Time Final Installation

The concept I had around this installation was based around fights I had with my roommates. Everyone kept pointing fingers at each other blaming each other. The argument got to a point where I felt so closed in and couldn’t escape. I wanted to portray this claustrophobic feeling by having fingers pointing towards one person who steps in the middle of the installation and reads all of the combating words tied onto the strings holding up the hands. In the background loud noises began playing to make it hard for the viewer to think.

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The Story of What Happened – Naturally Dyeing Fabrics

My piece for The Story of What Happens details an experience I had working on a project for the class Sustainable Systems. The assignment was to color fabrics with a natural dye using raw scraps from foods or plants. The experiment elapsed for about a week between gathering materials and actually dyeing the fabric, but it was interesting to see this length of time complied into just a few minutes.

My original idea was to just portray this assignment. As we began learning about the different functions on Adobe Premiere, I wanted to change my idea to scenes about my day-to-day life after learning how to use the multi-cam function. However, I decided to stay just using the footage from the dyeing experiment as it would present a stronger piece.

Being able to connect a few of the scenes was difficult. Because this project spanned over such a long period and I jumped between two locations, I had to figure out a way to still connect these jumping scenes together.

For example, there was two points where I skipped from buying supplies from the farmers’ market at Union square and back to my dorm. In order to connect this together, I rearranged some of the stills I used in the film so that it fit better. I also cut down the length of time I spent a the market so that there wasn’t a big focus on it. The Union Square scenes were also turned into black and white to portray that those scenes came before the scenes in the dorm and that there was a distinct disconnect between the scenes.

I also tried to play around with sound. I thought the music went well with the beginning scene where I was walking, which is why I decided to include it mixed in with the sounds of the street noises. I also decided to include a narrative  to explain the entire process that occurred to make the story clearer.

Another effect the I wanted to play around with was the position of the clips. In the first scene. I  cut the scenes at points that matched the beat of the music. Towards the last scene I created a transparent overlay of one scene on top of another to display two correlating actions happening at once.

The last bit of editing I included was including a title scene. At first I didn’t think about putting it in the film, but in the end it felt appropriate to allow the viewer to know what this video was about as it is a sort of tutorial/process explanation.

The video seemed to simplify the time spent on the project. When viewing the video it, I could still sense the hard work put into dyeing the fabric, but the viewer doesn’t feel the dragging feeling of waiting for the for each part of the experiment to finish. It was interesting to get a sense of how both perspectives felt of actually being there in the moment versus just watching the moment happen.

The Story of the Block

Jane Street seemed to be a very quiet block that was out of the way of the crowded noise that typically weaves throughout the streets of New York. Not much activities went one. It is very still and is one of those undiscovered gems in New York. One would not expect much to happen on these streets, which is very hard to find in such a chaotic city.

Again with this project we went through a series of iteration to reach a final two pieces. This first draft was two sequence the buildings in the order they along one side of the street. Next was a sketch of that layout. This allowed us to gain a full perspective of how the block looked like during the entire scene. In this layout the numbers correlated with the placement of each building along the block.

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On another layout we played with the images on a block grid. The purpose for this was to pay attention to detail of each building as we zoomed in and out of the images. We also looked for a significance for certain placings of images. For mine I decided to reflect the piece to an audio volume control. Some buildings I would zoom more or less into each buildings on both side of the street.

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The last draft for the layout was to again understand placement of buildings. We would leave empty spaces for parts of images we did not want to give any attention to and only she the necessary parts of buildings. The images were also numbered to show what part of the building photo or drawing is being put on display. We only really looked at what parts on the buildings were really important and there was a rhythm to how much of how little we showed of the building

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For the final collage piece I wanted to display that more action tended to gravitate towards the end of the street. As you got to the middle the piece focused on the events of the buildings. What in the building’s architecture really stood out. As you got inside the street it didn’t really matter what actions were going on because it was the atmosphere of the block that really mattered. But before you enter or after you exit the street, that’s when the typical busy New York pace takes place once again.

