breakthrough for me in my understanding of how ICT can be used in my subject. It's not all about, film web and animation but I can take existing art forms and explore through new media.

Again this reminds me of how printing affected art and then later how photography changed how art was made.

In a way, given the time to explore I have today almost used my blog as a sketch book/note book.

I am certainly going to research into E sketch books. VERY EXCITING!

I also am going to consider the imapct that photography and printing had on art as well as global travel because obviously with the wwweb we have at the touch of a button what culturally we only saw when travel became more common place such as the Grand Tour.

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:35:00 +0000

http://www.nsead.org/ict/about/index.aspx

This site explores some of the reasons why ICT is becoming increasingly more vital in art education. Visual digital media is growing rapidly and art education needs to be able to continue to offer pupils and students pathways into creating and understanding what they already access on a daily basis.

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:28:00 +0000

John Holt

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:03:00 +0000

"At the urging of his sister, Holt became a fifth grade teacher. After several years of teaching in Colorado, he moved to Boston. It was here that he met Bill Hull, a fellow teacher, and they decided to start a classroom observation project; one would teach, while the other would watch. The notes and journal entries Holt accumulated during his first eleven years of teaching formed the core of two of his most popular books How Children Fail and How Children Learn, as well as his less-known and more radical work, Escape from Childhood: The Rights and Needs of Children. These three books detailed the foundational ideas of Holt's philosophy of education."

This info on John Holt highlights to me that actually as unpopular as his ideas were to many in main stream education it can not be denied that Critical reflection was totally at the centre of his practice. This is an important part of my assignment but I am struggling to know how it fits in. I am strongly influenced by John Holts philosophies of education and have even home educated my own children in the past but I also realise that school and schooling does provide a very necessary service for society as a whole. I appreciate his idea that learning occurs through the activity of the learner and not necessarily the teaching but it is difficult in practice when you are a "specialist" in a subject to not make judgments on what activities to encourage or provide. How does this all fit together?

critical reflection

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:40:00 +0000

I have been reading up about critical reflection as the backbone to this assignment. It is obviously an important element in all proffessions to ensure best practice but particularly in teaching it is the centre of teaching and learning for both pupils and staff. All elements of teaching it seems should be open to critical reflection as we all come to the proffession with our own backgrounds and make judgments on all things dependent on that background. I know that the basis of this assignment for me is to have the opportunity to challenge my own judgments about art education and what is important and valuable. I have in the past been part of the John Holt school of thought where education should be kept real, simple and raw. I still am heavily lead by those kinds of principles but I wonder what John Holt would have made of the Technological advancements of 2000 and beyond. Would he have been able to embrace it on certain levels or would he have steered clear away from it? I guess I may be able to find out what his views were at the end of his life but how relevant that would be to now would be difficult to tell. I'll come back to that........

web site vs e-portfolio

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:13:00 +0000

I have decided that a web site is probably not quite the way to go with this project as it may not be suitable for all work with all children to be live on the net. I was beginning to think of ways around this and thought I could just make a site but not make it live. Martin then suggested the idea of e- portfolios. I have just had a look at some examples and they are constructed in much the same way and use the same software so I would still be fulfilling the making a website goal but without the ethical issues of all projects featuring pupils live on the internet incase I can't get 100% permission.

I am now going to write up my project case studies as then I will have some of the content ready for when the e-portfolio is constructed.

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:27:00 +0000

MA blog
15.10.08

During a recent Filmmaking project with a youth group I was struck by the creative process that the group needed to go through even though they were using ICT. The way that we needed to encourage the group to think was very similar to the thinking process that would be needed for printing or layered mixed media art work. As the film making occurred and was built in layers it was difficult for the group to imagine and think ahead to the end product and plan an appropriate process to achieve this. Many had an idea of what they wanted the end product to be but were struggling with the thinking skills to work out in what order tasks needed to be done and in what way. This is an issue that I have experienced before in art education particularly in a process heavy project such as printing.

The similarities between the film and printing project are that it is crucial to have an understanding of the process in order to plan the piece of work. In this case it is useful to have examples of the work as it changes and progresses so that groups may see each stage. I was able to use my Whitemoor School film for this purpose and could demonstrate the whole process from individual photographs that would become an animation to music and sound being added later, along with effects and titles in movie maker. This would be similar for printing, showing the prints that were done at each different stage to build up layers of image and colour.

