Final Project---SELF-DEVOURER

Review of "The Refusal of Time"

"The refusal of time"  of William kentridge' s art work in Metropolitan Museum. 

The exhibition was in a small room surrounded with screens. The screens were full of the walls. In the center of the room, there was a machine. I don't really know the name of that machine, but it seems like a time machine. The structure of it is like the layers in piano. Go Up and down. There was a full size big screen in front of the viewers. And two big screens which combined with a few little screens on left and right side. The video started from the first screen from the right side, a man walkes through the screens till the last one. There were different scenes like family dinner time, signs, 3D mess drawing , map, clock and book with texts. Also black white shadow in people form reflected about history. 

I enjoyed the whole exhibition, when I was watching the show I was very into it. I guess that's because when people in the small room, the sound effect was great and strong and those screens were full of the walls, no matter where you were looking at , the exhibition was around you. It made me cannot district. The design is very smart. Of course, the show was very attractive. I think the best part of the exhibition is that each screen is unexpected, each of them were different but related. Although there were different scenes, seemed not in same topic, like the sketched people, the book map, the map symbol, the slaves. Somehow, after the whole show they seems related as a story. The connection of each of them may be the repeat scenes. Actually, it's hard to tell what story exactly the show wants to express, but the TIME concept of non-linear is very strong. 

The Refusal Of Time

Memento

“ I have to believe my actions still have meaning"

"I have to believe when my eyes are closed, the world still there..."

I love this movie and I really enjoyed watching it. I though I never watched it before, but somehow, when I watch this I felt I know some scenes. I guess I must have seen this movie with my family when I was little, but It is like a blurring memory.

Talking about blurring memory, I like how this movie works. Leonard, the main actor uses hand-written notes, tattoos, and Polaroid photos to catch his memory. But from the movie, I can see that if the memories is not right, what’s the point to record them. He did remember and forget lots of times, and he tattooed just in case he forgot. but he likes to lie to himself (maybe not on purpose). He was not remember the right thing. He is lost but he still so sure about everything— that is the terrible part. Leonard believes everything in his mind, but he's sick, even till the end of the movie, after he doubting if the world he lived was real, he believed he's right. 

I like how this movie arranged, the order and cut is amazing. I like how memories show on photos and body, and all of them are messed up, when I thought I got the answer, things changed again. Even the ending is still confusing, there are so many guesses for this movies. In addition to this, the scenes with two parts- black and white, with colors. It helps the visual view of messed memory pieces. Black and white presents memory which likely all movies does. But in this movies, the colored part seems like to find the answer for the black and white part, but it is also talks about memories in this part. I think this is a key reason why this whole movie is so effective.

I think the concept of labyrinth in this movie is obvious-- seems disordered, non-linear, endless ending, different colored scenes, and un clearly evidences. (tattoos, photos)Also, the people in the phone, who is so mysterious that no one knows who it is. All those 

elements makes this movie very enjoyable, and you want to watch this again and again to see the right answer.

However, I do not think there is a right answer for this. Maybe he is the murder, maybe he is not sick or maybe the world is not real...

Because of many unknowns in this movie, the concept of labyrinth really worked.

"Circular Ruins" and "Library of Babel” —Jorge Luis Borges

The Circular Ruins

In this short story, the man keeps dreaming another man’s life, everything has no clue at the beginning of the story, which just shows different scenes in the dream, but it makes sense till the end. The dreamer uses different dreams to create another human being, when he thought he had finished the task, he found out that he is just a fictional human in other’s dream. I think this what “circular” means in Labyrinth.

This story reminds me of “parallel universe ”, which means there is another me in the parallel universe. After I reading the article, I feel as same as after I reading the article about parallel universe. Like everything I see, or I touch is so unreal. Because, you thought you know where is the beginning and the end in your life, but actually you do not know, you just in the labyrinth where had no end. There is always another you in the universe.

This is why I really like the short story, it confusing every details, messed up and then, put them together, everything makes sense. However, the result still like a dream, an unreal truth, like a labyrinth.

Library of Babel

This short story talks about if humans lives in a library and each of them has a book, which is their fate. The fate has already set, and after they died, the fate will repeat for another human being. 

The labyrinth that Jorge Luis Borges described in this story is like a repeating loop. The human in the same book have the same life. It is like a rule, a circular rule. I think the interesting part in this story is to control a human’s life, and ask him to live in the labyrinth. I like Jorge’s creative imagination, if I did not read story like this, I would never thought a world could be metaphor as a library.

Comparing by this two stories, I like “The circular Ruins” more, because it kind gives me more inspiration for my project. I like how things is so confusing at first then everything has an answer. Or no answer, which gives more room for readers to image, to feel the unreal in their real life. 

Fiction Project

There should have people introduce in the background sound, but somehow I could not find the one with the sound, seems my laotop lost the file. I will upload the one with the narrative people sound if I can find it.

Storyboard -Kishi and Olivia

Fictional Documentary

This documentary, Kishi and I will discover the mysterious marks on the street walls(China town).  We will find out the behind language of those marks, like how marks links one kind of group people together. We reckon those marks are for thieves, which represent secret codes to tell each other in their team about victims' information. Actually, those marks really exist in real life, there are many researches online talk about this.