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This also reflected within my booklet when I want to focus on highlighting any characteristics Jane Street had to offer. The layout and storyline were told in a way to portray the sequence of events by order of how I experienced the block myself

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Time Map: Iteration 2

Re worked time map based on critiques.

Time Map

 

The new layout of this piece displays a repetition of the routine in my life that I can’t seem to get away from since school has started. Another concept that I wanted to display was my perception of relationships and communication relative towards time.

Everyday starts and begins the same way. I wake up, eat a little, go to class, do some work, possibly meet up with somebody, and go to sleep. I feel disconnected from this city, its people, and its structures. The atmosphere is so fast paced I barely have time to stay in one location long and really absorb what is going on. I think when you go off on your own and spend most the time by yourself, the days tend to grow longer and the hours pass by much slower because you just feel so alone. The other day I was discussing with a friend that only one week of orientation already felt like one drawn out month. We had already accomplished more things that week than we would have in the suburbs for a month.

The other subject I wanted to touch upon was relationships. When you have the time to spend with your closest friends and family and you are having so much fun just living in that moment, years can speed right past you and you wouldn’t even realize it. Although, in the city I feel as though I haven’t been able to make that connection with people. Even when I was able to visit my friend in the afternoon or spend time with my family, those moments were still just brief encounters that they merely became just another interval to my day. As soon as I sat down to chat with them it felt like a second later I had to stand up again to say goodbye. They had their own tasks to still do and I had my own.

New York’s energy is neither good nor bad, but sometimes it is good to distance yourself from it to reconnect to it again

Time Map 2

 

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The Process:

This project took several changes to get to the final. We learned about creating several iterations or drafts for this process. Before each iteration or draft began the photos were mapped out in my journal and then glued down to newsprint in order for presentation. The first two parts dealt with spacing the photos on a linear timeline while the last two dealt with both the perception of space and time.

In-between each iteration and during each class we would check our progress. I think this round of critiques gave me a lot of insight on how I can convey my original message in a clear way. Looking back at the very first timeline I presented, it now seems very jumbled up with no certain order. As I continued along with this project and change the order around taking suggestions from others, I think where my timeline is now sets a stronger impression for the original message I wanted to convey.

I think even listening to other people’s projects was beneficial. I really began to understand how different other people’s perception of time was. I even learned how some might be similar to my perception as well and I could sometimes relate to how others saw the time passing. Time passes in different ways and I how people perceive it is very circumstantial to that point they are at in their life.

Time Map draft 1

Time Map draft 1

 

 

Time Map: Part 1

The purpose of this assignment was to take photos through a 24 hour period to express how we might perceive time on a personal level.

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Time Map

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I feel as if my days in the city so far have been pretty mundane.  My daily routine has maintained pretty consistent since I have arrived to New York. I wake up, run around searching for any orientation events, go out to dinner, and sleep. I thought that maybe after that week was over I’d become busier and find more fulfilling opportunities to keep me occupied. Yet again, I wake up, go to class, go out to dinner, attempt doing my homework, and go to sleep again. Nothing in my daily tasks has changed much.

I think when you go off on your own and spend most of your time by yourself, the days tend to grow longer and the hours pass by much slower because you don’t have other people to cherish the moments with you. It’s hard to find any time to spend actually getting to know other people because I have kept myself busy with dealing with so many things. Everyone has their own set of tasks to complete and is rushing around just as much as I am that I never really have the time to really sit down and talk to someone.

In the suburban town I am from, I spend a majority of my day at school and on breaks hanging out with friends and really getting to know people. When I am not outside I always come home to round table family dinners.  Both of these experiences have their good and bad moments. Just the way time passes by in something so simple as two locations can be different.

Recently I have communicated with old high school friends through a platform called Snapchat. I decided to display the photos I send on this app because it’s something I have already been using to document my day.