Year 1

Final Sketch:

Research and Design Process:

Price: $1,200

While observing Dashae on Wednesday, I noticed the object that was most important to her was her camera. Of course for most people it is an expensive object and thats why it would be considered “precious” so to speak, but I think there was so much more to it than that. Our generation is so obsessive over the idea of updating their social media so there is a lot of importance on picture-taking in general. Picture-taking today has reached a whole new level where it’s more about “enhancing” what is in front of you, so your essential goal is to make everything look more beautiful, more fun or more appealing than it actually is. Its all just part of your social media identity. But going back specifically to the topic of the camera, which produces ultra high definition photos already gives that kick-start to the enhancement.

Dashae is very active on social media, she has her Instagram account and her fashion blog so she constantly has to update it to keep her existing followers interested and get more followers. Sure everyone has a notion that social media is directly linked to one’s vanity when it comes to taking selfies and photoshopping ones self to look perfect but it can also be an outlet to express ones creativity and ideas. In my personal opinion fashion bloggers incorporate both of those ideas, the one where perfection is key and the expression of creativity. There is a huge aspect of blogging that is all about the visually appealing aesthetic otherwise why would people view the blog. And in order to grab that attention, the photos on the blog have to be eye-catching and high definition and the actual thing that is being photographed has to be interesting as well. She not only photographs her outfits but she has a ‘lifestyle’ and ‘parsons’ page, she captures events that she attends and work she’s done and things that inspire her, so basically almost everything.

She told me she loves to “capture memories” which is a whole other aspect of social media and the camera is the tool that helps you do that. Its almost a crazy concept that you can take a snapshot of what you’re experiencing in the current moment and have a physical representation that you can look at in the future. That physical representation presents the person with the visual cues they need in order to be nostalgic and the ability to relive a moment. Whether thats in the form of a simple picture or a video, its the most effective way to recall a memory. Most humans respond better to visual cues than any other sensory cues when it comes to recalling the memory.

In my opinion, these are the reasons why the camera possesses such “mythic” qualities, because of its direct correlation with the usage of social media and capturing of memories. Its one of the most valuable features on our phones and tablets. There are so many different types of cameras, lenses, and photography equipment because we belong to the generation that is obsessive with documenting everything, whether its for creative or personal purposes or both.

Why do you workout everyday? Do you have a goal?

• staying in shape
• friend forces

Why do you blog?

• like taking pictures
• having a recap of all the memories created

Why do you watch Netflix?

• no cable access
• catch up on shows
• watch movies

Why did you design your mind map the way you did?

• line = subway lines
• circles = to organize the days

Why do you like fashion?

• all the different options/styles
• Casual/laidback/semi formal style

I think this class Integrative Studio: Memory really pushed me out of my comfort zone, not only was I encouraged to make three dimensional projects but I was also encouraged to think more conceptually throughout the semester. I realized its more than just creating an aesthetically pleasing piece of art. There should be a reason behind every visual aspect of the piece. I realized that a lot of people in the class weren’t big fans of group projects, but this class helped me realize that I actually work quite well in a team. I thought my Audio and my Stop Motion project were quite successful. Speaking of those projects, this class also helped me expand my knowledge on certain programs like Audacity which I had little prior experience with and animation on Photoshop which I also had little prior experience with. So I not only get to leave this class with a lot more technical skills I get to leave with a slightly different perspective on my approach to art.

Going into the 9/11 museum was a real eye opener for me. I’ve known about this event for as long as I could remember, but I never really knew everything about it. Two of the exhibitions that stood out to me were the Timeline one and the People who passed away one. The Timeline exhibition just helped give me a better understanding of exactly what was happening, they show everything from all the flight tracking to the communication through the radio going back and forth. It just brings the whole event to life in the sense that it almost feels like you’re there. It was so informative, it gave exact time details and specified exactly what was going on in regards to security of the president and of the people and how everyone was reacting. The information was just so interesting to look at, all the videos and the artifacts, all of it just helped me learn more and just understand more.

The second exhibition that stood out to me, that probably stands out to everyone is the room of all the pictures of the people who passed away. It just helped me realize just how many people, of course everyone knew a lot of people were affected, I mean it is one of the most tragic events in history but just going into that room puts names and faces to what before was just a statistic.

1) Why did you choose to create a main character/protagonist Evelyn that only becomes likeable during the last few pages?

