-Jack's smirking revenge-

nevver: Where is my mind?

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:59:43 -0400

Where is my mind?

Split Screen Sadness

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:44:43 -0400

And I don’t know where you went when you left me but
Says here in the water you must be gone by now
I can tell somehow
One hand on the trigger of a telephone
Wondering when the call comes
Where you say it’s alright
You got your heart right

Maybe I’ll sleep inside my coat and
Wait on the porch ‘til you come back home
Oh, right
I can’t find a flight

We share the sadness
Split screen sadness

Two wrongs make it all alright tonight

ALl you need is love is a lie cause
We had love but we still said goodbye
Now we’re tired, battered fighters

And it stings when it’s nobody’s fault
Cause there’s nothing to blame at the drop of your name
It’s only the air you took and the breath you left

Maybe I’ll sleep inside my coat and
Wait on the porch ‘til you come back home
Oh, right
I can’t find a flight
So I’ll check the weather wherever you are
Cause I wanna know if you can see the stars tonight
It might be my only right

We share the sadness
Split screen sadness

I called
Because
I just
Need to feel you on the line
Don’t hang up this time
And I know it was me who called it over but
I still wish you’d fought me ‘til your dying day
Don’t let me get away

Cause I can’t wait to figure out what’s wrong with me
So I can say this is the way that I used to be
There’s no substitute for time
Or for the sadness
Split screen sadness
We share the sadness

Photo

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 11:36:18 -0500

Photo

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 03:55:25 -0500

Times Square.. 31/12/2012

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 02:40:00 -0500

Times Square.. 31/12/2012

RIT

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 02:38:00 -0500

RIT

Photo

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 02:24:38 -0500

With your feet on the air, your head on the ground.

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 05:21:53 -0500

With your feet on the air, your head on the ground.

Speaker: Burton Kramer

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:34:06 -0500

Last September 13th I had the opportunity to attend to a talk given by graphic designer Burton Kramer. Born in 1932, Kramer is a very well-known graphic designer who has a distinctive optical art way in his designs.

The designer basically talked with us about his work during his lifetime and explained what things made him create his designs. He said he had always been interested in geometrics and colors, something we could confirm by looking at his creations that went from advertisements to signage for different companies.

In his work we can appreciate a large use of different colors and geometrical shapes. This particular piece caught my attention. It’s called “Syncopation 3”.

Obama on Instagram

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 04:57:05 -0500

In order to understand the rhetorical function of images in photo sharing applications, the following research questions is made:

RQ: How do the images posted by politicians on photo sharing sites like Instagram function rhetorically within their campaign?

Analysis

For this purpose, the first thing that needed to be done was analyzing different images uploaded in Barack Obama’s account. The focus was in two pictures: the first one, a picture uploaded after Obama’s victory. The second picture was a picture of the President making a phone call.

The reason I focused on the first picture is because it shows a satisfied Obama surrounded by white, red and blue confetti after it was announced that he was re-elected as the President of the United States. As it was said before, images promoting Obama as a presidential candidate inviting people to vote for him were very common on the account. This specific picture illustrates how the candidate accomplished what he had been promoting through his pictures for the past year. The picture is taken from a low angle and shows a smiling Obama whose face is emphasized with the Nashville Instagram filter.

Findings

The second picture I focused on shows a happy President Obama talking on his cellphone and not looking at the camera. Barack Obama is always portrayed as a cheerful person in the pictures uploaded on Instagram. This specific picture has a caption on it that says that he is making some phone calls and talking to voters. The Valencia filter is used for this image.

It is interesting to see how this social network helped President Obama reach his audience. Since January 2012, this account has been uploading pictures of Obama not only as the President of the United States, but mainly as a candidate for the 2012 Presidential elections. Obama had been using other social networks like Facebook or Twitter in the past, but this gave him a more visual approach that let him reach people without having to use words. On November 6, 2012, Obama won the elections against Mitt Romney. His Republican opponent did not have an official Instagram account.

Barack Obama has always tried to reach the young population, also known as the Millennial Generation. Millennials are optimistic, believe in change and favor issues like gay marriage and many topics promoted by Obama. The fact that Obama is always portrayed as a smiling optimistic human being is an excellent way to reach a target like Millennials, who are also tech savvy individuals who are more likely to have applications like Instagram on their smartphones.

The number of photos uploaded by many different users more than doubled after it was announced that Obama was re-elected. Instagram said that more than 100,000 images were uploaded with the hashtag #iVoted and more than 150,000 with the hashtag #election2012. The company said that the intimacy and immediacy of the Instagram experience had brought connections across the world never seen before. Barack Obama did a very good job reaching his audience by using this application for visual rhetoric.

