Probably thinking and feeling a lot like this right? ^
You’re probably thinking memes aren’t art, BUT I challenge you to expand your mind. Though maybe not art in the traditional form, memes are used to convey and express thoughts and emotions, much like art. Could memes become a new type of modern art in our world’s digital age?
The first assignment I have chosen, is the very simple yet bold vogue assignment.
I honestly feel kind of lazy because of how easy and fast it was for me to complete, however I’m not too big on posting pictures of myself, especially to a class and I think its a short step of me getting out the comfort zone and reacclimating to the normal world. This assignment caught my eye because I think it actually looks pretty cool. I definitely should have used the beautiful sun and warm weather we were having to get some nature in the background. At first my pick was definitely going to be the place of peace assignment, however professor picked it first so I have to be different lol.
The second assignment is a little tougher than it looks.
Yes, for sure its easy to recreate something from perhaps a show like modern family, but step it up a little and add in some props and costumes to match the scene as best as possible and you got yourself something eye-catching! Personally I’ve got my eye on something from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Im thinking from a movie like Last Action Hero or Predator. I think I would learn lighting, placement and camera angles best from recreating a famous scene. In a class like this I think at least 12-18 projects like this are warranted to build upon editing and storytelling skills. Personally I think these skills are important because when we get into the real world, aside from being computer literate we should have skills that go deeper upon basic knowledge. For example upon starting this class I never knew how to hyperlink, create giphys or add custom urls to images.
I thought choosing a project would of been difficult. So many choices and me being the indecisive person that I am, I was worried. As I opened up the assignments page I opened up Visual Assignments first since I wanted to go in order and to my surprise the first assignment was perfect for me. It involved using photoshop to make effects with some text and it was perfect. I knew how to work around photoshop but never tried this text effect so it was fun learning how to do it.
First I viewed some quick youtube videos on how to create the effect and this is what I was able to come with. It was really fun working around some new techniques with Photoshop and I hope to use them more for other projects.
After choosing in the visual assignment section, I decided to work on the design assignment section and found this one. I think this is a fun assignment to work on because it deals a lot more with creativity and even photography of my own so for this assignment it might be more difficult but it will worth it in the end! Both these projects will help with my Photoshop skills immensely.
The DS106 Assignment Repository has many interesting assignments based on the various media types. The ones I chose to blog about really piqued my interest and forced me out of my comfort zone. The first assignment is under the “design” section. I chose the assignment that required you to create a VHS tape for a film that was released after 2005 and make it look like an 80s era tape. I was very excited when I saw this assignment because I immediately thought about the original Star Wars movies. I decided to try my hand at this one and it was not that easy. I did not have the skills required to complete this task but I gave it a go. I utilized Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create my 80s styled VHS tape.
my completed version. I tried my best and I really like it.
The next assignment I chose is under the 3D Printed Assignments. I selected the “Create A House” one because I immediately thought about building in the Sims and it’s something I do almost every day.
I believe we will be doing quite a bit of these assignment this semester and I can see why. They really force you to engage with the media type and tell a story in a way you didn’t think of before. The VHS tape was different, cool but challenging. I had so many ideas but trying to figure out how to actually produce them was interesting, to say the least. It took a lot of fidgeting and researching. I am now a bit familiar with some of the tools in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, a lot of which I played around with till I got it. Overall I am very pleased I gave it a try and I can’t wait to learn more about these softwares and sharping my new skills!
But anyway. Back to my guy. Danny Carey. Drummer for Tool. Rock band with a signature art style you might’ve seen. To be that good of a drummer I believe takes the same type of discipline that is required to master the art of digital storytelling. It’s always important to keep finding fresh new ways to tell your story. On that note.
Here are two of my favorite songs that highlight his drumming skills…
Allegedly the art style is inspired by a psychedelic herb called Ayahuasca. Also known as DMT. Here’s Joe Rogan talking about it…
The project that I felt like I would be able to do with my current knowledge is the one listed above. It requires you to go on a game such as Minecraft or any type of building/survival game, and design your own house, cottage, or mansion.
