A Month On;

Just about a month has passed since my last blog post and here I am wondering what to write.
Do I really want ton continue with this blog, I mean probably no one is reading it and if someone does read it they surely aren't leaving any comments. I would only be by chance that someone stumbles across my blog and then chooses to read it.

To whom am I writing? who is my audience? no on is responding though perhaps one day they will.

I want to start writing, I want to work on something that takes time and effort, something I enjoy doing and something that ultimately I will be happy with and proud of. I could have over 300 pages if I just write one page a day for a year!!!

I shoudl really come up with a new way of ending this posts instead of 'anyway...' and 'ok, so now that...' and this being my first attempt at a new ending I am going to end it here.

Until next time.
Guy.

Why Not?

Ok, so initially I began this blog for the sake of fulfilling the criteria of a course I was taking. Now that I have finished the course why continue? well why not? I am happy with what I have written and published until now so why not continue? I am going to continue and hopefully build on this from here.

A View In Retrospect:

A View From Within:

Having strayed somewhat from my initial concept of schizophrenia, there nevertheless remains to be some clear references to it, primarily that I am still depicting different persona within the same person.

Unlike schizophrenia which is an illness, I have decided to convey how within each of us there are numerous characteristics and personas that combine to form who we are, which is ultimately our identity. Through this project I have explored how the inner characteristics of a person express themselves physically, be that as clothing or through ones actions.

I felt that in appropriating Andy Warhols grid-like portrait system this would allow me to convey each unique identity as belonging to one individual. However, unlike Warhols bright hues I have chosen to sketch each photograph by hand and to display them inversely, so that what is seen is a white sketch on a black canvas. Sketching and stencil art are both a part of my identity though more importantly is that the single lines are like the bare bones upon which the body and personality is layered and constructed.

The twelve photos that I have used are very successful in that to a stranger they appear to be twelve separate people, while in fact they are all of me.

This is my identity, I am not merely a student nor am I solely a guitarist, I poses both and other characteristics that together make me who I am today, this is my identity and it is forever changing.

Dr. Professor. Lawyer. Guitarist. Builder. Lady. Chassid. Jesus & Soldier etc. etc…

Guy Steiner

Summary of my Project + Reflection:

This project has been a great exploration of who I really am. Perhaps it has strayed somewhat from my initial concept of schizophrenia though there remain to be some clear analogies. The main one being that I am still depicting different persona within the same person, me.

What I was exploring in this project is how the inner characteristics of a person express themselves in a physical expression i.e. the clothes and actions of a person.

I feel that the twelve photos that I have used do a great job of showing me as a different person / persona, and if you were unaware that they were all of the same person it would be very different to say they were fictional.

This is my identity, I am not merely a student nor am I solely a guitarist, I poses both and other characteristics that together make me who I am today, this is my identity and it is forever changing.

Finally!!!

Ok, So at long Last I have finished the design and construction of my website.
I have chosen to mimic Warhols grid-like design of portrait panels though instead of using the bright hues that he uses I have sketched each portrait. Each sketch appears in the inverse when it is rolled over by a mouse and when clicked on a larger image appears. The image that appears is the clear representation of the persona that I was trying to portray instead of merely a close of head-shot.

Who am I?

I have been taking photos of myself posing as different personalities, some are real personalities or identities if you please, while others are completely fictional. What I have tried to achieve through these photos is a means of expressing that one person can in fact be different depending on the time and the place.

Some of these photos were taken a couple years ago (as you can probably tell by the short hair) while others were taken within the past few days. I was one person two years ago and since then I have changed though there are numerous characteristics of my identity that remain. For example, two years ago I was a Yeshiva student in Israel though at the same time I liked art and drew constantly, two years later I am an architecture student in Sydney Australia and still like art and draw constantly (though now it is more often on CAD). Was I really in the Army or is that simply a photoshoped image? Am I a builder? no though I do like carpentry and making things. Do I like sport? yes I do like sport, I play tennis and I surf and I have for at least the past ten years. No, I am not Jesus, No I am not a chauffer and No I am not a woman!!! Though most of those other personalities I have pocessed at one point in my life and still do today.


Chauffer:



Soldier:

Artist:

Woman?

