In class, we were introduced to the concept of New Media. It is a medium in which there are seemingly endless possibilities. What exactly qualifies as New Media, anyway? I mean, you could make the argument it could range from scanning a book in upside down to personal photos. The three examples we were shown today were just the very beginning of the many, many different avenues we will be taken down in the coming weeks.
Perhaps the most fascinating example of what’s to come was Alex Itin’s “Orson Whales”. It was a personification of today’s “mash-up” culture, combining Herman Melville’s masterpiece of a novel “Moby Dick” with original artwork, a dramatic reading (and some drunken liquor commerical outtake soundbytes) from Orson Welles, and a song from arguably the greatest band of all time; Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick”. Now, on the surface, this may not sound like the most satisfying experience, but it truly was a sight to behold. The timing of the images shown and the rhythms and speech patterns were synced to perfection and made for an exciting 4 minutes.
This begs the question, what was Itin trying to tell his viewing audience? After all, we naturally make the assumption that all art has at least some meaning behind it, whether it be representational or evocative. Representation meaning is defined as the meaning that the work shows or tells its audience directly. In this instance, I think the message was that art is subjective. Now, it may not sound like much and I may be way off, but I think this piece was his way of showing that you can take elements from many walks of life and throw them together to create something new and, in this case, something special. This piece was a medium for him to showcase how to make art using New Media.
In terms of evocative meaning, I walked away from this wondering about the rights to art. Does he have to credit all the original artists? Is this indeed something new? Sure, the paintings were his, but he was not responsible for either audio recording or the text. That’s what I walked away with, which leads me to believe this qualifies as the evocative meaning obtained from “Orson Whales”.