I personally don’t play Minecraft, but I’ve been spending a lot of time on a similar game that has released for Steam called Valheim.
The game places you in the life ( or afterlife?) of a slain Viking sent to defeat creatures and ancient bosses in the tenth Norse world Valheim. Not only are there enemies to fight, but there’s a bunch of gear to make as you progress, and a huge open world for you to build anything you can imagine. The building system in this game is great and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface on the different creations that people can come up with.
I chose this project to sort of show off the creations that I have been working on in the game.
Forge
This first image shows the forge I made in the game where I go to repair all of my tools/weapons as well as my armor. I surrounded the base of the building with stone to support the structure of it all. I also made sure to fill it with enough lighting and trophies from my adventures to make it look nice.
Check out the inside:
This next building is one of the first main houses that me and my girlfriend built together when we first got on the game ( I did most of the work). I like the simple yet clean look that we ended up with after building the house.
Main House
Here’s how the inside looks:
You can see that it’s filled with cooking pits within the floor to make food quickly without having to go outside. There’s also two beds ( where me and her both respawn if we were to die to any one of the many monsters in Valheim), a table for us to sit and relax at, and a pet wolf in the tiny pen you see towards the right. His name is Chase.
The final building that I made is the storage house. This is where we keep all of our collectibles and crafting materials. On each corner of the house are teleporters that we use to transport items and explore different parts of the map.
Storage Building
Here’s the inside:
You can see that there are many chests and carts on each side of the room to accommodate the many items that we find while playing. Each chest has a label for whatever is inside and it allows for us to easily grab whatever we need and go. Some of my carts ended up falling over on one side thanks to the game’s physics… damn I need to fix that later.
This other project that I’ve chosen seems doable, but it would take a while before I would be able to design anything that looks like this.
I always thought the idea of making posters and other forms of digital art was cool but I was never really got into making them. In order to learn how to make a project like this, I would have to really do some research and look at different Youtube tutorials that would help me.
I see myself doing a lot of these types of creations in the future and hopefully after doing 3-5 of them I will learn the basics. After learning these basics, I hope to develop my own style that I can apply to all of my creations. This is a very important skill to have, especially when it comes to website development which is the field I would like to hone in on.
“Are Memes Art?” is the question the internet continues to debate and as with many wars in the history of the world, there are always two main sides, and I personally in this on-going battle choose the side of MEMES BEING ART!
There are varying definitions of what constitutes “ART” and based on several definitions, internet memes fit into many categories of what is traditional art. According to Merriam-Webster, art is “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic options”. Simply put, Art helps one to express themselves in creative ways, and like me and many others, MEMES help us to express our inner thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and ideas.
So . . . YES!
argue with yourself
I personally see memes as being a good thing for art. It has opened up a new realm of artistry, comedy, self-expression, and communication in an age of technology. Not everyone is good at traditional art like painting, drawing, etc. but memes give people the opportunity to create something unique, in their own vision but much easier to grasp. It’s not an “exclusive” club or something that people gatekeep.
Memes are not just for self-expression, it’s much more than art itself as well. Memes are therapeutic, and a cultural sensation that I don’t think will go away. For example, a trend on social media is to keep track of what meme went viral for the month, like a “meme calendar”.
Just to end off this blog, I’d like to share some of my favorite memes as of right now and one I made for CT101.
To start, I honestly don’t even know what coding is. I first need to discover what coding is, in order to be able to Create an Interactive Program.
For me, the word CODING just sounds hard, difficult, scary… and you know, you get the point.
Just look at it.
In order for me to really get the hang of coding, I feel that it would take me a lot of practice to master such skill. I would say at least 5 assignments in order to get the hang of it and maybe 10 to finally say I got this, I can do it by myself. However, coding and being able to create an interactive program seems very interesting to learn and a skill that many might not have. I am completely down to learn this skill!
