Phillip Retuta's Blog

The Life and Times of a Filipino-American

By

Refik Anadol’s “Machine Hallucination” at Artechouse.

I went to Artechouse at Chelsea Market with Alex the other day, where Turkish digital artist Refik Anandol had a projection/data visualization exhibition called “Machine Hallucination.”

Nearly the entire boiler room underneath Chelsea Market was illuminated by several 16K laser projectors, displaying a dataviz algorithm-driven video made up of 100 million social media photos of New York City — essentially, “Machine Hallucination” is an abstract movie made of shapes and colors derived from what users post about New York. I loved the concept, and it could have easily been one of my class’ thesis projects (if they had a ton of money, that is).

Although the visuals of the video and the idea were very cool, the overall experience was a little underwhelming: one entire side (the entrance down to the boiler room) had no projections whatsoever, and the pillars and sharp corners of the room didn’t make the projections as seamless as they could be. It didn’t feel as immersive as I had hoped it would be. In my opinion, if they somehow curved each of the room’s corners (including the floor), the overall projection — and thus experience — would have been more exciting. Edges are just so restricting.

The fact that I had to pay a $25 entrance fee also kind of hindered the fun.

Nonetheless, Artechouse was indeed worthy of being visited and photographed (the Instagramabilty of this place factors very high). The exhibition and Artechouse itself was hardly publicized, so it wasn’t too crowded. Would I recommend going to any of Artechouse’s future exhibitions? Sure, but make sure you’re comfortable paying that much.

Here are some of my photos:

By

Experimenting with Lighting.

It’s my goal to always strive for interesting and therefore better work, so I’m trying to teach myself basic lighting techniques. In other words, I decided to step up both my photography and videography skills by playing with light in ways I haven’t done before (you can thank the editors and cinematographers at Corridor). I figured that:

  1. It’d make me a better designer/artist/art director.
  2. I can create better content for both my personal Instagram and Nico’s account.

Naturally, none of this came cheap: I bought an LED panel mount to better light my videos, a reflector, and a barn door with a variety of colored gel filters to try out different cinematic effects in my photography. I even found a good tutorial online that demonstrates where lights should be placed in order to get a particular look. It helped that I Googled “edge light” and how light can bounce off parts of a face or object, though most of the tutorials were subsequently implemented on portraits of my pet.

All in all, I’m very satisfied with the results thus far, and it’s easier to light a subject than I first imagined (it beats editing lights and effects in Photoshop or post-production). If only set up and clean up of the equipment — lights, filters, backdrops, and stands — wasn’t so cumbersome, but that’s just me being goddamned lazy.

Ultimately, it’s my goal to start using these techniques on human portraiture rather than my fucking dog. I still have a hell of a lot to learn, but you can see what I did here:

By

I Saw A Ghost One Time, But Time Travel Can Explain It.

3177863013_6881084402_oIn third grade, I saw a ghost: it was a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, and I just came home from elementary school. My dad was working and my mom (who usually greeted me when I came home from school) was finishing up her nursing degree, so my brother — a high school student at the time — was forced to babysit me. Now I’ve lived my entire life in this house in suburban Chicago and had never experienced anything paranormal, but something was off that day: aside from the overcast skies and the winter cold stripping all the branches of their leaves, I remember nearly all the curtains were closed and the blinds were down in the house — there definitely was a weird, creepy vibe going on in the house, if not just enshrouded in darkness on a Wednesday afternoon.

Furthermore, I vividly recall watching Tiny Toons: it was a particularly scary episode where a top-hatted vampire was stalking Babs and Buster Bunny. My brother was napping on the couch next to me, snoring loudly. As the cartoon vampire transformed into some ethereal black mass and sauntered through the woods of Acme University, that’s where I saw it: across the family room where I was, beyond the dining room and into the living room (hey, we had an open concept house) I saw a ghost.

In front of the closed vertical blinds of the living room’s windows, a white and translucent figure appeared and hovered. He looked like he was wearing a hospital gown, but he faded into nothing everywhere below the pelvis. He had no distinguishable eyes but rather large, black voids. He looked a ghostly version of my grandpa, who was alive at the time, or how my dad looks now.

In any event I was frightened, and I immediately woke up my brother. Angered that I woke him up from his nap, he spanked me in the arm. He fell back asleep, and I hid underneath the couch’s covers, crying. It wasn’t until my parents returned home a few hours later that I — in tears of seeing a ghost and partially of my brother being a shitty babysitter — that I spoke about what I saw.

Naturally, no one in my family believed me.

