Reading Response 1 - Daniella Smith

The first article mentioned how since the internet, artists have found more unconventional ways to share their work to larger communities, aside from the more traditional galleries. This article also insinuated some tension between traditional and non-traditional artists. This reminds of common debate as to whether street artists are real artists. Is graffiti not art just because its not on a canvas? Perhaps these artists are unconventional, and don’t have the prestigious image or fat paychecks, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real artists.

We are entering a new age, where the consumer is also the creator. Things have become more interactive, user-friendly, accessible, simple and natural. Art has become integrated into our social lives (ie. Blogging – pictures, videos, ideas, etc).While the form is untraditional, is this not on some level considered art? Art has become so much more than painting and drawing, is become a part of our social interaction.

*this made me think about the part in the first article that mentions everyone can make a GIF, and liwise anyone can make a blog. Is this course not a form of inception (discussing people who create art thru simple mediums, while we ourselves post our own findings/work on a blog)?

http://depauwty.tumblr.com/

The second article was also very intriguing. I enjoyed how it connected compression or the art of compression, with this need for simplicity. It definitely made me think of a couple things. First, it talks about how this technique does  not change the meaning of  the message/artwork; it is simply a “shorthand" way to say the same thing (similar to our abbreviations we use in everyday informal writing). As far as connecting it with GIFs I found this website, where you can comment/post messages with GIFs to more “efficiently” convey your message.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/

Lastly, the second article also makes note that this technique never deletes that “unnecessary” information, it only keeps it hidden in order to make it simpler, and  to understand. Right away this made me think of picture mosaics  -- even though they work in reverse order to compression (making it more complex), I thought about how you see the “big picture”, but it still holds all the original information (in the smaller pictures).