It’s time to begin thinking about choosing a domain name that can represent your digital self! <– (we will watch this video in Zoom class together)
You can’t (and shouldn’t) pick just anything.. this is important!
It has to be unique and also available! It should be relevant – it could be based on your real name, a nickname and or something meaningful to you.
You will need to search for its availability using a domain registrar and you can pick from a number of different ‘top level domains (TLD)’ – for example .com, .net, .us, and .org – then you can have an example like – “mypersonalsite.net”
As we go forward to select and register our domain names (**don’t do this on your own please, I will be walking you through the process in class next week!)
You’re also going to need web hosting, which will allow you to put files up online and will be discoverable through your new domain name! We are going to use a form of ‘shared hosting’ where you get a portion of a server – think of it as having an apartment in a building. With this shared hosting you will be able to do a lot of things including installing your own instance of WordPress! (via WordPress.org and not wordpress.com – they are a lil different) With wordpress installed you can then start building your website for your domain name. I will cover a series of demonstrations on how to do this and I will record all of the demonstrations and tutorials.
We use a company called Reclaim Hosting, with which we have a contract with so you can enter a coupon code and start your account for free.
The coupon code will be e-emailed to everyone via blackboard starting next week – so I will be reminding you to check your York college e-mail address to get the code.
**This Week’s Blog Post Assignment: Write a blog post that shares a few of the potential domain names that you would consider using for your website. List them (at least 5-10 potential names) and say a few words about why they would be good examples for the website that you will build.
What will your new website be about? This part is totally up to you! If you wish, you can use the website project itself for a specific project, for example, perhaps you want to share your passion for cooking and poetry. Which means you will be primarily writing blog posts about cooking and poetry. This can also be applied to sports, or gaming, or politics or journalism, or simply put, website that fused together many interests as well as your ct101 assignments. Share your thoughts, excitements, fears and any other sentiments about how you are feeling about this next chapter in your life as a website owner! Please include a few hyperlinks and or screen shots of some of your favorite websites, let us know why you like them!
I would like you to watch the portrait documentary of Aaron Swartz, The Internet’s Own Boy. Swartz was a prodigy web developer that participated in some seminal web projects – RSS, Creative Commons licensing, and Reddit.
He founded Demand Progress which successfully campaigned against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) with a broadly adopted 24 hour internet blackout of well know sites like Wikipedia. Swartz was later arrested by M.I.T. police for systematically downloading thousands of academic articles from JSTOR and federal prosecuted with charges of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act. Facing possible jail time, Swartz committed suicide at the age of 26.
Larry Lessig who was a mentor, colleague, and friend to the much younger Swartz commemorated his life and work with Lessig’s appointment as Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School with a lecture titled “Aaron’s Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age.”
**Assignment – In a new blog post, find a moment in either the documentary about Swartz or the Lessig talk that you relate to as an important idea/moment in Swartz’s work as a programmer and/or activist. Tell us why you find it significant and find/make a visual artifact that represents your thinking as well and embed it in the post.
I have actually heard this question quite often. I’ve heard people talk and discuss memes and art. I personally think that memes are art. Memes are a way for people to express their selves and what they find interesting, how they feel, and more.
Memes are even used in advertisements. Some people have had their games/business promoted through the use of memes. For instance, the mobile advertisement ads. The ads say something such as “omg I can’t beat this level 😅😂😂 when it’s the first level of the game and they’re clearly failing the level on purpose.
When I first learned about memes, I thought they were cool. I had thought to myself this was humorous and a nice way for people to express their art. I love looking at memes and seeing the new ones people come up with.
To sum this up, yes memes are a form of art. People can express themselves through the use of memes. Memes can be many different expressions such as sad, happy, excited. There is no limit to memes.
To finish off this post. I think that some of my favorite memes are the memes that got me into memes.