Contribution

We can see how images on social networks can have such a large scale. This research has made an attempt to explain how photo-sharing applications like Instagram have rhetorical function in political campaigns. Obama’s victory had a huge impact that was visible on the application when users started to upload pictures, doubling the amount of photos normally posted in the site.

The visual and verbal messages sent to the audience through Instagram helped this specific candidate to reach a young audience that did pay attention to what he had to say. Photo-sharing applications like Instagram help political candidates reach a large audience and make an impact on them that might change or reinforce attitudes towards them.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama on Instagram

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 01:17:00 -0400

Research Questions

RQ1: How do images on photo-sharing applications, in this case Instagram, function in the rhetoric of the presidential candidate Barack Obama?

RQ2: Which is the specific audience that the presidential candidate Barack Obama is trying to reach through the photo-sharing application Instagram?

RQ3: How does the photo-sharing application Instagram help presidential candidate Barack Obama to reach his audience?

RQ4: Does the presidential candidate Barack Obama uses Instagram to deliver messages against his opponent Mitt Romney?

RQ5: Do the messages delivered through Instagram by the presidential candidate Barack Obama help him gain more votes for the elections?

Barack Obama on Instagram

The smartphone photo-sharing application Instagram, allows users to apply filters to photos taken on their cellphones and also gives them the opportunity to share them via other social networks. Interest has grown in the application since Facebook acquired the business earlier this year after buying it for $1 billion dollars. (Benjamin, 2012).

President Obama’s re-election campaign joined Instagram on January 2012 as @BarackObama, becoming the first presidential candidate with an account on this application. The first photo shared by Obama’s account was an image of the President addressing supporters in Iowa by videoconference the day of the state’s Republican caucauses. (The Washington Post, 2012). The President account is run by campaign staff members and has attracted more than a million users since its launch. Followers are also encouraged to contribute with pictures adding the hashtag #Obama2012.

This analysis is focused on the presidential candidate Barack Obama and his use of Instagram as a visual resource for his campaign. Omaba’s account was chosen because it is the only candidate of the 2012 campaign that uses this photo-sharing application to promote his political views.

@BarackObama on Instagram

Opposed to ordinary users on Instagram, Obama’s account does not present pictures from the President’s point of view. Images uploaded to Barack Obama’s account are normally presented so that the presidential candidate appears in the pictures. Most images present President Obama in the different locations where he is going with his campaign.

Some images present the word “Vote” or show different graphic designs created for the 2012 campaign. There are also images presenting Obama hugging or saluting people that sympathize with him. There are other pictures of the President with the First Lady having dinner or at formal events. When the President is not giving a speech, Obama is normally presented smiling or laughing to his audience or the person he is in the picture with.

Most pictures are uploaded using Instagram’s digital filters. It is noticeable that the most used filters by Obama’s account are Nashville and Valencia. The Nashville filter sharps images with a magenta-meets-purple tint framed by a distinctive film-strip-esque border, but the border is not always used. @BarackObama usually uses this filter with landscapes of the multitudes on his campaign. On the other hand, the Valencia filter gives true-to-life contrast, with slightly gray and brown overtones. Obama’s account normally uses this filter on pictures presenting close-up faces. Instagram users have the choice to upload pictures without a filter, but this is not very common on the President’s account.

The presidential candidate’s account portrays Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and delivers different messages to its followers. Many symbols from the Democrat party are shown in the pictures as well as Obama’s trademark: The letter “O”. This “O” was specially designed for his first campaign in 2008 and it’s supposed to symbolize a sunrise. This sunrise could lead to an interpretation of his verbal campaign that proclaims change and progress. Most pictures are uploaded with the hashtag #Obama2012.

The absence of personal pictures can be perceived in Obama’s visual campaign on Instagram. Since the main purpose of this account is to promote Obama’s presidential campaign, pictures of the President’s ordinary life are not displayed in the account.

Olympic Games

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:50:00 -0400

Let the show begin: The Olympic Flame has been lighted.

This international event is the major world’s sport competition. The Olympic Games have been celebrated since 776 B.C.E. with the first games held at Olympia, Greece. About 10,500 competitors from 204 nations compete in 35 different disciplines every four years. (Philip’s Encyclopedia, 2008).

