Antony Ward: Freelance Digital Artist

Today we had a talk with a freelance artist named Antony Ward, he told us about his journey to becoming a successful freelance artist that he is today. I instantaneously recognized who he is as I’ve seen a number of his courses on digital-tutorials.com, it was really an honor to meet him in person. Antony spent a number of 

years working for small studios before deciding to become independent, he mentioned he’s never had any luck with most of the studios he’s worked for as they all ended up out of business and making people redundant. Even though that was the case, he mentioned that it is very important to work for various studios before going freelance, as it will teach you diverse skills and help you create important relationships with peers that will substantially come in handy in the future. As a freelance artist it is important to have connections with other people within the industry and this is one of the most efficient ways of doing that as it earns you trust. 

Antony has done a variety of jobs in his career that have led him to publish two tutorial books; one on Game Character Development in Maya which he released in 2003 and the book is still selling today as it is relevant. The other was the official guide to 3D modeling in Silo.

He informed us that learning how to script can be an essential skill that will help you cut down a huge workload as it is a clever tool. Also creating a portfolio that shows a step by step breakdown on a particular project can be helpful when showing to an employer. 

OUDF503: Presentation Feedback + New Idea

Response brief presentation outcome.

After presenting my initial idea to my peers I received incredibly valuable advice. I received a number of opinions and recommendations regarding the short film I’ve decided to make. 

My original chosen self-directed study was a short film that involves street art and general typography found in Leeds. The objective was to create a sentence out of the lettering that I would have filmed; this was either going to be an interpretation of a short poem, film monologue or a famous quote.The strongest idea so far was to get an individual to read out a monologue from a film and match the words using the typography that I have filmed. The problems that were brought up are as follows 

· The film wouldn’t look very consistent, as the shots will jump from one to another.

· It would be hard to construct a sentence that makes any sense using different shots.

· It wouldn’t be visually appealing aesthetically.

· Filming in the city centre would be difficult in terms of acquiring permission, so I would have to sneakily use my smartphone, consequently the outcome of the images/footage wouldn’t be as good as shooting using an XDcam.


The feedback on what I should do instead

· Kinetic typography as it is much cleaner and visually pleasing.
· Film your subject reading out a monologue and animate the text around them.


· New Idea

I accept the new idea as it is less complex and I feel I can tackle the task with ease. My new objective is to now write/collaborate with one of my peers in coming up with a short monologue. I then plan on recording the monologue as audio first, then filming footage of the individual who read the monologue on film, instead of having them talking, I will have them stood there while the typography animates around them.

OUDF502: Resources That Can Support an Area of Improvement

Throughout my student life, I've used various resources to support me in my education, the main ones being the Internet and the library. I've learned that I'm not a big fan of reading as it makes it harder for me to interpret what I learn into my own projects. I find it easier and quicker to observe tutorials through video or to listen to someone telling me what to do. Consequently the main resource I have discovered to be of benefit to me is a website called digital tutors. It’s a subscription site in which I pay a sum of $45/£28 each month to get instant access to thousands of videos. I can either learn from watching individual tutorials or following a learning path that provides me with courses that demonstrate every step from the foundation of a project to the very end. I’ve learnt important subjects on CG, VFX and digital art and I have applied that to my work. The website is and excellent foundation for beginners or developing artists like myself and even for industry professionals. It not only teaches me ‘how’ but also teaches my ‘why’ I learn all the techniques and workflows that I cover.

The only downside to it is that I’m only a student, so I find it a bit expensive to keep up with the monthly subscription; therefore I sometimes unsubscribe and re-subscribe when it’s essential for a project I’m working on at the time.

OUDF501: Un Chien Andalou (Visual Analysis)

Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 French short film directed by Luis Bunuel and the famous surrealist painter Salvador Dali. The movie was inspired by the Faustian concept of suppressed human emotions, when analysed psychoanalytically the film delivers numerous concepts such as Sigmund Freud's fetishism. Although the directors to this film originally insisted that nothing on this film symbolises anything, the viewer is free to make up his or her meaning to what the narrative is.