I chose this prompt because it was the simplest I could think of. Also, I enjoy visual things; it is my preferred method of self-expression. This would be beneficial to me after class because I could do so much with pictures, and I could incorporate it into my future projects and use it in the real world.
Since I’ve always wanted to Cosplay my favorite anime characters, these are two of my favorite images in my camera roll. This piqued my interest because I took the photos myself, and the addition of ring-light and a little edit made them even better.
Expectation
VS
Reality 😭😅
In this picture, I attempted to cosplay as Kakegurui, a character from one of my favorite anime series.
As previously mentioned, I prefer things to be more visual because it is more enjoyable and easier to understand. This assignment is similar to the first one I made because I wanted to recall how I felt before the pandemic at school. It was all a lot of fun, so I decided to do a memory lane video for school. This will assist me outside of class in tasks such as editing a YouTube video for a school assignment or even an audition clip, as I am interested in acting. I edited the video because I wanted to show my peers my school memories.
This video begins at the start of the school semester and ends with the lockdown time. I was in the green shirt in the dressing room, getting ready for a show at York College named Julius Cesar. I was in and around school for some of the posts. I was wearing the gold dress in Albany for a CUNY school meeting in February when this photo was taken.
At this point, anyone who has a smartphone knows what a meme is. Memes are a means for instant comic relief. This comic relief can be random or it can relate to current events. Gone are the days where, if you wanted a good laugh you had to watch an entire comedy sketch or fish through Youtube for some funny videos. Nowadays, all you need is a smartphone or laptop, and a social media account. Twitter, preferably. There’s a saying that all funny memes are born on twitter and if you saw a meme on Facebook, Instagram or other social media platforms, twitter definitely saw it first. Over the years memes have really evolved. Below are a few sample of memes I harvested from twitter.
There’s a meme about possibly every subject now. For example, lets look at the whole of the year 2020. 2020 was a wild year for a variety of reasons. One of the most notable momentf of 2020 was the start of the pandemic. The following months ater the offical shutdown in march, everyone grew restless at home and thus, stormed to the internet to let off steam. During this time, memes were in abundance. The year 2020 was the perfect recipe for meme creation, as a string of unusual events unfolded, such as the killer hornets, impeachment of donald trump and a possible World War 3, to name a few. The fact that memes can be created from these events shows the versatility of memes. They can be seen as little snapshots of events in this sense.
Now, to answer the question “Is meme Art?” We have to define art first. According to wikipedia, the official definition of ART can be summarized as human expression, which reflects the creator’s imagination, conceptual ideas, etc. Memes are relatively new so it’s understandable why some people dont consider it art. Memes are also severely underrated as they dont get the attention they deserve. Even though theyre a bit unconnventional in what we consider as art, as memes catch on to more people I believe they will be readily accepted as a form of contemporary art with potential to jokingly capture facets of society. Until next time…..
I find this question very interesting. It feels like it can say a lot. First of all, memes itself is a symbol, a symbolic language, which belongs to the secondary creation of existing things. Emoji, for example, is the result of highly generalizing and simplifying people’s facial expressions, forming a unique symbolic language.
People always think “this is art.”
and “this is meme.”
No, I don’t think so. I think memes are art, art is to reflect reality in an image way, but more socially ideological than reality. “There are many different symbols in Japanese manga. The cartoonist would draw expressions that show a person sweating profusely or a light bulb appearing on his head when he bursts out with an idea.” These little expressions are exaggerated enough to express people’s little inner turmoil, and the simple combination can express a person’s current state, or the state they are in over time.
An expression contains our or the author’s feelings, which are understood differently by each person and developed through the feelings of things in life. Since entering the Internet era, emoji packs have become a kind of pop culture, and what this pop culture reflects is the current state of people’s spiritual life. Each expression pack is a person’s portrayal of a certain event or emotion of the rain.
So I personally believe that memes are art.
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