Opening ceremonies, hard-fought battles, laughs and tears. Emotions run all over the place on each Olympic season. Olympic Games are perfect events for photographers to capture the most powerful moments in the history of sports. Personally, I can’t say I’m a sports fan, but I always tune in for the Olympics. I like to watch my country being represented, learn more about the different disciplines and last but not least, cry every time and athlete wins a medal. I find exciting how we are able to watch an entire lifetime of training pay-off in minutes. It’s almost as if the athletes were describing our lives: Work hard. Give your best in the field. Enjoy/suffer the results.

There are many captivating pictures from these Games, but this year’s Olympics were very emotional for me. On August 6, 2012, the Dominican Republic tuned in for Felix Sanchez’s last run of the 400-meter hurdles. The Dominican athlete won the race in 47.63 seconds, the exact same time he ran 8 years ago in Athens. (Preece, 2012). This was the second gold medal for our country thanks to Felix Sanchez, but this time was different. Our athlete broke down in tears while listening to the Dominican national anthem. He was remembering his grandmother who had passed away 4 years ago while he was running in Beijing. He ran with a photograph of her in his chest the whole season.

Watching Felix cry while the national Dominican anthem was playing was definitely touching, but knowing the story behind his tears made this moment even more emotional for the viewer. The world didn’t know the story, but Dominicans did. Any photographer could have capture Felix’s tears as a part of their job, without knowing that these pictures would transcend to have such a powerful meaning. The picture I picked was taken by photographer Martin Meissner for Fox News.

Depending on which side of the planet you were watching from, there may have been many contexts in which the image of Felix crying was viewed. This can apply to many other athletes from different parts of the world, whose stories I was not aware of.

The Olympic Games portray stunning pictures of running, swimming, riding, sailing and crying athletes. Human endurance and fragility captured in iconic photographies that will last forever.

Sources:

Preece, R. (2012). Dominican athlete breaks down after winning gold in the 400m hurdles. London: Associated Newspapers Ltd.

(2008). Philip’s encyclopedia. Ohio: Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/hfcwd/olympic_games

Meissner, M. (2012). Fox News. Retrieved from: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/sports/slideshow/2012/08/07/olympics-dominican-american-felix-sanchez-wins-gold/?intcmp=related#slide=3

Tucker, M. (2012). London 2012: 100 iconic photographs from olympic games (pictures). London: The Huffington Post UK.

Palmer, J. (2012). Emotional Sanchez storms to 400 hurdles gold. London. Retrieved from: http://www.reuters.com/london-olympics-2012/articles/athletics/2012/08/06/sanchez-storms-400-hurdles-gold

Frans Wildenhain (1905-1980)

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:07:02 -0400

Last Friday I went to see the Frans Wildenhain ceramics exhibition at RIT’s Bevier Gallery. The exhibition named “1950-75: Creative and Commercial American Ceramics at Mid-Century”, exposes a collection of modern design pottery.

The moment you enter to the exhibition, you can appreciate several pieces of ceramic shown in the place. Something that caught my attention was that the Wildenhain’s pottery was designed with light or dark colors from light brown to black. I think there was an absence of vivid colors in this exhibition.

I wasn’t really attracted to this exhibition and I tried to realize why. The first thing I thought was that I’ve never appreciated ceramic. I’m more into painting or photography exhibitions. Obviously, this is a very important factor that can affect my judgement of Wildenhain’s art. To me, ceramic is just something that women place in their houses for decoration, so I’ve never known how to appreciate it. I’m pretty sure an artist would kill me for saying this, but that’s just me as a viewer.

I think that the fact that I come from the Caribbean and I’m used to see very colorful ceramics and crafts, might have affected the way I perceived Wildenhain’s work. This is the reason why I missed color in his artwork.

One thing I liked about this exhibition was the spacing in which the pieces were located. The white decoration of the gallery gave a neat look to the pieces and the look of the exhibition in general. This was probably what kept me there for a while.

The Sentinel

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 03:41:00 -0400

If you ever find yourself on the RIT campus, a stainless steel and bronze sculpture might caught your attention. Located at the Administration Circle of the RIT, The Sentinel is the largest sculpture on any American university. It was built by Albert Paley in 2003.

Disjointed pieces of metal form this model. The first time I looked at it, I could barely understand what it was. At a first glance it just looks like a stack of metal, but as you look closely, its crumpled pieces of metal kind of start to make sense.

This imposing sculpture shines every time its metals get the light of the sun, only for its viewers to stare amazed at this piece of art.

While looking at it, we could think that the fact that Paley used mainly steel for this sculpture, he might wanted to show in an abstract way, an environment of technology. Stainless steel gives the idea of modernism, technology or futuristic design.