2) The battle of “old money” versus “new money,” can one be better than another isn’t it all just money in the end?

3) Are you writing from personal experience, or did you have to do a lot of research to figure out the language and the ways of the Upper East Siders?

4) Were your characters purely fictional or did you base some characteristics off real people?

5) From your research or personal experience, would you say people actually behave like Evelyn or has it just been exaggerated for story purposes?

And if those don’t work, click here, here and here.

I’m in a group with Alicia and Mychael and we’ve decided to focus our final project on a classic brownstone house on 14 W 10th Street, also referred to as the “House of Death” built during the Civil War. The name comes because there has been a lot of paranormal activity that has happened in that house. Apparently 22 spirits haunt the house or haunted, the house is now split into 4 floors and 2 apartments on each side.

Jan Bryant Bartell wrote a book about her experience in the house, Spindrift: Spray from a Psychic Sea. She suffered through a psychological and physical torment living in the house, in order to help her she called a medium to get rid of the spirits. However, the medium got possessed by the spirit of Reenie Mallison, yelling that she will never leave because its her house. Another strange occurrence that happens with the book is that it keeps disappearing; Dennis a resident that lived in House 16, said that he bought the book about 10 times in Strands. In fact, even we had trouble getting our hands on this book. It wasn’t in Bobst or Strands and finding an online version was difficult, however we found it in the New York Public Library even if we couldn’t take it out. The book, just in a literary perspective is known for not being strong, it doesn’t capture the audience because its written well or have a good hook. What captures people is that she wrote it based off real-life experience. Even Dennis, says he can corroborate with the stories Jan Bryant Bartell says in her book.

Another famous incident that happened in the “cursed” house,  is the Joel Steinberg case. Joel Steinberg was a crime defense lawyer, who moved into the house with his girlfriend, and two adopted children Lisa and Michael. Joel and his girlfriend were under the influence of cocaine, he beat his daughter Lisa and his son was found tied up to a playpen soaked in his own urine. His girlfriend opened the door for the authorities with a black eye and bruises the next day, and Lisa passed away the next day. Till this day Joel claims that he is innocent and claims that he was possessed and that he didn’t commit those crimes.

Lastly, the House of Death is famously known to be the home of Mark Twain. His spirit has been seen in a white suit descending the staircase, even the tour guide mentioned how once she had a medium on her tour and the medium sensed a man in a white suit even before the guide started to explain the story. Mark Twain never died in the building but legend says he had unfinished business in there.

I have attached my essay here, a lot of my information is already repeated but I talked a little bit more about the whole process in general. And the poem I wrote for this project is here.

Stopmotionfinal from Anisha Subberwal on Vimeo.

Our assignment was to re create a memory in a dream-like way, the original goal was to find a “bad” memory. One bad memory everyone has is food poisoning, I thought I could create that in a very interesting way and “dream like” or “magical” way. I wanted to show the food go inside someones body and make it comical by showing the person go to the bathroom. Just to make the whole story more interesting, at least visually I chose to show the food going down someones stomach a very eccentric one. There’s this low-key almost hole in the wall place in Hong Kong where they give you a very weird looking egg waffle. The shop is called “Oddies” which also adds to the strangeness of this video.

In a lot of my artwork, I love the use of color and so I wanted this video to be no different. I incorporated my color scheme and my swirly doodles through the backgrounds of each scene. And because it was a collaboration Stephanie incorporated her Anime like style. It was a successful collaboration in my opinion, we managed to work very well together, we took turns when it came to using the drawing tablet. We started out with sketching the ideas on paper and then transferring it onto the computer. I had a little bit of prior knowledge with the animating on Adobe Photoshop, but its safe to say a lot of what we were doing was experimentation. After successfully animating the first few scenes, it started to become a whole lot easier, it was just a time-consuming process. On the plus side, we didn’t have to animate the background for every frame in the scene. After animating 8 scenes on separate Photoshop files, we transferred the videos on to Adobe Premiere and started to assemble the whole video. We gathered sounds from free-sound.org and recorded a few and transferred them on to Premiere.

Overall, I would say that Stephanie and I successfully collaborated on this project. We both had the initial idea to do our animation digitally which is why we decided to partner up, because if we were do our projects alone it would be a lot of work, and this way we not only got to divide the workload but it was a successful merge of our artistic styles.