The film begins with a series of strange disturbing images, the first and foremost being the infamous iconic scene of Bunuel himself using a man's shaving razor to slit open a woman's eye. This shot is immediately replaced by one in which a line of clouds travel in the foreground of a full moon, depicting as the razor blade slicing through the eye. The similarities to these scenes represent a link between people and nature. There is another scene later in the film in which a woman's armpit hair fades out into a later location showing grass on in a beach, this is another relation of human and nature.

Another striking scene in which a man is groping a woman and thinking lustful thoughts, this can be linked to sexual repressing mentioned in Freud's book. The man shows animalistic behaviours as he forces himself onto the woman this can be linked to fetishism.

Bunuel's story is clearly non linear as one of the scenes is set sixteen years before, but what's puzzling is that the characters and the set have not changed. Bunuel and Dali seemed to be determined to make this film illogical.

OUDF501: Censorship & Truth (Lecture Notes)

OUDF501: Cities & Film (Lecture Notes)

OUDF501: Communication Theory (Lecture Notes)

OUDF501: Globalisation, Sustainability & The Media (Lecture Notes)

OUDF501: Popular Culture (Lecture Notes)

OUDF501: Modern Identity (Lecture Notes)

OUDF501: Essay Practical Responce

In response to my essay, the area of study I have chosen to focus on is Panopticism in Religion. Many religions believe in an all-powerful, all-seeing god that sees everything that you do. They believe that their god punishes those who “sin” or go against the rules/laws within the religion, often these rules are outlined in a book such as the Bible for Christianity or a Quran for Muslims. This constant omnipotence of god resembles Panopticism in which there's an invisible force that encourages you to abide to the rules for the sake of avoiding punishment.

The digital media artefact that I chose to produce in order to demonstrates the theories and concepts introduced in relation to the practice is a digital artwork of what most may call a holy deity.

This image above illustrates a deity on a church stained glass, watching over what is a representation of the masses worshipping it. The twist to this image is that the omnipotence of this deity is literal and to demonstrate this I drew a number of security cameras as visual representation that the deity is always watching everything you do at all times. This image has a ver strong depiction to Foucault's 'Panopticism'.

On this project I collaborated with Sophie, she kindly painted the artwork for me on Photoshop, I drew out a sketch before hand to show her exactly what I required.

OUDF501: Panopticism (Writing Task)

The idea that is presented in the two pieces of writing (Kaschadt, 'Jeremy Bentham - The Penitentiary Panopticon or Inspection House') and (Foucault, 'Panopticism') can both be applied and are very relevant to today's contemporary society. Both of these texts strike me as a functional design more than a scientific experimentation.

Recently watching a motion picture starring Will Smith as the main character named Robert Dean in 'Enemy of the State', (Rethinking Architecture: 1997, p356) Foucault states that, "in the seventeenth century, there were measures to be taken when a plague appears in town", this film can directly apply to Foucault's statement. In the film Robert Dean is a successful attorney and his life gets turned upside down when he unknowingly receives a video tape containing damaging evidence against very important and powerful people. On this tape, it shows a murder of a congressman being killed by members of the NSA (National Security Agency) for refusing to sign a new legislation that allows the government to increase their power of surveillance over the nation and its people. Robert is then being tracked by the NSA after they learnt that he holds this damaging evidence. In the case, Robert Dean is the leper, the plague is the tape and the syndic is the NSA. As Dean is now out of authority, he is now condemned and this results in damaging his career as an attorney, his friendships and his family. Though he isolated himself, he could not get away from the surveillance of the syndics (NSA). Luckily for Dean, he finds himself a saviour who is known as Brill, he can also be regarded as a 'leper'. Brill presents this idea to Dean that he's has been infected and the NSA have fully taken control of his every move, Brill is a professional who has learnt over time how to avoid this gaze. This relates to Foucault's writings about lepers and what happened to those infected. The leper could infect others with the disease at any given moment, thus forcing Dean into isolation. On the Panopticism extract (1997, p 357  Foucault states "Each street is placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance; if he leaves the street, he will be condemned to death.". In running from the agency, the consequences Dean faces not only changed his life, but also for his friends and family, this resulted to his Ex lover/business partner being murdered. He is put through hell by this idea of a faceless gaze, whether it is through security cameras or through tapped phones Dean and the entire population are being watched.