Today, I still can’t explain what I saw. Maybe it was the heater blowing against the closed vertical blinds and light escaping in. Maybe I was affected by that scary episode of Tiny Toons. Maybe there was LSD in the drinking water of Chicago. Who the hell knows, but I saw what I saw. Now, there’s been no history of any deaths in my childhood home (and believe me, I checked). At the time, no one significant in my family had died. And now, in 2016, my parents sold the house in Illinois and moved to California.

So here’s my theory on this — and please, bear with me — fucking time travel. Like Donnie Darko-time travel. I can’t explain why this apparition looked like my grandfather or my dad, but I myself have a strong resemblance to them when they were younger. As I grow older, I can only imagine that I’ll look like my dad or grandpa. Perhaps in the far future, when time travel technology potentially exists, I’ll be in the hospital — adorned in a gown — and on my deathbed. As a final request, the staff will ask me if I had one last wish. I’ll reply that I want to travel back in time to visit my younger self, at my old house, even for a few moments. No words of wisdom would be spoken or any significant message will be imparted, but just to scare the shit out of a little kid.

By

Apple Watch Review.

appleWatch

…or “I’m Now One Of Those Tech-Assholes Who Own An Apple Watch.”

Ever since my favorite Nooka watch broke, I was in the market to buy a pretty cool, design-forward watch. I was about to buy another Zub Zot Nooka watch, just because I loved the design, and it’s an alternative way to read time (ie: LCD dots for hours and a bar that fills up as each minute passes). However, just as the irreplaceable band snapped in half, the new Apple Watch was released. I figured I had some money to spoil myself, and I bought one.

Now despite all the Mac products I own, I consider myself far from an Apple fanboy: I’m not going to wait in line for hours or days when the new iPhone comes out, and to be honest the energy and chaos of any packed Apple Store gives me a mild panic attack. Still, I appreciate the design aesthetic of nearly all Apple products, and as someone whose career and hobbies fall within the creative and technological sphere, I have no choice but to rely on Macs.

So during my lunch break, I bought the 38mm Apple Watch Sport with a black band — primarily because it was affordable, it resembled closely to my old Nooka, and the smaller face size looked more like a regular watch than a typical, standard Apple Watch (it’s more conspicuous and doesn’t shout, “HEY, MUG ME!”).

After wearing it for a few weeks, here’s my quick review…

Pros:

  • It’s a very expensive organizer for $300+, but it’s nonetheless a great organizer. I’ve synced up my personal and work calendars, and it’s nice to get alerts on a smaller device that’s constantly on me than in my phone alone.
  • The interface is beautiful, and despite the menu icons being so small for my fat, stubby fingers, the touch sensitivity is pretty accurate.
  • Speaking of accuracy, the voice dictation is spot on. When sending a message on my watch by speaking into it, it’s almost exact. It even records swears.
  • The battery life of my phone lasts a lot longer, despite having my Bluetooth on. I think it’s because I’m not constantly checking my phone for the time, emails, or messages. During the course of the day, before the watch, my iPhone would drain out completely by 5pm if on a full charge. With the watch, however, my phone is at about 50% if I left it uncharged.
  • You can mute any sounds on your watch by covering it with your palm.
  • Instead of looking at your phone during meetings, I can check messages just on my watch and no one is any wiser.
  • The ability to send drawings and your heartbeat to other Apple Watch users is cool, despite the fact I only know one other person who has it.

Cons:

  • No one else has an Apple Watch, so that last “pro” point is moot.
  • One of the main reasons I wanted the watch is to control Spotify from my wrist during my subway commute, rather than pulling out my phone all the time (I tend to carry a coffee in one hand and my phone in the other). Unfortunately, because of Apple Music and Spotify’s apparent feud, Spotify has yet to create an Apple Watch-specific app and I don’t see them doing it in the near future. Of course, when I asked the sales reps at the Apple Store if I can control Spotify through the watch’s native player, they said yes. Liars.
  • Also, as many of you were aware when the new iOS was released a few months back, the iTunes library on the Apple Watch comes pre-loaded with U2’s “Age of Innocence” — despite the fact I deleted that goddamn album when I updated awhile ago.
  • Although the mirrored, camera feature of “what your iPhone’s sees, the Apple Watch sees” is pretty cool, it does not support video. Still, I like how I can capture photos on my phone using my watch.
  • You can’t view webpages, but I’m sure that will change.
  • The watch faces are pretty limited at this point. I would have loved to customize it with my personal photos, but I don’t think that feature is available yet. Mickey Mouse dancing is kinda sweet, though.

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with the Apple Watch, but it’s up to you if you think you’re going to buy it. That’s my two cents if it’s worth anything, which is probably less than two actual cents.