so i got a little behind on my reflections towards the end of the year, and i was absent two weeks ago so i missed one. but last class we mostly just worked on our final project and this week we critiqued them. it seems weird that the year is already over, and it was great to see how everyones final piece came together.
that being said, i was pretty unhappy with mine. i think technicially it was pretty good. i used the sounds from our sound project to create a heartbeat and i tried within the first second to create a tense feeling. i think in this part i was successful. conceptually, however, i wanted to illustrate how racism is institutionalize and not just the act of prejudice, and i wanted to try to get my viewer to think about that. where i went wrong, i think , is that i approached it from my own understanding after studying this topic intensely for a semester. i forgot that in the beginning of the semester when i first dealt with this topic, everything i ever thought about myself and race was completely questioned and changed. i forgot that what i was trying to convey took me months to accept and to realize, so how could i expect that of my viewers in a mere short video, especially when they do not understand what i am trying to do in the first place. i think that i was just overly ambition and made my piece more about my understanding of racism rather then reaching the viewers in an artistic and thought provoking way.
thinking of it now, i think it would have been better to go about the issue in some sort of satirical or ironic way, that way i could show the viewer that the issue is still relevant, because in order for them to eventually accept that the problem is not individual but systematic they must first see their is a problem
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
reflections/final
ok so i know i missed a couple reflections but i promise i'll catch up. As for today, it was awesome to have the visiting artist talk to us, his stuff was amazing!!!! i LOVE how he had the installations all be illusions, the chair one blew my mind. Also, the two people eating at a table but are separated, to me that stuff is so beyond cool. That is the kind of stuff i wish i could think up of and would like to do.
also, we got to watch a couple of the animations and they were so good, its really impressive what people can do and i deff appreciate all the time and effort people put into things like that after just going through it myself.
as for my final project, ive been thinking about it a lot and i am just in artistic block! i LOVED rotoscoping and animating and i think that is something i would like to play around with, its just a matter of finding a concept to work well with it. i cant decide if i would like to do something funny or like deep and meaningful. i just don't no. i still want to focus on the psychological aspects of race relations because it is something that fascinates me and is meaningful. Also, i am going to be starting the process of writing a like 15 page research paper on race relations and it literally is going to own my life, and i want to put as much time into the final as i can but the research paper is also my final, so at least if im doing the same topic i can kinda do research for both at the same time and save myself at least a little bit of stress.
the focus for my paper is about colorblindness, and how people just choose not to deal with race because most people grow up in a homogenous area, thus this leads to the notion that racism does not exist and the problem does not get solved. so i guess the question is, how can i expose the colorblindness amongst SU students in an artistic way? i think to just at least start things off i will survey and interview students and then maybe see where that leads me. I feel that for this project it will develope as i actually start to do work with it so i'm kinda just goning to roll with it i guess. I no i don't want my project to just be like a documentary type thing, but maybe i can take what people say and general ideas and somehow manipulate them.
i dont know, im really struggling with like a actual way to go with this, and maybe that is becuase i'm struggling with the topic, its a tough topic and my race class has been really tough and challenging. basically this semester the class has taken eveything we as white students have known about ourselves and relationships with others and completed challenged and destroyed what we thought. but that is why i've loved it so much and want to somehow give people who see my final project this same idea, i want it to challenge people and make them question things like this class has done for me
also, we got to watch a couple of the animations and they were so good, its really impressive what people can do and i deff appreciate all the time and effort people put into things like that after just going through it myself.
as for my final project, ive been thinking about it a lot and i am just in artistic block! i LOVED rotoscoping and animating and i think that is something i would like to play around with, its just a matter of finding a concept to work well with it. i cant decide if i would like to do something funny or like deep and meaningful. i just don't no. i still want to focus on the psychological aspects of race relations because it is something that fascinates me and is meaningful. Also, i am going to be starting the process of writing a like 15 page research paper on race relations and it literally is going to own my life, and i want to put as much time into the final as i can but the research paper is also my final, so at least if im doing the same topic i can kinda do research for both at the same time and save myself at least a little bit of stress.
the focus for my paper is about colorblindness, and how people just choose not to deal with race because most people grow up in a homogenous area, thus this leads to the notion that racism does not exist and the problem does not get solved. so i guess the question is, how can i expose the colorblindness amongst SU students in an artistic way? i think to just at least start things off i will survey and interview students and then maybe see where that leads me. I feel that for this project it will develope as i actually start to do work with it so i'm kinda just goning to roll with it i guess. I no i don't want my project to just be like a documentary type thing, but maybe i can take what people say and general ideas and somehow manipulate them.
i dont know, im really struggling with like a actual way to go with this, and maybe that is becuase i'm struggling with the topic, its a tough topic and my race class has been really tough and challenging. basically this semester the class has taken eveything we as white students have known about ourselves and relationships with others and completed challenged and destroyed what we thought. but that is why i've loved it so much and want to somehow give people who see my final project this same idea, i want it to challenge people and make them question things like this class has done for me
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
reflections 3/10
Today we learned a lot about sound and music, and it was really interesting and challenging. The whole shape sounds, or whatever, I really just don't understand. I know how to read music pretty well, and from the little example we got I dont see much difference between western notes and shape notes. I would like to maybe look at it a little more to understand it better, but I think regular notes are just as easy to learn if you learn them the right way, like the sound of music song. You learn how the notes sound, then just attach a word to that sound, so Do Fa la So, replace with words and you have a song.
