Email Erosion

Email Erosion, by Etham Ham, is a sculpture piece. A block of styrofoam is carved out depending on the spam and email present on your computer. This project consisted of a steel frame with the block of styrofoam within it. A mobile sprayer, the Eroder, moves around within the frame to spray colored water on the styrofoam to sculpt it. This is a very simple idea but an interesting one at the same time.

With this project, anyone can email in and have their email and spam turned into art. Once it is completed, they will recieve a picture of their sculpture. This is very much an interactive project for all people. All you need is an email address to take part! Each person will have a unique sculpture based on the content on their computer. It is amazing how it seems to get easier and easier to get involved with projects like these and they get more and more personal at the same time.

I thought this was a cool project because this is the first one that I have seen of this kind, which is what grabbed my attention. I also liked how simple it is to be interactive with this project. All you need to do is email eroder@emailerosion.org and your art can be created.

Check out the Email Erosion website HERE.

BUST D0WN THE D00RS!

HERE you can find the link to the flash video.

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries has created a number of different flash videos. The particular one that I was interested in, Bust Down The Doors!, was released in 2000.

Young-Hae Chang, a Korean artist, and Marc Voge, an American poet based in Seoul, were participants at a Net Art workshop in Brisbane, Australia. At the workshop they focused on Flash, a web animation tool that would take years to master. While there, they went over the first two topics of Flash which were making text appear on the screen and then setting it to music. After going to the workshop, Chang and Voge created Flash movies of fast moving text set to music under the name Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. Bust Down The Doors! in 2000 was a Flash movie that told a story of a midnight raid on a house from different perspectives.

This video is different from others today because it sticks with the most basic of concepts from Flash. This artist and poet have made an art out of this style of Flash movies. Since the videos are all text, a lot can be taken from the font style and size. With the focus on the meaning of the words, the pace of the text and the music in the background, the viewer becomes a participant as is a characteristic of New Media Art.

I like this because it is different from the other New Art that I have found. In this case it isn't the direct participation that is required rather an indirect one as you watch the videos. Because this type of old school style to their videos is what thay do I wouod say to keep bringing new things to the table in the way of font usage as well as background music.