Hip-Hop Ali-G wannabee:

Builder / Handyman:

Tennis Player:

Music Lover / Guitarist:

Surfer:

Private Highschool Kid:

Carlebach / Nachman Hasid (something in between)

City Worker / Lawyer:

No Strings Attached

Here are a few drawings that I have done to explore this idea of 'no strings attached'

Travelling has exposed me to many diverse views and beliefs over the past couple of years and as a result I have seen many friends question their own beliefs and on occasion change them, or rather break away. Breaking away from what has been expected of someone has the potential to set one free though similarly fall apart. Likewise, is it these strings that hold a person and their numerous personas together? Is a person controlled like a puppet or do they really have free choice to behave as they please?

So, is life really preferable without strings attached? Sure we don’t want scams and we don’t want to be tricked but perhaps we really do need something to hold us together.

The Brain as Navigation:

While my site will allow people to explore it freely and move from page to page without any preset order I have decided that at least at the beginning it would be helpful to have some form of navigational bar.

In keeping with the concept of multiple personality disorder I thought it fitting to use that which we all use to navigate our thoughts, the human brain. From here the user can select different parts of it which will animate and take them to a new page.

New Site!!!

Hi, So I have just set up a new page, woohoooo.
GDSigns
Hopefully this will now allow me to upload the beginnings of what will ultimately be my website. Also, I intend to keep updating this site as my ideas and designs progress.

Remember me?

'Memory is the mother of all wisdom.'
- Aeschylus

Let me pose a hypothetical, if a person commits a crime though is injured in the process and as a result suffers amnesia, leaving him without any of his former memories does this change who he is? does this lack of knowing who you are or perhaps were grant this person a new slate in life? and a new begining? Most probably not, though in toying with this concept I have began considering making a website in which a person can input who they are so that at a later stage when perhaps they suffer from alzheimer's disease they can simply log in and find out who they are.

A process called snoezelen which is an emotion-oriented psychosocial intervention for sufferers of dementia aids in the recollection of lost memories.

Many popular Hollywood films have focussed on the idea of amnesia as a theme; the Jason Bourne trilogy, Eternal Sunshine off the Spotless Mind, 50 First Dates and Memento to name a few. There is always a need to find a way to deal with their memory loss, from watching a short video each morning in 50 First Dates to tatooing notes onto oneself in Memento. Though now I am proposing a new option, a website about yourself.

possible screens

Cubism

What kind of art or which artist for that matter best represents multiple personalities within the same person. Perhaps Cubism? and for that matter Picasso.




















Or how about Chagall's work. What I feel is appropriate in these artists work is the clear breakage of the faces into separate parts. the noses are defined by bold lines and perhaps more obvious is the cutting of the face into two, clearly an option to explore be that with hot spots as links or merely to represent two personalities.













Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe work is another example that I could explore to further my project. Though the same image is used repetitively it is interesting to see how he can change the feeling of the faces by the colors that he choses to use in each image. Some feel warmer and more welcoming while some feel cold and even sick.

Einstein

Portraits.

Here is a collage I just made by adjusting the opacity of peoples faces while placing them over Yoni Netanyahu's portrait.
In the second image I adjusted the hue and saturation of a couple of the faces to show how it might look once rolled over.

Putting something out there...

We talk about people having two identities, those online and those offline but what about a third identity? Can the computer itself have an identity? and what does it take to give a computer an identity? is it merely that we form a connection to it? that we identify with it as being unique from other computers? or perhaps that it is conscious? What would it take for a computer to be conscious and have free choice? Is it even possible for a computer to have free choice? after all the algorithim or perhaps living cells that would give it the ability to progress and advance with its decisions would have been created by a human, so does that free choice not stem from somewhere?

Ok, so perhaps it does but that dosen't mean that the computer is not't thinking for itself. Are we thinking for ourselves? or is everything predetermined? Is what I am writing at this very moment predetermined? the speed at which i write it? the time of which I upload it? the time when you read it? what you think of it? the mark that I will ultimately receive for it? Did I actually have any control over what mark I receive for this blog?

This concept is different to that of living in a computer simulation, or is it?

Perspective.

Is it a persons identity that determines a perspective or the a persons perspective that determines the identity?

How is it that one identity can be viewed in so many different ways when really it is the same thing? Everyone sees a person in their own unique way for example, a religious person may be considered secular to an ultra orthodox person while to a secular person he is considered ultra orthodox. A car thief to a judge and the owner of the car might be considered a criminal though in comparison to a pedefile or a rapist he is a saint.

Perspective is an approximate representation on a 2d plane of an image as it is perceived by the eye. Perspective, whether used in reference to graphics or psychology is an approximate representation, never exact.