The Cage music i also found extremely weird and hard to understand. It all just goes over my head. Like I said in my previous reflection, i always try to find rhythm and melody within sounds, so I just dont like the randomness of Cage
Also, i think his scores are insanely complicated and I dont understand them. However, I do appreciate them and think it is amazing that someone could think in that way and actually break out of what is embedded in our head and compose something so completely different and unique
The Cage music i also found extremely weird and hard to understand. It all just goes over my head. Like I said in my previous reflection, i always try to find rhythm and melody within sounds, so I just dont like the randomness of Cage
Also, i think his scores are insanely complicated and I dont understand them. However, I do appreciate them and think it is amazing that someone could think in that way and actually break out of what is embedded in our head and compose something so completely different and unique
Final Project
For my final project I'm really thinking about doing something with the human mind and how it works. The video we watched of people in the elevator and how they changed just because the group was changing was really funny and also intriguing. I think it is really interesting how people's minds work and will just subconsciously do something like that.
In my writing 209 class our subject is race and power, and a lot of what we have been learning is how racism is institutionalized and even though people may not be racist they do benefit from racist institutions (if they are white). One author we read a lot argues that subconsciously all white people are racist. Im not about to get into the whole racism argument, but I think it would be interesting to investigate the subconscious of race. If i could somehow design a project that would function like the elevator video, but put it in a social context and have it illustrate some sort of dialogue on race in america. What I immediately think of is this girl from my middle school (I went to a very diverse middle school) who would act "normal" around me and other white girls (and by me saying this way of her acting is normal plays into the whole racist ideal, what i've been learning is that it is a racist institution that I believe my way is the normal, but that's a whole other subject) and then whenever any of our black friends would come she would completely change demeanor and talk "ghetto" (again im being very ignorant my writing teacher would think i learned nothing from the course by discussing my topic in these terms but its just easier to get my idea across using this). Maybe something like that, I still don't really know exactly what i want, i'll have to do some more research on psychology of race and different experiements, but that's where im leaning towards.
If i dont go down the race path, i would like to keep with the psychology idea and maybe do something with language, like how we change and manipulate language. Maybe have a video of a person talking to someone who just learned english, but use slang and the non-english speaker will have no idea what there saying . . . Like "whats up" "that shirt is cool" "chillin" , these things make sense to us but to an outsider saying your shirt is cool would imply you literally think their shirt is cold.
In my writing 209 class our subject is race and power, and a lot of what we have been learning is how racism is institutionalized and even though people may not be racist they do benefit from racist institutions (if they are white). One author we read a lot argues that subconsciously all white people are racist. Im not about to get into the whole racism argument, but I think it would be interesting to investigate the subconscious of race. If i could somehow design a project that would function like the elevator video, but put it in a social context and have it illustrate some sort of dialogue on race in america. What I immediately think of is this girl from my middle school (I went to a very diverse middle school) who would act "normal" around me and other white girls (and by me saying this way of her acting is normal plays into the whole racist ideal, what i've been learning is that it is a racist institution that I believe my way is the normal, but that's a whole other subject) and then whenever any of our black friends would come she would completely change demeanor and talk "ghetto" (again im being very ignorant my writing teacher would think i learned nothing from the course by discussing my topic in these terms but its just easier to get my idea across using this). Maybe something like that, I still don't really know exactly what i want, i'll have to do some more research on psychology of race and different experiements, but that's where im leaning towards.
If i dont go down the race path, i would like to keep with the psychology idea and maybe do something with language, like how we change and manipulate language. Maybe have a video of a person talking to someone who just learned english, but use slang and the non-english speaker will have no idea what there saying . . . Like "whats up" "that shirt is cool" "chillin" , these things make sense to us but to an outsider saying your shirt is cool would imply you literally think their shirt is cold.
reflections
The contact mics we made were really interesting and cool, i never knew that there were different kinds of mics other then the typical singing one. It was really fun to play around with it and see how things sound so different.
Also, i learned how to connect the mic to my computer so i can record directly to it, it is really great to learn things like this because i feel like im really getting my moneys worth with my computer by learning all these different things it can do
The project of making an instrument that just makes interesting noises to me is difficult. When i hear things i automatically search for harmony or rhythm, Ive danced for 15 years, played the piano and trumpet, so its hard for me to just do things for the sake of making interesting sounds, i want it to have a purpose and a meaning.
Also, i learned how to connect the mic to my computer so i can record directly to it, it is really great to learn things like this because i feel like im really getting my moneys worth with my computer by learning all these different things it can do
The project of making an instrument that just makes interesting noises to me is difficult. When i hear things i automatically search for harmony or rhythm, Ive danced for 15 years, played the piano and trumpet, so its hard for me to just do things for the sake of making interesting sounds, i want it to have a purpose and a meaning.
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