Donatella Versace

          Versace's couture cloths have been identified with celebrities and music for decades now. But, at the same time, her style is so dramatic it can overwhelm the clothes themselves. This dress is part the collection summarizing all the elements of the Versace vision: the feminine, maybe even the ultra feminine, and the trailing, torso-cinching, bosom displaying dress created in shades of aqua, pale yellow, ice blue, powder green, quartz pink, or gold.

         This particular light-as-air couture dress is somewhat interesting. The strength of this design is its lightness, in my opinion. This dress seems to have no weight.  It is both over the top and flowy, but somehow it works. The style itself seems to come directly out of the 1980's, so I'm not sure that it would be popular today.  It is said that Donatella reserves her couture dresses for her clients.  I wonder if they would like this style today?

Maya Lin

         Maya Lin is an American Artist who is know for her work in sculpture and landscape art.  She is the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.  This piece of artwork is called "Storm King Wavefield."  This is her new earthwork project.  This is a landscape art.  This installation is an excellent of representation of nature, land that looks like moving water.  When I see this piece of art, it made me feel relaxed.  There are many hills and trees.  The colors of this art are greens, blues, and oranges reflecting the colors of water and storm. This piece reminds me of and brings me back to my Vietnam.

        The 11-acre installation, which will open to the public next spring, consists of seven rows of undulating hills huddled in a inclining valley.  The hills look like ocean waves.  The artist wants to explain how the waves begin and end.  She is working with land instead of with water.  I like this piece of art because it looks so beautiful and it is amazing how she combines trees and hills that were formed from the action of real waves long ago into this art.

Masaki Fujihata

             This piece of  artwork of the Japanese media artist gives the impression of being lost in a digital world, rather than of being lost in a dream. Morel’s Panorama, which sees real time images of the viewer integrated with images of the artist, stretched and filtered through a strange cylindrical shape, was more intriguing.

           There's something confusing and alien about the work of the artist, Masaki Fujihata. And though it certainly has a very surreal Japanese aesthetic – with its playful take on technology that sees avatars chatting nonsense to each other – there is also something slightly subversive and almost Dada about it. But though this artwork is very intriguing and impressive, the cool, detached quality of a world dominated by technology seems far from perfect.

Harold Cohen / Aaron

                  Harold Cohen is regarded as being one of the first pioneers of computer generated paintings and Aaron is the first robot in human history to paint original art. Aaron mixes its own paints, creates artwork and washes its own brushes.

                Cohen's work is very abstract, particularly with this piece. It grew out of investigations about the nature of representation or how and why we see marks on paper. The choice of colors is absolutely beautiful.

Vaneeesa Blaylock

                Sometimes SL events are like watching paint dry. Wait for things to rez. More people arrive. More waiting for them to rez. There's the lag, there's the series of comments and asides that scroll across the screen, and the "we want the show" feeling.
              

               On Saturday afternoon,  Vaneeesa Blaylock and 26 young ladies performed Miss Blaylock's VB03 - Veinticinco Mujeres, in the gazebo of Oxbridge Village. The idea seemed to be that larger women - described as "beautiful, Rubenesque women" are "as refreshing as they are powerful and graceful," in Miss Blaylock's words on  her Journal. Fair enough, most women in SL are impossibly skinny.  These women were in Oxbridge Village to celebrate the diverse body types of women by showing up wearing nothing but a pair of shoes. Two small problems and one big problem: first, not everyone got the memo and wore bikinis, lingerie, or accessories. No big deal, as we all got the message.  Second, the "performance" seemed to involve the ladies just standing there. For more than a half-hour.  These avatars are second life representations of real people but they tend to all look alike. I thought she wanted to represent different shapes of the female body but these avatars all look alike, big breasts, skinny bodies, long legs, thereby, defeating her stated purpose.  If Ms. Blaylock is trying to represent many form of the female body, her technical efforts have failed.  Personally, I thought her work was ugly because of all these  naked women and I didn't understand what was meant.

ART VIDEO PROJECT

         On Thursday, April 11, 2011, my classmate, Dee and I, went to Huntington Beach to do the art video project.  It was very exciting to do this project.  We spent about two hours  finishing this project.  We recorded the colors of the ocean, seagulls, sand, etc.   My classmate recorded this video.  I presented on this video.  We hope you enjoy our video.
       
        I thought the colors of sand were just browns, but as I looked deeply, I found the colors of sand to be very different and of many colors and brightness.  When I first saw the water as the beach, I saw the blue colors.  As I came closer, I found the colors of water are also brown, green, and gray.  I felt relaxed when I heard the sound of waves coming and going on the sand and smelled the salt in the air and tasted it in my mouth.

