Digital Composing

I was recently in a Digital Image Composition course at my university. I really enjoyed the freedom to create my own project, but would have liked a little more guidance as to what my prof was really looking for. The class was open to all different skill levels and we were charged with the task of creating our own plans of study. They ranged from creating an animation using Adobe Flash, to simply using the scanner to digitize images. I’m not sure how he plans to grade something of this nature. Can you fault someone for something you gave them the freedom to do? He also made an offhand remark about how tangible printmaking methods (silk screen, litho, and intaglio) are too archaic to be considered art…but I’ll leave that alone for now.

In my program of study, I utilized Adobe Illustrator to vectorize different map images using the livetrace setting to remove information from the maps by reducing the threshold the eliminate lines from the image. Then from those altered map images, I created scribble-like images. The scribble shapes are an attempt to pull some of the lines out of the maps to look like epicenters. Like the beginning of a memory that drifts off into space with no final resolution.

 I have no memories of these experiences and not many childhood memories at all. Everything is fragmented and only ghost images of what was once there. I often wonder if something happened to me to make me block out all these memories. I plan to explore that someday.