Final Project

At first, i did not know what to do with my final project, as i am the kind of people who will be stuck in  those free style things. Stuck a few days, one day i saw this sentence: Life is a journey. After coming to the United States, i have been a lot of places which keep perfecting my life. I love to be a stranger in a place as when nobody knows you and you can be anyone you like in front of people; you do not have to be yourself when being around people you know. Besides, i love to know different places of customs and culture. The more i know, the more i can get to know the world.

In my brainstorm, i firstly tended to post all places that i went to in my project. Although there will be abundant contents, the pictures i picked may be not so 'wow' to the people who watch my project as our teacher Kellner once told me that if you want to show something to people, it should be something different to make people feel unique. So after i have done 50% of my project, i decided to redo it again. This time, the final project may not good enough, but compared to my previous one, it has made a lot progress.

In my project, i picked four places, which are Berkeley, San Diego, New York and Philadelphia. I know that people may be quite familiar with those places. But i think in my angle, i want to show some different. Berkeley is the place where i spent last summer there. In my dorm, there is a window which i can see faraway sunset everyday, so after summer class, i love to watch over the changing surrounding with sunset and i really enjoy the changing color. For San Diego, the weather and sceneries are quite different as in Columbus. It has comfortable sunshine, vivid plants and vigorous animals there. I am so into these difference in San Diego, so i want to show the lovely flowers and animals.

I went to New York in Thanksgiving last year. In the stereotype, people think New York is the place where all newest thing like fashion stuffs, movies, and electronic products. But that time, i saw a different New York; those antique building are really fascinating especially in Thanksgiving. They are like delicate packed gifts to welcome the festival, no inferior those modern skyscrapers. The last one is Philadelphia. I used to only know Philadelphia is a historical city with many events happened there. But this time, apart from Liberty Bell and Congress Hall, i also visited museums there. I saw different exhibitions of different countries and enjoyed profound art work, which impressed me a lot. Therefore, i prefer to use pictures that i took in the museums to represent the way i think of Philadelphia.

Redo MP 5

Previously the project i showed was confused and not so clear.  Since this project is free style of form, i just decided to use photos to show my work. My action words are gravity and differ. 'Differ' is the word that i prefer to demonstrate it. I chose some objects that seem similar in some characteristics but they got some slight different in certain aspects like the color, the shape or the size. So here comes the pictures that i took.

Brainstorm : Final Project

My final project is about the trips that i have since i arrived the U.S a year ago. People always says that life is a journey. At first, i felt loss at what i can do in my final project as sometimes no theme and no form of a project make the most difficult one. I think about it a lot and then i decided that why not make a video about all the trips that i have travelled in America. My life in America is like a journey which makes who i am, and what i am going to do in the future in a large extent.

So basically the final project will show the places i have been such as San Diego, New York and Philadelphia. In the project, I will first show where exactly a certain place is in the map to make audience have a general idea and then i will demonstrate some interesting pictures that i took in that place that people will enjoy. Maybe i will also make some comparison between these places like weather, food, sky and transportation.

My dream is to travel around the U.S as i think traveling can not only broaden one's mind but make one to think about himself. I love the feeling during the journey that i can stay away from reality for a while and make me more peaceful in mind.

Failure Paper

I think the biggest failure in this semester is that i could not understand the videos that sometimes the teacher showed us. The videos are really interesting but just sometimes i could not get why those artists do those artwork. For example, there is one video that an artist use her hair to draw a picture and she also uses a soap washing again and again to portrait herself. Another artist, who build a huge cage on a roof to attract birds, is also confused me. As i am a business major student, these artwork will make me think that how they make a living from that and make money from those artwork. But i am trying hard to understand how artists think of ideas to present their inner art world. For a blog, a couple of artists that they use Ipod shooting films to show momental surrounding change, make me think that i can use my Iphone to make a film someday.

My biggest success in this semester is the use of applications. I found those applications are really interesting and i really enjoy the process of learning these new techniques. i can use CS5 to separate a certain object from a whole picture. I learn iMovie, and Garageband to make fantastic film clips. From the success, i know that if i am interested in something, i can learn it quickly. So, if next time i want to learn something, i will try to find the interesting part of it.

If i could redo one project, i choose to redo MP 5. MP 5 is to take two action words, that is differ and gravity, to alter an object that i use everyday. I took a lot of pictures of my stuffs and thought of using my glass of water to show gravity. But i do not think my final work is creative enough especially after watching my classmates' work in class. If i redo it, maybe i take more film clips about gravity such that some food i eat floating in air or make my final work more delicate like adding more interesting background music. It will be more fun.

MP 5

My action world is differ and gravity. Differ means to be unlike or distinct in nature, form or characteristics. Gravity is the gravitational attraction of the mass of the earth.  At first, i felt quite confused by these two words as for gravity, i could only think of something drops from upper to the ground, and for differ, in my mind, it is just two different things. Although these are on a day-to-day basis, they are not connected to art. Then with the help of our teacher Kellner, i finally have some inspirations. For gravity, i took two things to represent it. One is a glass of water,which is poured by me slowly to show the gravity and the other one is a box which is used to lessen the buffer when delivered. I just emptied out all the foam out of the box like dropping things to the ground as gravity.

Differ, i got more ideas. I took picture of my Monchhichi Mascorts, my slippers, my radishes, my apples and my friends' model cars. Although they are basic same in general, you just take a good look of every stuffs and they are all different. For example, the TV plug, they are alike in appearance but different color in terms of yellow, white and red. For the poker, they are in the same number but different suits and color. All in all, finally i understand that these little things come from normal life but can form a beautiful artwork, which is really inspired me in my future life.

MP 4

The project is inspired from the road that I go across to school every day. The road seems quite normal but for me it has a lot of meaning. The road is just in front of my room so I can see and hear many when I open my window or on the way to prepare going school. There are different types of cars passing by which make the horn different. People go and cross with their earphones on, or talk to each other, or just read books. Bicycles also make the sounds on the road interesting, as the sound of wheel dragging. This is why I choose this road, West Lane Ave. with many personal feelings on it.

For major part of my project, I recorded the sounds that cars pass by when the traffic lights are green. This sound of cars is the signal of the road, which makes me recognize that I need to be careful to watch out cars coming and going every day. Also, there is fire alarm in my project. This really happens a lot. When I hear it, I like to imagine how the fireman to save somebody’s life again, who make me gratified. At the beginning of the project, I caught the sound by the sidewalk, which is the count down to remind people that they need to walk quickly. All of these combinations of sounds make the unique road I recorded. 

Response to Carver "Cathedral"

In the article, the author’s wife was hired by a blind man and finally, they became friends so she wants to invite the blind man to her house. However, the author feels unhappy because he never knows the blind man before and has no blind friend. He acts rude and impolite when the man came. The blind man, who just lost his wife, is intelligent and the highlight of the article is when the two men sitting together and watching TV. When the TV shows the picture of Cathedral, the author feels difficult to describe it to the blind man even though he can see and tell it. And finally, it is the blind man who teaches the author how to convey information.

In fact, how to convey information is not limited to whether a man is health or blind. Most of the time, when we feel hard to display something, we should think in another way.