From this experience I would say that there is a definite creative process achieved when using ICT in certain projects. As a practitioner I find the process of film making a comfortable one as it reflects many skills that I have already polished despite the fact that all of the software required is new to me. I would venture that art therefore is crucial in helping to develop skills required in other subject areas. It is not simply the technical skills that are important in either process but it is obviously essential to exercise the ability to think, design and plan ahead making allowances for accidents, error and also skill, knowledge and experience limitations. With this process we learn evaluation, modification and experimentation, all crucial components of the creative thinking process.

journey into myspace

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:40:00 +0000

have just joined Myspace. Still exploring what the point of it is and how it can be used. Quick and easy and simple to use although from a networking point of view facebook seems to have the edge. Not as many novelty applications on myspace and seems better for business, serious networking. I have put some of my art work and photos from workshops on it so far. It also has a blog option so I will have to consider the best and easiest way to keep blogging.

Photoshop exploration!

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Just had a little go on photoshop to make a poster for my choir. Some of it is straight forward and other elements make more sense after going through the process a few times. Pleased with the outcome though. I will want to make everything in photoshop now!

animaniac

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:25:00 +0000

wow i have made a film! and to do so I had to learn the following:

sound recording using podcast factory

audacity-sound editing software

Monkey jam-stop frame animation software

Movie maker-movie making software

uploading film to face book to share with friends

It's a fantastic creative tool. Just right for how I love to work, in layers with mixed media. The experience of making the film was much more satisfying than yesterdays attempt at blogging. I feel really proud of what I have made.

ICT is Rubish

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:06:00 +0000

O.k. had some trouble posting the blog in the right place and ended up with about three blogs all called my first blog. Managed to upload a photo to my profile but having some trouble putting an image with my blog. The cause of which Martin doesn't get yet either. Lots of barriers already and if I didn't have Martin I would have had to have given up I think! Apparently he says it's not normally all this difficult...........going to try something different now. Going to have a go at creating an animation from a series a photos that we took with class 1 at school, I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

First Blog take 3

noreply@blogger.com (Nik Elvy) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:59:00 +0000

Wow this is my first ever blog!

As part of my MA in education I am going to try and learn how to use ICT more effectively so that I can use it in my own creative practice. I hope that I will become proficient enough to be able to use ICT as another creative tool, like printing, drawing or painting. As a practitioner I tend to lean towards natural materials and natural experiences and so even though I acknowledge the benefit of ICT I don't necessarily use it as part of my practice.

I was involved in a days workshop aimed at the youth group of a charity that I work with. We made mixed media paintings of our hands as an expression of ourselves, which would be a typical project for me. During and after the workshop I realised that some of what we were doing was almost alien to the group and that I wasn't engaging them in the way that I hoped. Not that I think that technology should replace basic art skills but I wondered if there was a middle ground; is there a way to engage with real materials but then use technology to make those experiences more up to date and relevant for a younger, changing audience?

ICT is not instantly accessible. It requires time and commitment to learn how it all functions and to overcome the barriers that appear to be there. Bit by bit I am going to learn what I can, use it in my own practice and record the experience using technology. I aim to create a website that uses different aspects of technology to record and exhibit my experiences. I am interested in the idea of virtual sketch books and note books and would like to explore film as a creative medium on the net. Several issues spring to mind:

I do not know how to make a web site
I do not yet know how to record video and upload it to anywhere!
The kind of web material that I am interested in is multi layered and faceted and I will probably need to learn how to use photoshop to achieve the look that I want
How do I get access to the appropriate technology and equipment?
What is the most appropriate and interesting way to record experiences on the net?
Is there a financial implication with needing equipment firstly for my own learning and secondly for working with groups?
Although I consider myself to be computer literate I am sketchy on the details of filing documents in the right places in the right way, scanning images and retrieving them to work with,and other basic ICT issues.
Will I be able to create an assignment that can be fully submitted online or will I have to supplement it with other written material?
Fortunately I am married to an ICT teacher/web designer so I do have access to the right information and expertise. I am left wondering though what the gaps are between what he knows and what I want to know.

O.k. enough for now

I wonder what this blog is going to look like and how it works and if it will get published in the right place?