Artist Lecture 2 - Patrick Lichty

My impression of Mr. Lichty was not of the same professional nature as Sam Viviano.  Patrick seemed a bit flustered/random and unprepared for his lecture.  He showed some of his digital works, that were mostly videos, but he didn't really explain his intents or have a clear structure of the speech.

His main emphasis was on "People, Affect, Space", but he didn't clearly explain what he meant by that.

His performance art with this group "Second Front" within the Second Life video game was a pretty interesting way of creating and observing art in a very different space.

Most of his videos were political in nature, but some of the in-game performances were interesting to watch but I feel that almost anyone could do that if they had a character.

I believe his strength is as a writer and theorist, but his (still developing) photography Urban Sprawl project on decimation by globalization sounded fairly interesting.

Artist Lecture 1 -Sam Viviano

I found Mr. Viviano to be an intelligent and well spoken guest speaker.  He explained his own path from starting as a "starving" artist and how he worked his way up to his position at MAD.

One of his main points were about branding, and how to personally "Brand" yourself.  An example of this is how MAD used the Alfred E. Newman red-head child as their "Logo".

He said the one thing he did right when looking for work was to create a unique type of self-adverstisement (his caracature illustrations as ads)  The main thing (in his opinion) he was doing wrong was that when he first began his job hunt he advertised himself as "Jack-of-all trades" insetead of being a specialist in one area.  Versatility is not a huge asset when competing against other specialists for jobs.

Overall I learned some good tips and advice of how to find a permanent position as well as gain freelance work.