SYNTHETIC IMAGE

TRM 153

Assignment 1: The Synthetic Image

Due for Critique: Week 5/ Tuesday, September 23, 2014

For your first assignment, you will be responsible for generating a synthetic image. As you may already know, all images are synthetic: they are framed, edited, manipulated, and presented to viewers in order to communicate something. That something could be an idea, a product, a set of instructions, a secret, a protest, a critique, a proposition, a new way of seeing things, poetry, or something else entirely.

For this assignment you will use the power of your brain, eyes, computer, and Photoshop CC to incorporate at least THREE different image sources into ONE seamless, synthetic image.

For critique:
• Present an image you created using Photoshop CC which seamlessly edits at least three elements into one image. The elements should include (but are not limited to):
• An appropriated image from a physical book or other media in the library,
• An appropriated image from a suggested online image database (below),
• An image from your personal archive;
• Be able to talk about how you did what you did (technically);
• You must be able to talk about what, why, and how you did what you did with what you did (conceptually). Some things to think about:
• What idea are you trying to communicate? What references did you think about when making this work (a story, a current or historical event, a personal experience)? Are you making a statement? Is it a statement of support, critique, wonder, poetry, disgust, frustration, awe, or something else? If your image could communicate one, clear message to your audience; what would it be? If you could embed a secret message in your work, what would it be?
• Title your work; Provide a bibliography for your source material.
  Resources:

• Bird Library. Carnegie Library.
• ArtStor (accessible via library website)
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Online Collection (http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online)
• Dadabase (http://arcade.nyarc.org/search~S8)
  Select References:
• Faking It: 150 Years of Visual Manipulation Before Photoshop, Maria Popov: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/23/faking-it-met/
• Jeff Wall, The Flooded Grave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqmK4W4WDUw
• Gregory Crewdson, Brief Encounters: http://www.gregorycrewdsonmovie.com/
• Cindy Sherman: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/cindy-sherman
• Erik Johanson: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/08/24/342209290/roadways-you-can-install-like-throw-rugs

HOMEWORK: DUE SEPTEMBER 2, 2014:

• Gather images and make multiple print outs (these can be cheap and black and white). Make at least 3 paper mock-ups of something you want to make in your notebook. Use simple collage (cut and paste with scissors and glue).
• Bring your paper mock ups in your notebooks and digital files of your source images on your laptops (with Photoshop CC) to class. Prior to our next class meeting, please watch the assigned Lynda.com tutorials.
• Attend the Urban Cinematheque at the Everson Museum Plaza on Friday, August 29 at 7:30pm; featuring a free outdoor screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel and an arts/culture fair. Collect info from at least one org, write about it in your notebook.

HOMEWORK: DUE SEPTEMBER 9, 2014:

• Watch Lynda.com videos. (links and required chapters below). Take good notes! You will be required to sign up for an account with Lynda.com to view these videos. Start with the 7 day trial through lynda.com. (Following this, I suggest self-organizing with your fellow students to share costs).  
• After watching the video, begin working on your project. Next week, we will have in-progress meetings where you will show me what you did, how you are doing it, and what you want to do in the next two weeks. Remember to save your file often, and back it up. Keep all of your layers, stay organized. Your final image must contain elements from at least three sources: a digital image (made by you) from a physical book/object, an image from a digital database, and an image from your personal archive.

LYNDA.COM VIDEOS: 
Photoshop CC for Photographers: Fundamentals (Review and Refresh)
Mandatory chapters:Strategies for learning Photoshop (4 mins)
Getting Started with Photoshop (11 mins)
Opening, Saving, and Viewing your photographs (10 mins)
Understanding Digital Images and Resizing (24 mins)

Suggested chapters (most of these are applied in the Compositing course): Cropping Your Photographs
Working with Layers
Improving basic exposure and tone
Making Selections and Adjustments

Photoshop for Photographers: Compositing 

Mandatory chapters:Introduction (3 min)
Combining Expressions (18 mins)
Adding A Subject to a New Environment (51 mins)
Compositing to Improve Composition (51 mins)
Replacing the Sky in an Image (21 mins)
Creating an Imaginative Scene (1 hr)

Homework Due Sept 16:
Continue working on your project.
Read Allan Sekula's The Body and the Archive. Be prepared to contribute to in class conversation.

In class Sept 16:
Discussion of Reading
Powerpoint: Bertillon, Galton,  Martha Rosler, iO Tillet Wright 
One-on-one meetings
In class work time

Homework Due September 23: 

For homework this week, please prepare your final image for critique. We will spend the entire class looking at, discussing, and forming questions around your work, decisions, and techniques.

Please upload both your .psd file (with layers and all), as well as your flattened .jpg file to our class folder on the server (we will spend the first 5 minutes in class reviewing how to do this). Please name them like this: YourName_Critique1.psd, YourName_Critique1.jpg.

Please also create a blog to which you will upload your final works. You may use whatever platform you like, but I recommend blogger or tumblr. Both are free and very easy to use. Please upload your final .jpg here. Please email me the URL before 11pm Sunday. 

Good luck! See you next week!