Digital Collage
"Helpless Automaton"
Size: 24in x 36in
Medium: Digital photo-manipulation Date: March 2020 Exhibition Text"Helpless Automaton" was inspired by the mannerisms and the work of Andy Warhol, also taking inspiration from more recent collages. I wanted to convey the feeling of helplessly being taken over, controlled if you will by the ever growing presence of Technology, losing countless hours of time to the techno world. Trying to find an escape from the oppression and controlling media world we live in.
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Planning/Concepts
Inspiration
My digital piece was inspired by the techno critical design work throughout time, either critiquing its uses or praising its convenience, I love the way its represented within the digital collages. Integrating humans and their surroundings with technology and its conveniences, but also the ways that it changes us as a community or as a singular person. Now the other side of my inspiration, the overall idea of it, was inspired from the work of Andy Warhol, as I enjoy how he uses color and emphasis throughout the works he created, such as the piece Marilyn Monroe, as its color and shading is really beautiful and conveys an interesting message. The last part of my inspiration comes from the image taken from a french TV show that hosted Andy Warhol on it, holding a static TV covered in the colored bars, which had the right posing and stature with the kind of tv that represented my work. While I do take inspiration from these works, I am taking a lot of personal steps and inspiration too, as A digital collage is hard to make real connections to classical art, yet I wanted to try. I love the composition within the more modern digital collages as the way it's structured with the head within the TV creates this emphasis that I want to recreate within my work. I wanted to connect this piece to the movement of Pop art as I find this is one of my favorite modern yet classical art movements as it really gives an emphasis on the work you create, specifically to be eye catching and really give emotion to the piece that I am creating, which I will use the Pop art aspect in my piece to bring emphasis to the vocal point of the piece which is myself.
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Process
Experimentation
With Experimentation I experimented with various tools and appliances within Photoshop to be able to doctor the photo to my liking, pulling images and textures off of the internet to place onto the piece, or behind things such as layers, and colors. Someways I experimented with color was using the Burn tool, creating gradients with light and dark to emphasize the mood I was trying to set within the room at hand. I experimented with the multitude of ways I could possibly create the piece, mostly by trying to first use free transform and warp, but instead using layers to my advantage, just erasing the screen of the TV's and placing the static image under the TV layer, creating a sort of pseudo- static TV visual. For the background I used an image online, then paste dthe image three times, using a blur tool to try to conceal the areas where it was made apparent that I had done this, then added some darkened gray coating the the image to create differences within the Hue of the background and foreground.
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Process
I First gathered the content I would need to create this work of art, specifically the real world objects that I would be splicing into my digital collage, this included a picture of a large TV (not pictured) and 3 similar images of the same small sized TV of my dad's, From this I planted them all into a file for the use of Photoshop, cutting the pieces that I needed with a line tool, then erasing the excess that I didn't need to smooth out the image to my liking.
From here I started to edit the image to create the posing and the positioning of myself and the TV's within the piece, putting the large one on my head and the smaller ones floating beside and behind me, Cutting out the interior of the large TV, I planted a Jpeg of the "No Signal Test Screen" into the missing hole that was the center of the screen. From there I added texture and value to the edges of the TV's and myself, giving me a faint purple hue for when I added the background, for Lighting and for a magical vibe to it.
Lastly I cut out the interior of the smaller TV's and replaced it with a static Jpeg I found on Google, placing it under the Layer as to make it seamless and fitting. from there I added the background under ever layer, which was another more colorful and eye catching static that I knew would bring contrast the piece. Thus Finishing my work.
From here I started to edit the image to create the posing and the positioning of myself and the TV's within the piece, putting the large one on my head and the smaller ones floating beside and behind me, Cutting out the interior of the large TV, I planted a Jpeg of the "No Signal Test Screen" into the missing hole that was the center of the screen. From there I added texture and value to the edges of the TV's and myself, giving me a faint purple hue for when I added the background, for Lighting and for a magical vibe to it.
Lastly I cut out the interior of the smaller TV's and replaced it with a static Jpeg I found on Google, placing it under the Layer as to make it seamless and fitting. from there I added the background under ever layer, which was another more colorful and eye catching static that I knew would bring contrast the piece. Thus Finishing my work.
Compare/Contrast
Similarities
Differences
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Reflection
Being the first Time I have ever done anything like this, I am quite proud of the results and feel that I have done a great job in creating a very strong message and a very strong piece as it has great texture, value, hue and movement, making the entire piece very easy to process and understand. I feel that this was a great opportunity to understand and learn how to use Photoshop to its fullest extent although I would like to use it more often to create art such as this piece but also perhaps more traditional art too seeing as I do have a tablet. I wish I could clean up the TV's more as I feel that they got a little cut when I was erasing them to smooth them out for the actual processing of the image and the creation of the image. I love the Idea that I came up with for this piece, It expresses a small critique I have on my personal Technology use and the use that ive seen people force onto others with, which leads me to really understand and enjoy this piece.
ACT Responses
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
The Inspiration and my work are almost directly linked as they are fairly similar in their message and tone, being about the disconnect of man kind from the world.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Being as my piece has no real inspiration grounded within the art world specifically being about what kind of movement, I cant say that there really is an approach other than finding art similar to the idea I had.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Digital collages are used to understand parts of the world and how they work without explicitly saying so within the piece itself, making it more surreal than anything.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
To find ideas that matched the ideas and concepts I had in mind when I wanted to create this piece.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Some inferences I had made were time period and the messages behind the work I was researching.
The Inspiration and my work are almost directly linked as they are fairly similar in their message and tone, being about the disconnect of man kind from the world.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Being as my piece has no real inspiration grounded within the art world specifically being about what kind of movement, I cant say that there really is an approach other than finding art similar to the idea I had.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Digital collages are used to understand parts of the world and how they work without explicitly saying so within the piece itself, making it more surreal than anything.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
To find ideas that matched the ideas and concepts I had in mind when I wanted to create this piece.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Some inferences I had made were time period and the messages behind the work I was researching.
Bibliography
Warhol, A. (n.d.). Andy Warhol. Marilyn Monroe. 1967: MoMA. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.moma.org/collection/works/61240
Secher, B. (2008, September 30). Andy Warhol TV: Maddening but intoxicating. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3561451/Andy-Warhol-TV-maddening-but-intoxicating.html
Technocriticism. (2020, July 20). Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocriticism
Secher, B. (2008, September 30). Andy Warhol TV: Maddening but intoxicating. Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3561451/Andy-Warhol-TV-maddening-but-intoxicating.html
Technocriticism. (2020, July 20). Retrieved August 24, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocriticism