Spent my paycheck on slide film- woops?

I'm unsure why, but i invested in 1000+ color film slide's. I know what started it all...

About a year ago a friend of mine did a project using her grandparents slide film and I LOVED the quality of them. So, I messages my mom asking for any family photos that I could have.  She ended up giving me about 450 slides. It was interesting to look at for me because I have never even seen my parents have a conversation, and most of the slides are my parents on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Makes me think about the past and everything that happened between the two of them that I will never know or understand. My mom also gave me 22 cameras with 35mm film- undeveloped. 
I'm excited to see what is on them, possibly going to Costco to develop them because I can't find anywhere else to develop them. anyone know of anywhere else to send them in? I only know how to develop black and white!

I am wondering after purchasing these about appropriation and what makes it my own, I found this article at MoMa, but haven't found much helpful. I think this may be too much of an opinion based questions. Any thoughts?

appropriation

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art/appropriation

I also like like the idea of giving them life again and making them my own, while i'm unsure of how I will accomplish that. hopefully I can find inspiration in these forever because I have enough to last me a lifetime now. I also bought a scanner because...1500 slides.

I also am excited to see what is on the slide film, I bought them blind with little knowledge of what's on them. leap of faith? 

gon gon grrr

Here is my lovely word collage. This was fun.

Yuko Shimizu

Yuko Shimizu has some BEAUTIFUL illustrations! Based in New York, she uses paint, ink, and then Adobe Photoshop to color her illustrations. Makes me want to make time to use ink again, I also find it insteresting to use photoshop to add color to a piece in post. Ive personally only used it to color correct or distort. Im very interested to try this concept out for myself. I really enjoy her set color schemes and intersection between times periods and culture. Her freelance work she says turns into a collaboration between her and her clients. I was happy to see that her freelance work presents itself has HER work. Its disappointing when freelance causes an artist to lose their style in order to please their clients. CHECK HER OUT

http://create.adobe.com/2015/9/11/illustrator_yuko_shimizu_.html
https://www.behance.net/yuko

The second link has a bunch of her different collections NOT JUST SINGLE ILLUSTRATIONS so make sure you click on a few to see the whole collection.

Izima Kaoru

So, after i did my powerpoint presentation in our class, I looked back at some of the artists that I included in my presentation and realized Izima Kaoru was working on Landscape with a Corpse project from 1995 to 2008 and I only showed you guys very early works that she did. This time, i'd like to share more recent works of Izima Kaoru through blog.



This is probably the first Landscape with a Corpse project that she did in 1995. Compared to the ones that i showed you guys in class (picture below) first, it's really hard to tell what's going on in this picture; we can't really tell if this person is sleeping or actually dead. However, as she makes more works later on, this issue gets resolved.
 

In the most recent works that she did (from 2005-2008) not only the figure gets creepier but also, she plays with scale, props and environments. Also, overall mood of the photographs changed from somewhat gloomy and nostalgic? to very clean  and serene; if her early works looked like scene from old film movie, her most recent works looks like cuts from advertisement. Her recent works also reminded me of gregory cruwdson's photo due to very dramatic scene/mood

if interested, you can check more of her work at here
http://www.vonlintel.com/Izima-Kaoru.html

John Mulaney: The epitome of a storyteller

John Mulaney

A storyteller 

Film, more often than not, is about telling a story. Ranging from the very straight forward scripted stories of Hollywood, to the more conceptual stories that experimental film tells, either way a filmmaker, essentially, is a storyteller. In fact, it could be argued that all artist can simply be boiled down to storytellers who just happen to tell their stories through different mediums. If this is the case, that all artists are storytellers, then comedians are some of the greatest artists of all time.

It is very easy to write off comedians, and understandably so; their form of art is LITERALLY mockery, but I propose we take a look at comedians more as artists than clowns. Specifically storytelling comedians. 

Storytelling comedians are even more straightforward storytellers than the scripted Hollywood narrative film makers, which can make their job ten times more difficult. With things like movies, or paintings, or sculpture, or really anything that we classically consider art, the creator has things at his/her disposal that helps convey certain feelings or ideas to an audience. For painters it is color, or composition, or texture, and for film makers it is many of the same things. Comedians don't have access to anything of those things. They have to be able to make an audience feel like they were a part of their story, without the help of anything but their voice and vocabulary.

This is the reason that I am fascinated, and impressed by John Mulaney. Of all the comedians that are currently still touring, he is the most straight forward story telling comedian out there. His 'jokes' are simply relatable stories and silly situations, that he is able to connect with a crowd of hundreds of people over. No one story is that relatable, nor digestible, but somehow he is able to keep an audience captivated by over an hour of simple childhood memories. In my opinion, this is the true mark of a storyteller, and also an artist.

Everyone has their own tastes, for many people it wouldn't surprise me if my argument for comedians being artists got a chuckle or two (ironically enough), but it is indisputable that many are the epitome of storytellers. I, as a 'filmic storyteller,' am personally fascinated by the 'comedic storytellers' and their ability to boil an event down to its most relatable moments, and in my opinion John Mulaney is the best of the comedic storytellers today.

If you don't believe me, listen to this story of him in a diner in chicago as a teenager (note that there aren't even any visuals)

TONY OURSLER

If you love stuff involving crazy projections/installations/body parts then do I got some good news for you (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Tony Oursler is a "multimedia and installation artist" (according to wiki) who is most known for his crazy installations with giant distorted faces projected on 3D shapes/puppets. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HjR1X0a4e4

He's posted some "behind the scenes" type videos in which he shows his process for filming these "characters" for his installations, and it's pretty hilarious/awesome.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-q15Qf-Q64

FUN FACT - Oursler was pals with David Bowie, and they even collaborated together on music videos/installations!

David Bowie "Where Are We Now" music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWtsV50_-p4

"Face to Face" installation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtOyJI6AQ1I

I find his work to be so mesmerizing, hopefully one day I'll actually be able to see one of his exhibits in person. They seem like this insane projection madhouse on a mushroom trip, and these inanimate shapes/puppets become so lifelike and exude so much personality and character. To me, these pieces give me a lot of inspiration when it comes to digital video, and makes me wonder what other methods I could try out for myself. It would be really interesting to see this kind of abstraction (in terms of the stitching together of the faces) in a virtual 360 degree environment. Just imagine these faces EVERYWHERE, with the sound of their dialogue and the complete utter chaos of it all surrounding the viewer. 

Andrei Tarkovsky

I was first introduced to Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky by watching the film Solaris (1972 film adaptation of Polish author Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel). I was immediately taken with his beautiful imagery. Watching his films it is extremely apparent that he takes great care in every step of his filmmaking, every moment a deliberate choice. He has been referred to as the "antithesis" of quick-cut Hollywood filmmaking, his slow-paced films often focusing on dreams, memory, and childhood. 
In 2006 a collection of his polaroids, Instant Light, was released. Taken near the end of his life, there is a haunting stillness in these images. 

If you've never seen any of his films, Solaris is on Hulu, and more of his films can be found easily through his website:

http://andrei-tarkovsky.com/films.html