People are fully aware of this gaze and therefore this alters people's behaviours when they are in public, Foucault describes this idea of the faceless gaze when he writes about the Panopticon. Bentham also wrote on (Kaschadt, 'Jeremy Bentham - The Penitentiary Panopticon or Inspection House 2002, p 117  "People who constantly think they are being watched because they know they are under surveillance but cannot control exactly when they are really being observed would have to lose the possibility and finally the desire of wrongdoing".

In Conclusion: The idea presented in Foucault's 'Panopticism' and the motion picture 'Enemy of the State', teaches us that although it can be beneficial to be under a watchful eye for a sense of security, too much power of surveillance can invade people's personal lives and in the case of Robert Dean, it ruined his.

Bibliography: 

Foucault, M. 'Panopticism (extract)' in Leach, N. (ed.) (1997) Rethinking Architecture: A reader in cultural theory, London and New York, Routledge, p 356-367

Kashadt, K. 'Jeremy Bentham: The Penitentiary Panopticon or Inspection House' in Weibel, Levin and Frohne (eds.) (2002)Ctrl [space]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, Cambridge Massachusetts, The MIT Press, p 114-119

OUDF501: Photography

Coward, R (1934) - The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an exertion of the male gaze at women on the street.
-The image of the woman (semi-naked) almost goes unnoticed, the people in the background get on with their business. 

Eva Herzigova

 1994 billboard of giant semi-naked woman.

Male bodies are portrayed in an active manner, where women are portrayed in a passive manner for example the dolce and Gabbana advert.

Lara Croft

An overly sexualised object
A visual spectacle
Pleasure in the fantasy of  her destruction.

Artemisia Gentileschi - Judith beheading Holofernes (1620)
It's an alternative acting woman
Woman beheading man.

Cindy Sherman 

- Untitled still was actually captured as a pose not a moment.  

Sarah Lucas

 - Self portrait with fried egg and banana, obviously referencing sexual acts

OUDF501: Celebrity Culture

The lecture looks at:

• The history of celebrities
• The relationship between photography/film/TV and celebrities
• The cultural significance of celebrities
• How contemporary identity and celebrity are intertwined
• Contemporary icons as case studies

Celebrity photographers, male photographers were treated differently in photography.

Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince was an inventor who lived in Leeds and did moving image.

Josephine Balar was an exotic dancer, she has a pet cheetah and also spied as a celebrity dancer on Nazis and other powerful and influential people. In contemporary culture she has been referenced by Beyonce, she wore the banana dress and performed in a giant champagne glass for the song 'naughty girl'.

Clark Gable

• King of Hollywood
• US Army Air Corps during  WWII
• Became a stage actor as an American hero

Bette Davis

• Known for willingness to play unlikable characters
• married a man who claimed he had never heard of her.

Marilyn Monroe 

• Actress, Singer
• Relationships with Author Miller and the Kennedies. 
• Iconic sex symbol
• Her death freezes her iconic status as she died young.

Audrey Flack Marilyn 1977

In the tradition of the 16th/17th century Venita's painting where objects in the image have symbolic meaning.
Photo realism - airbrush.

Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe

Her face becomes a mask as it is endlessly repeated in publicity and the news.
The idea that there is a different woman underneath ie. Norma Jean Baker prevails
Circumstances of her death seem to confirm/not confirm this simultaneously as she becomes ‘myth’.

Elvis Presley

Andy Warhol uses an image of him acting the classic American hero – the cowboy
Blurs our vision, reminds us that the image is all we can see
His home Graceland is a place of pilgrimage for fans, then a museum after his death.

John F Kennedy
Celebrity politician in his youth and has good looks.
Great TV speeches
Fashionable beautiful wife
His death in 1963 was not filmed by television cameras but by the public, to this day his death is a conspiracy.

Michael Jackson

The changes in Michael's appearance are interpreted as reactions to the abuse he and his family suffered at the hands of their father
He looks less like a his father by reducing his American features: nose, skin, colour, Afro hair etc.

