The ART: 21 Fantasy video is obtained from season 5 of the series ‘Fantasy.’ The episode focuses on a few artists with hallucinatory, irreverent, and sublime works. Their works lead the audience to create imaginary worlds with adjusted levels of perception. The video contains the works of four different artists, each with their own kind of artwork that reflects their ideologies. For instance, the work of Cao Fei represents strategies such as sampling, role play, and documentary film making, as she reveals the divergence between reality and dream.
The work of Cao Fei is a reflection of a fluid world in which cultures associate with each other and disperse in fast evolution. Her work mainly revolves around the mannerism of avatars in the digital environment of second life. In addition to this, her art looks at the motivations behind individuals who discover and dwell in virtual worlds. Fei’s work, and especially her video installations and new media works, explore awareness and realism in diverse places, including a Chinese factory. Fei is able to be both a participant and observer by using her second Life avatar, China Tracy, whose role includes being a guide, academician, and traveler (Cao Fei 1).
Another artist whose work is presented is Jeff Koons. His work is a representation of the seventeenth-century French garden design, focusing on classical art.
Rider Spoke a work for cyclists is a more likable game as it involves the audience more actively. In the city, they look for a place to hide, and once they find it, they record a short message and begin searching for other people’s hiding places. The game sort of creates social spaces in which the private and public meet. The game challenge is that the audience has to be willing to cycle alone at night throughout the city. The audience may choose to either take their own bikes or rather get one from Blast theory (Work Rider 1).
The game is exciting, has lots of fans, and, at the same, helps people socialize and know each other more based on the answers they give. The screen of the handheld computer acts more like a tracer or a positioning system in that it shows one’s location the places surrounding it. Once a hiding place is established, the device flashes an alert and a question. The questions come from a selection provided by Blast Theory, and once the answer is recorded, one may go ahead to look for other locations. The fan part is when you actually find the hiding position of another cycler; one even gets to know the question they asked and their answers (Work Rider 1).
Can you see me now makes use of third-generation mobile telephony by taking advantage of the social forces that include continued online presence, location-based services, and bandwidth size? The location of a layer is key in this game due to the integration of the real and the virtual cities. The players also get to experience a powerful connection due to their online interaction, which is both physical and emotional, as to observe when the players tease each other or run to escape danger (Cysmn 1).
Ten backward used both observation and narrative to communicate its ideas to the audience. The seventy-minute projection was aimed at giving the audience a step into the future and back to the present time in seventy minutes. The results obtained were incredible, as the audience could momentarily be lost between the present and the future after watching the performance (10 Backwards 1).
The car advert had unique features including the absence of sound, twenty seconds of play, and integration of video picture and words to guide the audience in the right direction; in this case, persuade the audience to make a choice of the type of car to purchase (Car advert 1).
Desert train is unique in that it combines the aspects of performance and new media, in that it is a game and a performance that engages the participants in a virtual environment. The game has a time frame and uses teamwork to arrive at the targets, making it a very interactive performance. The game creates a sense of comparison between the virtual and real worlds, a concept that is aimed at realizing the misleading messages directed at people by marketers through media and helps to define what is imaginary, fictional and virtual, by placing them side by side (Desert train 1).
In summary, Blast theory is a blog for arts in the form of games and films, while Art21 is more of educational arts. The games are more interactive in nature and tend to allow the audience to enjoy themselves. Two similarities in the readings are that they all talk about art though it may be different kinds of art. The sites also offer links to other related blogs. The art in these sites seems to come alive in that it seeks interaction with the audience either through the internet, live performances, and even digital broadcasting. Black theory, for example, uses mobile gadgets, videos, performances, and even online technology to get information on the current ideologies.
Desert rain (1999) is a good example as it makes the view of art different using video programs. Another example is the airing of soft messages over the media via dialogue between the artists and radio listeners on their mobile phones. Art21 presents different artists’ work, such as handmade paintings, sculptures, and films. It focuses on developing art to move along with the current world status and technology. Artist Cao Fei, for example, studied fine arts and is featured in the fifth season of the film ‘Fantasy.’ Her video installations explore reality’s perceptions by applying certain strategies like role play and documentary filmmaking.
In conclusion, all the pieces of art examined in the examples are aimed at providing the end-user with a unique user experience that links the virtual world to the real world. Such a connection has been achieved by the juxtaposition of the two worlds, whereby the users appear to be moving between the two interchangeably. The most significant benefit for this kind of inter-dimensional travel is in marketing, whereby the audience can assume a situation whereby they acquire the particular item being advertised and picture themselves with it and without it. This kind of knowledge is likely to provide the audience with a sense of better judgment when purchasing items.
Works cited
“Cao Fei”. Art 21 on PBS.2008. Web.
“Rider”. Blast Theory. 2007. Web.
“Cysmn”. Blast Theory. 2007. Web.
“10 Backwards”. Blast Theory. 2007. Web.
“Car advert”. Blast Theory. 2007. Web.
“Desert train”. Blast Theory. 2007. Web.