Opening: Starting with an research paper about marks secret(Chinese version), that is why we go china town

Context of theme: Zooming out China town, people come and gone. Then focus on those detail marks and suspicious people who pretend to pay attention on those marks thoughtless.

Interviews: China town Police office, a thief 

Supporting information:The police officer has researched about this theme for long time(old man), map marks, the truth from real thief life.

Project5: Fashion show(Vintage)

Cry-Laugh-With-You

 A Project About Friendship

In the same situation, when you feel bad, different friend will chose different way to comfort you.

(All the characters in each photos have been photoshoped to big head)

Left Page: When you feel so sad, the kind of friend who will be there with you, feel the same bad feeling with you. Share the pain with you.

Right Page: When you feel so sad, the kind of friend who will cheer you up, try to make you happy. They want you to forget the sadness.

The Front and Back Cover

Tried to present in a clean, simple way.

(The page color should same as the one above, upload problem in blogger)

This is the first time I knew the skills about InDesign. I learnt how to add text and how to arrange photos in the book. Also, after reading example comic book, I learnt that the arrangement of each photo, and the size of them, the distance between them can show the rhythm of a story. It is a way to express the author's thoughts. 

However, there are something I would try to change. If I had second time to revise this project, I would do more about each photo's frame to give more quality to this piece. Although I tried to make the whole book in sweet and clean style, the background of the inside pages still feel like missed something, the backgrounds is not strong enough. A little bit too simple. I may looking for some simple background but with texture which might filling the whole page a little more.

Time Lapse--Sunrise&Sunset

Time lapse 

This is the first time I do "time lapse". I was quiet exited, because I've been wanted to learn this technique for so long. 

I love sunrise and sunset, but I never had time to see sunrise and see the whole process of sunset. This time I wanted to document this magic natural so bad. So I shot sunrise and sunset. 

These project took me about almost 5 hours, because I took both scenes and before shooting, I tried many sites and camera angles, then I choose the best location to wait for sun coming up(down). It was freezing outside, but I enjoyed capturing the process sunrise(sunset). I love the changing of every minute, and I realized that sunrise was faster than I thought. Just like a big bounce ball, jumped from ground. 

I took one photo in every minute. Also, I used two different cameras for back up. one supported by books, the other one standed on tripod. They both worked very well, always good to have a back up. 

Reflection:

From this project, I've learnt how to use Premier, like slow down speed, delete wrong photos, adjust colors, add video effect .

Long VS. Short

Long vs short

Long time: branches

Short time: fashion

Idea

For this art piece, I decided to use branches to create a fashion form dress. 

In abstract way. 

Because "branch" is really the symbol of long history, and it has been existing on earth for thousands years. "Dress" represents fashion, which last very short time. Fashion trend changes every season. 

I don't want to make an exactly shape of dress, what I really want to do is to built branches in very imaging-able  way, which people cannot really guess what it is at the first glance. Also, the unexpected result is very interesting for me. I like those ideas which take time for people to figure out.

Reflection:

After I made my piece, I asked few of my friends to guess what that was. All of them didn't know before i told them. Then they were like"of course, now I can see that" . I thought that result was what I wanted---abstract enough,but people will realize after i told them. 

Solution:

However, after the class critique, I realize the "branches dress " I made was too abstract that my classmates took more than 1 minute to figure out. Next time, a project like this, I may try to make more literal. 

Time Map

For "time map" project, I came up a lot ideas. For example, to shot the process of tieing up hair, spread ink in the water, Blinking eyes and so on. In the end, I choose my favorite idea- burning paper. 

How:

I've tried many times of burning different size of paper. Personally, I really afraid of fire thing, I always keep away from fire, even candle fire. So, for this reason, I began from burning tiny piece. Then I tried bigger and bigger sizes. Also I tried to roll papers together as a ball, but while I was taking picture of the process, the fire became a little out of control.  

After many time experiences, I decided the paper size I have below. 

It's a perfect burning paper size for camera to catch the process of beautiful flames of paper, and how burning paper fade away with black burnt edges. 

The idea of this project is to document the process of a burning paper piece. 

I decided to use the concept of "Fan" to show the "time map". 

I choose transparent thin plastic paper as the background of my photos, cut them by 2 8.  I wanted to give a clean look for the whole piece.  For controlling how wide each piece goes, I hollowed out a strip Shape hole on top of each plastic pieces. The longer strips are, the wider the fan is. Then I put fasterning pins in the hole to connect those pieces together.  I like the combination of transparent and gold. 

At the end, I used spray glue to stick my photos separately on each plastic paper. ( photo below)

Idea:

The concept of it is that: When you close the fan, you cannot see any process , just the first one photo of a clean white paper. However, when you open the fan one piece by one piece, you find out the process of burning paper. I did on purpose of only show 1/3 part of the photos when you open the fan, in this way, you can only see the changing parts of the burning process. With the clean background, all attention is got on the photos. 

I love to try new things, like break my fear of fire to crate a new project, and document the beauty of it.