Final Narrative

Going into the project I was planning to express a more traditional narrative. When I first heard that we needed to do a narrative I was really excited because I was planning to go on a road trip that upcoming weekend. I ended up driving to Madison, WI for the OSU vs. Wisconsin football game then spending the night and next day in Chicago. Originally I was going to try and do a picture for every hour of the trip but after five straight pictures of me driving in the pitch dark I realized that there would be quite a bit of boring in the process of capturing the few exciting moments. So I figured that I would just take pictures and videos along the way and create another large scale map like we did in one of the first micro-projects. After the trip I looked at my camera and was pleased with the pictures I had taken. However, reflecting on it for a few days I decided I wanted to try and be more creative and do something new.

               

 After quite a bit of brainstorming I still didn’t feel like I had a great idea, the best I could come up with was some sort of “how to” video. I thought there were some cool possibilities as to what I could do with that, I got to the point where I was going to do a “how to get dressed video,” while thinking about  what clothes to use it hit me that I should do something with shoes. For about the last four years I have been collecting shoes, then starting two years ago this month I started working at a shoe store which has only fueled my collecting. This has become a trademark of mine, everyone knows that I always have on new shoes; rumor has it I could go over two months without wearing the same pair twice. I was first going to video of me walking somewhere changing shoes every few steps but I quickly found out to be a logistical nightmare. From there I decided I would just do a collage of shoes and shape all my shoes into the shape of the shoe. To do this I first had to set up a white backdrop and then photograph every left shoe of mine (26 pair?) that I keep here in Columbus. Then came to the technical part, editing with Photoshop, which turned out to be quite an arduous process, but after few hours I had manages to get all the shoes lined up in a shoe shaped pattern.  Still not happy with the result I came up with the idea of taking a shoe outline and cutting that part into the collage.

              

  Looking back at this project I realize that the project itself has been a narrative of ideas, I had at least 5 or 6 ideas that I had started to move forward with to only stop for one reason or another and change directions in terms how I wanted to do the project. From this I gained a new appreciation for how hard it is to actually make interesting art. Before the class I used to think that a lot of modern art could be made by anyone. The end result of this project was really gratifying, honestly I did not think that I possessed the artistic ability go through this process and make a piece I am truly proud of.

Final Project Brainstorm

·      Video

o   A how to video….

§  Cooking, Tie a Shoe, Drive A Car, Make a Bed

o   Another Map

o   Sit Somewhere and Film people between class

o   Ride the Bus and Film what I see

·      Picture           

o   Picture Every Hour For A Day….A waking day at least

o   Use Chicago Pictures for a Map

o    Use old pictures to tell a story

• Picture of every pair of shoes I own

Failures Report

I would say my biggest failure of the semester was basically everything we did with Photoshop. For some reason the whole unit just did not really click with me technically. I think the problem started with my unfamiliarity with Mac computers. Before this class I had never really done anything more advanced than search the internet on a Mac operating system. With so many differences between Mac’s and PC’s I struggled through the opening lessons and was not really able to get much better with the program as we got to experiment on our own. I think I learned a lot from this process though, I would not consider myself a very patient person and I tend to get mad at myself if I am not the best at whatever I am doing. This struggle helped reiterate to me how important patience, I also used this experience to teach myself not to be as hard on myself. As I said I expect to be the best at everything I do which tends to lead to disappointed. Hopefully this class will help me remember that it is not possible to be the best at everything I do.

I think that my biggest success of the semester was learning how to do some basic video editing. By no means do I think my skills are ready to do much more than making a cool youtube video I am excited that I now feel confident in shooting a clip of video then being able to trim the clip down and being able to use different visual effects.

If I could choose one project to redo it would be the map project. Growing up I have always like maps, something about understanding your surroundings really appeals to me. Before this my view of a map was a pretty analytical in that I always thought of maps in the sense of what you would find in a school text book. This project really opened my eyes to the fact that maps can be more of a personal expression rather than just a tool to help us get from one place to another. I think that I have a lot of cool ideas on how to make a better map I just don’t know if I can pull them off technically.

MP 5

Honestly I was all but stuck on this project; I had the words dapple and smear but couldn’t think of anything that was truly interesting to do with those words. I was going to end up smearing paint with my shoes as a way to display my word which I did not think was all that creative. I was just sitting in my living room with my feet up on the coffee table relaxing when I realized I had been staring at an example of dapple without even realizing it. The sunlight coming through the window was partially obstructed by the leaves of a tree just outside the window. As the tree blows in the wind, the dapple pattern dances across the coffee table. So I did not end up creating an example of dapple, I had stumbled upon an example that I have probably seen on this coffee table hundreds of times without knowing it was a perfect example of dapple.

Dapple Video

Micro Project 4

For my Identity and Sound Micro-Project I decided to capture the sounds of my apartment, I choose this because my tiny little apartment is my place of relaxation, it is home. Last year while living in the dorms I felt like that was “home” for the time being but I knew I always had my childhood home to go back if I was feeling homesick, but after my family moved this past summer this apartment has an added feeling of home to this apartment. To capture the sound I sat on the couch in my living room, I choose this specific spot because a vast majority of my waking hours are spent on this couch. In typical college student fashion I eat most of my meals, do most of my homework, and spend most of my free time on the couch. I know this probably makes me seem lazy, but it is the truth. While record I knew I wanted to have SportsCenter playing in the background. Between my roommates and myself I am guessing SportsCenter is on our TV at least 4 hours a day. In the background you can hear one of my roommates doing the dishes as well as the air conditioner kicking on.  I think that our air conditioner is one of the world’s loudest and runs almost constantly.   I would say the sound of the loud air conditioner is the one sound that I identify more than any other with my apartment.

Micro Project 4 

Cathedral

I enjoyed reading this story because it was pretty light in content. There was nothing too complex about what it was trying to get the reader. I think that the author simply was trying to teach the reader not to fear the unknown. In the start of the story it was almost funny how fearful the husband was of a man simply because he was blind man, it was almost as if he thought he could catch Robert’s blindness.  I also wonder if the husband felt challenged by Robert, like maybe Robert was here to steal his wife or something. Another interesting was how alcohol and drugs were able to connect the group; it was almost as if they were at a college party or something. Soberly the situation was kind of awkward but after drinking and smoking they seemed like old friends.

The one question I had throughout most of reading this story was when is this story was taking place? After the first page I figured it might have been pre 1950 because the husband was so uncomfortable with a blind man coming to stay with them. After reading more I figured it has to be sometime during the 1960s because I know that color TV’s came out when my dad was a kid. Realizing that that this story was supposed to take place more recently than I first thought made it even more shocking how much the husband feared Robert for being blind. I would have thought there would be more tolerance than that in the 60s.