It is not the identity but rather how people see them, it is these peoples identities that form the way they perceive in the first place.

Overtly Stereotypical!!!

A few very preliminary, basic, and extremely stereotypical thoughts on who succeeds online and who succeeds offline. What I was trying to convey is that nerds typically feel more comfortable and therefore succeed on a computer. There is an outlet for everyone, a skill that each person is better suited to and if these are found then hopefully success will follow.

Finding a Path.

9 weeks into this semester and I still feel that my ideas for this project are far from advanced. There are a few paths that I am considering taking for this project each reflecting different though similar takes on the theme identity.

The first idea that I have written about in my posts is that of Schizophrenia or rather having multiple personalities, those which are on the internet and those that are not and whether or not there really is a difference between the two.

Another take on the theme is that which revolves around religion and ones belief in G-d. Is there free choice? Are people navigating through this site by choice and making their own informed decisions as to which page to lead to or is it all perhaps predetermined? Perhaps in having a site that on the navigation itself could pose these questions.

Another take is that of the Matrix, one would enter the computer which would lead into a virtual reality which appears to be reality though they are still online.

So as you can see I am still searching for a path to take. What if what I focus on is 'searching'? or maybe I will just stick with what I have been doing until now.

'To work with the medium, you need to work within the medium' - Gianni.
Ok, enough writing, time to begin with the medium!!!

Web Site Theme:

Hi, so since Wednesday I've been working on a website layout. Through this layout I am trying to convey the multiple personalities and the distinction between them. I'm trying to do this by having contrasting styles, one dark and gloomy while the other is bright and happy. Also with the freedom to animate in both Photoshop and Flash I can better explore this theme through movement and how the moments create a feeling, be that sharp and abrupt movements in contrast to gentle bouncing movements, reminiscent to a child jumping.

Anyway, I'll post the link here to the file of this website I am working on:
http://www.box.net/shared/r52pvr55t8

Hope you like it.

2nd Life

I've been watching a film that I took out of the library a few days ago, "You Only Live Twice", and no this is not a Bond film. So what is this? It's a film about the online virtual reality world 'Second Life', a place in which people can interact with other people, convert US money into Linden (the currency of Second Life) and visa versa. It is a place in which some aim to make a profit while others do it for the social interaction, some buy virtual real estate while others have virtual sex, it is a place where everything is transparent and everything can be seen. It is with this philosophy that they hope to avoid introducing rules and laws. Though despite this, rules have been introduced, rules to prevent rape and child sex offences despite them being virtual.


Julian Dibbell the author of 'Play Money', wrote: "People pay real money for these imagenery things because they have real investments, social, pshycological investments in these fake things and that's what's real".

There is an interesting similarity between ones real world and ones virtual world and where they merge creating a persons identity which is formed by both of these worlds.

No Strings Attached.

For the past 30 minutes we've been working on our own, though I really should have continued working work masking and layers and all of the other GREAT things that photoshop has I took what for me was the easier and more enjoyable option, I drew. There was a tablet with a pen on my desk so I plugged it into my computer and began drawing. They really are pretty cool things, this one was pretty basic, very small and didn't have any pressure sensitivity though regardless of this it was still good fun and I'm pretty happy with what came out. I've had this idea for a while, that of a person running away from their puppeteer and breaking the strings that until now were holding them back and restraining them.

The profile of the face was just a quick sketch, the eyes pretty bad, maybe its for the obvious reason that the eye isn't really drawn in profile.

Beatle.

I know that this post is above the other two though really I made this image after the other two. This was once again a photograph which we modified in class. We first selected parts of the image, i.e. the car, saved the selection, masked it, and then adjusted the hue and saturation of it which is what gave us the many different colors that our cars now are.

Joining Photos.

One cool technique that we were shown today was how to load a few photos and let the computer join them together, making one large panoramic image.

How to: Assuming that you are in Photoshop, click on File, then Photomerge and then Browse and upload your images. Why I found this so interesting is because it has the potential to merge images in a sphere and in essence create a 3d room which can be navigated in Flash.

This image was created by joining a few separate photographs which as you can see has now come together to form one single image.

Basic Masking:

Ok, so at the moment I am actually in class, we are having a break so I figured what better time than now to upload some of the images that we have made today and write a bit about them.

Today we have focused on masking and how to blend images together.
The following two images were the ones we were given. We then masked them so that they would appear blended. The predominantly blue image is simply the same image though with a blue overlay and the one that is next to it was just messing around but I like it.