Unit 5

Digital Imagery + Physical Computing + Emergent Art Technologies

Overview

Students will explore photography, digital imagery, and narrative visual storytelling. Students will employ a variety of Physical Computing tools to create works of art, photography, video, and address real-world issues. Students will research and explore Emergent Art technologies and practices.

skill builders

Below are Skill Builders, short practice activities that students can complete individually or with a partner. The Skill Builders are connected to each assignment and reinforce essential Art and Computer Science concepts and ideas and should be included in student sketchbooks wherever possible.

History of Photography

Research a photograph, photographer, videographer, or genre that has cultural significance and/or meaning to you.

Ex., “Surreal Photography”, “Graciela Iturbide”, “Photography of LGBT Rights Movement in 1970s San Francisco”, “Tank Man”, etc.

Consider persons or works that may represent your cultural identities.

Using any appropriate format, create an in-depth presentation about the person(s) or work(s).

Explain the connection(s) between the person(s) or work(s) and your cultural identities.

Skills

Relate Artistic Ideas and Works with Societal, Cultural, and Historical Context to Deepen Understanding

rules of photographic composition

Exchange photographs with a partner and conduct a critique.

Make a copy of the document below to critique your partner's photograph

Keep in mind these guidelines during the critique process:

Critique with the intention to help - the goal is to improve the photograph wherever possible
Give a "why" when critiquing - Cite specific evidence from the photograph and established guidelines for exposure and composition
Avoid personal bias - The intended subject or mood of a photograph is not for us to judge, just how well the photographer executes them

Photo Critique Process

Skills

Form and apply defensible evaluations in the constructive and systematic critique of media artworks and production processes.

basic image editing techniques

Create a visual tutorial about several basic image editing techniques.

Choose a 3-5 image editing techniques

Shoot a few images for each technique

Using any appropriate tools create a visual tutorial that demonstrates each image editing technique:

Include images that show before editing and after editing
Include a description that explains why the image has been improved after applying the editing technique
Add any appropriate graphical aids (lines, grids, arrows, text, etc.) that help explain the image editing technique

Photography by Eucalyp from NounProject.com

Skills

Image editing
Defensible evaluations

Photography by iconixar from NounProject.com

reading portraits

Create 1 photograph that tells a story

Individually or with a partner, brainstorm ideas for creating a photograph that tells a story.

Consider the Learning to Look strategies and the 6 Elements of a Portrait.

The story can be funny or serious, happy or sad, frightening or inspirational.

Shoot a series of photographs around the chosen story.

Consider the Rules of Photographic Composition and how they might enhance or detract from the story.

Choose 1 photograph that best exemplifies the story for submission.

Skills

Express a compelling story through a work of art

fine art photography vs. photojournalism

Tell the 'story' of a Fine Art Photograph and a Photojournalism Photograph

Individually, or with a partner, search for 1 example of a fine art photograph and 1 example of a photojournalism photograph that appeal to you:

Tell the 'story' of each photograph using ideas and concepts from Reading Portraits

Skills

Analyze and explain the qualities of and relationships between the components, form and content, aesthetics, intentions and contexts of a variety of media artworks

documentary photography essay

Critique a Photojournalism Photograph

Individually, or with a partner, search for 1 example of a photojournalism photograph that appeals to you:

Use the Photo Criticism Process document to critique the photograph

Skills

Form and apply defensible evaluations in the constructive and systematic critique of media artworks and production processes

fine art photography essay

Critique a Fine Art Photograph

Individually, or with a partner, search for 1 example of a fine art photograph that appeals to you:

Use the Photo Criticism Process document to critique the photograph

Skills

Form and apply defensible evaluations in the constructive and systematic critique of media artworks and production processes

intro to digital imagery

Explore how computers render digital images

Create a simple 8-bit image:

Use any search engine to look for 'simple 8-bit art' or another similar search term
- Choose a simple 8-bit image or create your own
Using graph paper, draw the simple 8-bit icon or image by filling in the squares with the appropriate color
- Each 'pixel' should be 1" square
- Pixels that are white can be left blank

Digital images are rendered by assigning color values to individual pixels and storing those values in an Array:

Recall that RGB is an 8-bit color model
- There are 256 possible values (0-255) for Red, Green, and Blue
- Computers only understand Binary so the decimal values of 0-255 are converted to an 8-bit Binary number
  - Since there are 3 values in a RGB color model each 8 bit number is combined to form a 24-bit Binary number
- "Red" has a RGB value of (255, 0, 0)
  - In Binary that would be: 100000000000000000000000

Using any appropriate tools, create an Array that stores the color information of each pixel of your simple 8-bit image:

Using the image above, Row 1 might look like the following:

heartImg = [111111111111111111111111, 000000000000000000000000, 000000000000000000000000, 000000000000000000000000, 111111111111111111111111, 111111111111111111111111, 000000000000000000000000, 000000000000000000000000, 000000000000000000000000, 111111111111111111111111...]

Look for patterns in the Binary representations
- You should not have to type every single digit since many of the colors repeat
The color coding of the Binary numbers is not necessary

Skills

Binary number system
Color encoding
Arrays

narrative photomontage

Students will use photography to craft a narrative. Students will create a photo montage where each image as well as the composition as a whole contributes to the narrative.

Physical Computing

micro:bit

The micro:bit is a handheld, programmable micro-computer that can be used for all sorts of cool creations, from robots to musical instruments – the possibilities are endless.

This section under development...

Report abuse