There is no doubt that the Sentinel is a very appropriated sculpture for the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Sources:

Retrieved from http://www.rit.edu/studentaffairs/ritpedia/wiki/The_Sentinel

Retrieved from http://www.firemountaingems.com/encyclobeadia/beading_resources.asp?docid=8A18

Burton Kramer

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:09:01 -0400

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to assist to a Design Conversation given by Canadian artist Burton Kramer. As I arrived to the Booth Hall at RIT, I realized that there was an exhibit from Kramer at the University Gallery. I was very interested to see it, but decided to go to the talk first.

Kramer first started giving us a biography and telling us a little bit about his first jobs. He’s currently one of the top graphic designers in the world. The artist stated that he has always been interested in geometrics and color. He showed us a lot of his work, from advertisements and logos for big companies to signage for different events and organizations.

One of the things I found more interesting about his talk, was when he said: “It’s always an eureka moment when you finally get the idea”. He was answering a student about how he knew when the idea he had in mind was good.

I took a picture of one of the pieces of Kramer that were being shown in the Visual Music exhibit. I found this one particularly interesting because of the colors in it. In this specific piece, we can appreciate many different color, most of them cool (blues). We can see the three primarily colors: red, yellow and blue and secondary colors like green and a predominant violet. There is also black and white.

When it comes to value there isn’t really much depth in this particular piece. What we really can find in the Syncopation 3 piece are many lines. Every line in this art work is vertical. We can see a variety of thin and sharp straight lines.

Personally, I found the shape of this piece very interesting. There are many lines and rectangles, and some of them look as if they were cut, which gives them a diagonal look. We can find squares formed by lines, which at first makes us think we’re looking at a piano.

If we’re going to talk about the form, I can tell you that 30 x 60 inches and was made in Acrylic on canvas. The texture simulates little squares in the middle of the painting, through the repetition of lines organized for this purpose. The space between the lines doesn’t really have a pattern. The only space that looks calculated, is the one used to form the little squares made by lines.

Source:

Syncopation 3 by Burton Kramer

Acrylic on Canvas

30 x 60”

2010

The Vancouver couple.

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 12:49:09 -0400

About a month ago, I ran into an image that really choked me. This picture wasn’t recently taken, so let’s say I found out a little bit late about this news.

On June 15, 2011, there was a public disturbance that occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia. I’ve always said that sports fans are the worst fans and they are without a doubt, the most passionate. The riot started because the ice hockey team Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Boston Bruins’.

The way I learned about this, was by this image that I saw in Google’s 2011 Zeitgeist. The picture was taken by Canadian photographer Richard Lam. The image shows a couple laying on the floor, apparently kissing, surrounded by police officers and what seems to be a lot of chaos due to the riot.

My first reaction was to pause the video in the exact 2:40 minute in which the image was shown. I don’t really know how I got to see it, because it’s shown in the video for about a second. I really thought I was watching the cover of a new movie.

I was so impressed about how the photographer managed to capture this moment. I must admit I was a little moved by this picture. It really seem like if the man was trying to make the woman stand up. There was all this mayhem around them, but he didn’t leave her side. It sounds like the perfect romantic movie, except that this wasn’t fiction.

Photographer Richard Lam was shooting the hockey game for Getty Images, but he never thought he would take a picture that would travel the world and become so famous.

If we think about the context in which this picture was taken, we can find that there may be so many different interpretations for this image. Some people say that it was staged, others think they’re just two young crazy people, while others think it’s one of the most romantic iconic portraits of our times.

Here is the picture, for you to make your own judgement:

Sources:

Kanelley, C. (2011, June 16). Vancouver riots 2011: Fires rage as canucks lose stanley cup. . Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/vancouver-riots-2011_n_877924.html
Horaczek, S. (2011, June 17). Interview: The story behind Rich Lam’s infamous Vancouver Riot kiss photo. Retrieved from http://www.popphoto.com/how-to/2011/06/interview-photographer-richard-lam-his-vancouver-riot-kiss-photo
Martin, A. (2011, June 16). Vancouver Riot kiss photographer doubts it was staged. Retrieved from http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/06/vancouver-riot-kiss-photographer-sets-record-straight/38925/
Google. (2011, December 14). Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAIEamakLoY

Photo

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:00:51 -0400

Stop this train.

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 23:23:46 -0400

Stop this train.

Is it there in your heartache?

Wed, 30 May 2012 21:57:21 -0400

Is it there in your heartache?

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:01:36 -0500