Joseph DeLappe

              
              Joseph DeLappe is a media artist, activist, educator and cycling fanatic and gamer.  Joseph DeLappe was first really known for his game activism. Gandhi’s March to Dandi was a recreation in Second Life of Gandhi’s 1930 march in protest of the British salt tax. For 24 days, DeLappe used a Nordic Trak Walkfit to walk the 248-mile length of Gandhi’s original march for 6 hours a days. His SL names are Joseph Grommet and MGandhi Chakrobarti.  His steps were converted  to his avatar, MGandhi Chakrabati, so he walked where his avatar walked.  DeLappe chose the Gandhi character because he symbolizes strong, non-violent leadership. 


                MGandhi’s progress through SL was projected on a wall facing DeLappe. While on his march in SL, DeLappe was finding users to come along, giving them a digital gift explaining the project, and inviting them to walk with him. He refused to fly MGandhi unless he got stuck, and he teleported only occasionally. These limitations were a way of honoring Gandhi’s legendary trek but also resulted in interesting readings of the digital realm. DeLappe often bumped into “private zones” that took time to walk around. MGandhi would run into players, who accepted his gifts, engaged with him in a brief IM exchange, and also watched as DeLappe walked the avatar away. This played out in the Eyebeam gallery as well. During DeLappe’s frequent breaks to eat, rest, or handle technical issues, a few people walked up to the Nordic Trak and hopped on.   I thought his work was excellent.  He combined the MGandhi's project to his walking steps.  He did this because he wanted to say something instead of just talking as a real person.  DeLappe was making gaming an art form.  Eventhough I thought this idea inventive and creative, this particular art form does not appeal to me.  I thought he used Gandhi because Gandhi was a leader of India and political hero.  DeLappe used him because he wanted to let people feel something about being a leader when they played his games.

Robert Rauschenberg

           

           Rauschenberg is well-known for his "combines" of the 1950's.  This is one of his combine works.  This is a very interesting piece. To be honest, I really have no idea what I'm looking at. This artwork is really confusing. This is more like a collage of snapshots as used in  advertising photography. The artist incorporated all these photographs into his work.

           

          As I did my research on the artist and his works, I found out that many of these photographs had been reduced by multiple reproduction to the status of a commodity. The artist incorporated all these photographs as advertisements into loose, abstract compositions.   He  picked up trash or found any materials that interested him in the streets of New York City, and he brought these materials back to his studio where they could be combined into his works. Rauschenberg's art works explore the gap between art and the everyday world.  In particular his series of works which he called Combines served as instances in which the boundaries between art and sculpture were broken down so that both were present in a single work of art.  I like his work.  His art work interests me. I think his work is popular because I see a lot of people who combine various materials or mediums to make cards to send to people they love.  I also enjoy how he incorporates bright colors into his works, making them very attractive to me.

Mariko Mori

             I think this piece is very interesting. This sculpture has a very religious feel to it. I think this sculpture is a fusion of art, technology, religion (Buddhism) and the idea of universal spiritual consciousness. This piece of sculpture is symbolic of oneness and unity in the world, and the artist, Mori uses cutting edge technology and material to create a strikingly beautiful vision for a better future.

            This sculpture represents the disappearance of boundaries between the self and others. It can be interpret as a symbol of the acceptance of otherness and a model for overcoming national and cultural borders. Furthermore, this sculpture represents the world existing as one interconnected organism.  I think this work also represents a Buddha eye that sees everybody in the world and creates a feeling of unity.  The stair represents opportunity to enter into this oneness with the Buddha.

Comet Morigi

         Comet Morigi's house is an artwork itself. The artwork depicts a clean, intimate, and welcoming atmosphere. There is not much clutter from what is shown and the lighting in her house is very subtle and dim.  The couches are a simple silver and hold no overcomplicated design. In the picture depicted to the left, you can see two of her works hanging off her very own house wall.  This makes me wonder if she's extremely proud of her work.

         In my opinion, Morigi's work primarily focuses on surrealistic environmental creations. The two hanging artworks in her living room are dominant in this art work. In the painting on the right, facing the artist, she created an interesting lightshow-esque cylinder building . I think her light themed buildings always use pink and white as the primary colors.  The orange cloud represents windy, foggy forest and the pink and white particle wind represents the wind circle that surrounds the main pavilion. I think her work represents her in second life or virtual reality.  In this picture, she shows us how she and her friend relax in her collector avatar house.  In this artist's creations, a person doesn't just get to see them, a person gets to participate in them. The artist herself represents herself as her avatar, how she wants to be seen.