Leo Villareal - Art Exhibit

Leo Villareal is a digital artist who has a three-month long lightshow exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art. The exhibit features many different animated light shows that include fluorescent light, strobe light, etc. My favorite piece of Villareal’s at the exhibit was a piece called Diamond Sea. Diamond Sea is a large rectangular pane of mirror finished stainless steel with white lights that travel across the entire grid in a specific pattern. The grid moves between dim and fully lit light to project a sense of depth in the piece, and while you’re watching the lights move you are also watching yourself in the reflection of the back drop.

Some of Villareal’s other showcased works were Lightscape, Big Bang, Chasing Rainbows, and Star. There was also a separate room on the second floor apart from the rest of Villareal’s light shows that shows a ceiling of lights. The lights were constantly flashing strobe lights, and the room provided chairs for viewers to sit and look up at the flashing ceiling above.

The installation titled Star was the main piece shown as you walk into the art museum. It was unlike many of Villareal’s other works, because it featured a steel web with lights attached in a star-like form.

The exhibit overall was very different from the rest of the art in the museum, and other exhibits I’ve seen. The way he expresses his art through light and computer software is a digital media idea that not only takes artistic aesthetic, but also knowledge of computer programs. Leo Villareal’s exhibit can be seen through May 22^nd at the Nevada Museum of Art. For more information visit www.nevadaart.org

Pete Froslie - Artist Lecture

Digital media artist Pete Froslie is a graduate from Nevada who went on to study at the Studio for Interrelated Media in Boston.  Froslie has had multiple shows in Reno and Boston, and has been featured at Comicon in San Diego. He sparked an interest in digital media that first began with cracking open toys and figuring out the mechanics of the toys. He has since created many installations involving the use of mechanical toys.

Froslie’s latest ongoing project is all about the story of John Wilks Booth. Froslie is creating a new persona and a whole different character, and using Booth as the physical representation of the character. The idea of this project is very interesting, in that Froslie is acting as a novelist, creating a story around his Booth character. My favorite aspect of his Booth project was his idea to create an image for a penny stretching machine that was the Booth character. The irony of the project is pretty funny; I like the idea of taking a penny with Lincoln’s image and printing an image of Booth over that.

Froslie’s artworks overall were very engaging, I enjoyed his installations that made use of robotics. His aesthetic seems to be a very ironic type of viewpoint, and his artworks are generally based on complex ideas. To see more of Pete Froslie’s work, visit http://www.froslie.com/Main_Page.html

Golf Hole idea - A-hole

My idea for the design of my golf hole is basically creating the layout of the course in the shape of an 'A', thus creating an A-hole.

Pepakura - Gift Box

For my first experience with Pepakura, I made a gift box. While the shape itself was not entirely complex, creating the box took some trial and error to figure out the actual Pepakura program. I hope to excell even more with my next paper folding project.

3D Model - Art Museum

For our second 3D model project, we were to create something completely from scratch. Since I love photography, I decided to create an art museum in my name that contains some of my favorite photos. I found a regular triangular roof to be too boring, and decided to go with a more geometric roof. There was a lot of trial and error involved in creating the museum.

3D Model Collage - iRobot

Our first 3D modelling project was to create something out of items that are already on the web. I decided to create a robot. My 3D model, titled iRobot, is made out of a boombox, a microwave, a spring, metal claws, tank wheels, and a piece of pizza. The robot represents the ultimate iMachine, with music and food all in one place.

Experimental Machinima

My first ever taste of machinima came from this project. Once the group thing didn't really work out, I decided to try my own thing to figure out all the ins and outs of making a machinima. I chose to base my short film off of the poem, "The Road Not Taken" writted by Robert Frost. I was playing around in Second Life one day, trying to find inspiration for my machinima, and I came across the place where I ended up shooting the machinima. Right as I arrived there, I instantly thought of the poem. My biggest problems in creating the film was working out the kinks with the video capture software. For being my first experience with machinima, I'm just glad that I was able to work my way through the whole process. I had fun with exprimenting with machinima, and I feel more confident in working in that medium than I did before.