Madonna
Material girl 1985
Postmodern recycling of the Golden Era of Hollywood
Pastiche of Marilyn’s performance of Diamonds are a girls best Friend in Gentleman Prefer Blonds (1953)

Lady Gaga

Post-Post modernism, changes her look at every appearance.

Her meat dress was a reference to Jana Sterbak (1987).

Barrack Obama

‘Pop’ President
His election seems to offer progress in American politics as he is the first black president
Young, good looking, musical
Employs graffiti artist Shepherd Fairey for his election campaign

Princess Diana 1981

Represents innocence and beauty as the truth of her marriage.
Reinvents herself as fashion icon as they begin to separate.

She got photographed by Maria Testino after she separated with Charles.

There are conspiracy theories about her death.

The paparazzi seem to be to blamed for Diana’s death in 1997 but our demand for ‘real life’ images of celebrities creates a market for these images which command huge financial rewards.

David Beckham
Contemporary ‘everyman’.
Beckham, he himself is as a brand.
Cross worlds of sport fashion and music.
Products include underwear, fragrance as well as clothing.
Overcomes private life scandals - he seems invincible.

Whitney Houston 

Her Death

Twitter

Since 2006
We can follow celebrities
Details of their home and private lives
We can find out immediately of their latest projects
Read their innermost thoughts
How do we ‘keep in touch with celebrities lives?
Whereas until recently we might have had to wait for the magazine to come out now we have direct unmediated link to the stars
This lack of mediation means that stars often make their own PR disasters.

EBay
Elvis’s Hair, $115,120 by selling a lock from the famous black quaff back in 2002.
Britney Spears gum was sold for $514.
Scarlett Johansons used tissue - $5,300 made for charity
during the golden age of Hollywood fans would have coveted a signature as it meant a real connection to the stars hand. In the age of technology the signature has lost it’s power and authenticity, it’s link to a unique identity.
Celebrity items on eBay- the price of a piece of celebrity? We don’t want to just dress like them. We want their DNA!

OUDF501: Panopticism

Institutions and Institutional POWER.

Aims 

• Understand the principles of panopticism
• Understand Michel Foucault's concept of disciplinary society
• Consider the idea that disciplinary society is away of making individuals 'productive and useful' 
• Understand Foucault's idea of techniques of the body and docile bodies.

Michael Foucault (1926 - 1984)
The great confinement (late 1600s)
'House of correction' to curb unemployment and idleness - this is where the social groups were put to work, if they refused they would be beat with a huge stick. 

Foucault's aim was to internalise people's responsibilities in asylums, prisons, hospitals, schools etc

Disciplinary society and disciplinary power.

Panopticism named after Jeremy Bentham’s building called The Panopticon. The Tate modern building in London was originally a Panopticon 

"The individuality that discipline constructs (for the bodies it controls) has four characteristics, namely it makes individuality which is:

• Cellular—determining the spatial distribution of the bodies
• Organic—ensuring that the activities required of the bodies are "natural" for them
• Genetic—controlling the evolution over time of the activities of the bodies
• Combinatory—allowing for the combination of the force of many bodies into a single massive force" - Foucault, Michel (1975). Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, New York: Random House.

Most panopticons were asylums or prisons they were circular buildings 

A panopticon is the opposite of a dungeon, they display they're prisoners as opposed to dungeons in which they are kept secluded, dungeons repress they're prisoners as a form of punishment. 

Panopticism: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power (Foucault, 1975) (a machine for the automatic functioning of power)

Panopticons allowed scrutiny,
allowed supervisors to experiment on subjects and
aimed to make them much more productive.

Reforms prisoners
Helps treat patients
Helps instruct schoolchildren
Helps confine but also study the insane
Helps supervise workers
Helps put beggars and idlers to work

There are plenty examples of modern Panopticism in today's society.

Open offices instead of traditional cubicals , the worker is aware that they're being watched/scrutinised by the boss, so they disciplin themselves into working harder.

Pubs - you feel the scrutiny from the bouncers and the bar staff so therefore you behave.

Other examples are

Google maps

CCTVs 

Swipe cards for clocking in

Registers

Health (gym, eating right, etc)

Below are some notes I took down during the lecture.