Monthly Archives: December 2014

Bioswales Come to Jordan

BioswalesPoster

    Do you remember that experiment we did in class? The one where we used a bottle to filtrate dirty water? Well it was quiet easy to make wasn’t it? All we needed was a bottle, pebbles and rocks, filtering paper, and dirty water! Now imagine this project in a larger scale; not much larger, but still larger.  At least large enough to grow trees! This would be incredibly useful wouldn’t it?

  

            We need more greenery! Jordan is a pretty dry place. There aren’t many trees around. Occasionally trees are grown by the side of the road, but sadly these trees don’t tend to last, whether they are destroyed by strong wind, snow, or eventually get dried up.  Having “curbside rain gardens by the side of the road and on road islands will bring a bought major change. Growing trees will be cheaper than ever as they will be getting the water they need without having to be constantly watered resulting in high water bills.  Not only will they be saving money, but they will be saving water as well. All the dirty rainwater running along the side of the road and going down the sewer drains won’t have to be wasted; it’ll be put to use! More trees will be planted than ever! The best part is that it is such a simple systems! Not only is it simple, but also it isn’t ugly either. It’s All happening underground! The only evidence of these systems are the pebbles above, which would most likely be covered with greenery.

            Yes, these bioswales are being used in countries facing a lot of rainfall, and Jordan is definitely not one of those counties, but we do occasionally get rain, and the roads do become flooded, so really these bioswales could come to great use in Jordan.

     I propose to have bioswales built around different areas in Jordan, but first only by the roads. Starting small is best to test the results of this huge conversion, but things can always be expanded. Not only will this project shed light on new ways to save water, it’ll encourage the country to invest their money on simple solutions such as these to not only save money, but resources as well. If this system were to work, homeowners may become encouraged to install this system in their backyard!

 

    Main roads and water will become much more presentable, changing the image of the country, making it a greener, more beautiful, and green place, resulting in a domino effect, of improvements in the country. The country will be cleaner as a whole as dirty rainwater would not be flowing all around the streets. Money which previously would have gone towards water supplies could be saved, to maybe invest in other things, such as the cleanliness of the country, road construction, building parks, and so on. Tourism can definitely rise in result of all of this, as small things truly do matter.  It is a ripple effect of one good thing after the other.

    Don’t forgot trees allow us to breather providing us with pure oxygen, which is incredibly useful especially in a city, where air pollution very much exists, which is another issue in itself.

    Maybe I’m not taking the costs into account? Yes, the cost of installing a bioswale is high. In NYC the installation of each bioswale cost around 13,000 as some supplies may be harder to come about, but this cost is not constant. Now overall these bioswales do save a lot of money. Another plus is the increase in tree purchases as result of bioswale installations in New York.

Based on the Bioswale design I researched I envision this Bioswale design in Jordan.

 

Citation:

Pre-research:

Why would you want something so ugly in your backyard? (water collection devices)

http://www.rainharvestmo.com/products/

http://www.rainharvestresources.com

http://www.rainharvestresources.com/More_Success_Stories.html

 Bioswales

http://www.grownyc.org/openspace/green-infrastructure-toolkit/bioswales

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2012/03/5327266/bioswales-new-york-city-plan-make-more-tree-stands-and-less-sewage-

http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/designing-california-cities-for-a-long-term-drought/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=FBKQED4416

 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press_releases/14-089pr.shtml#.VHUJ6EuRPwI

 http://www.fastcoexist.com/3030116/these-curbside-mini-gardens-could-help-save-new-york-city-billions-of-dollars

Emotion: Story in one frame/sequence+team sequence

Coming up with a story that fit my selected alter ego and emotions may have been a bit strange and difficult, but once I had the story the process of bring the story and emotions to life was a great experience. My favorite part in the process was trying to represent the whole story along with the emotions that came with it in one frame. I think my one frame proved to be more successful than the combination of frames put together. I felt like even looking at the frame I could feel the emotions I was trying to portray. 

Open Works (final project)

My final project is a stop motion animation of celebrities dressed as classical story book characters attending a celebrity event I named Nadine’s Choice Awards After party. The concept behind this animation is our interest in the lives of celebrities behind movies or songs rather than the actual movie character or song content. Camera flash sounds are playing in the background, making it clear that these celebrities are being photographed. These photographs are meant to feed our celebrity hungry minds.

 

Proposal:

Celebrities have become the new storybook characters. Today, we are more often interested with the celebrity behind the movie or the celebrity behind the song than we are with the actual movie or song. Once upon a time storybook characters were the characters we were invested in, not the celebrity behind the character; we were interested in the actual character in the actual movie, not who was playing the character.  The important stories were the movie and book plots, not the plots about the lives of celebrities.

In order to show this phenomenon, I’m planning on creating a stop-animation. The characters in this animation are celebrities, but they’re not just ordinary celebrities; they are celebrities dressed as storybook characters. Think of Taylor Swift as Cinderella, Emma Stone as Cinderella’s fairy God mother, Miley Cyrus as Alice in Wonderland, Justin Bieber as Peter Pan, Kim Kardashian as the Evil Queen, and so on.  Now imagine all of these celebrities attending a Red Carpet Event, and lets call this event Nadine Choice Awards Afterparty, which will be made clear in my secondness image as I will be showing a wide angle shot that will shed light on what is happening to the viewer. These celebrities are moving across the red carpet on the screen one after the other, creating several action shots as a thirdness image. Paparazzi cameras flash all over the screen, so us, the hungry story-craving people get the celebrity updates we are waiting for.  As each camera flashes we hear camera flash noises, which can be interpreted as a Causal mode of listening as we can connect it to the source.

This stop-animation is going to be made using illustrated characters, which I will manually move across a “red carpet.” I’ll be taking photos of each movement and combining them to create a moving image. The whole thing should add up to a minute or two of video footage.  These moving characters will be digitally drawn, using illustrator, but their faces will be images of the celebrity they represent as to show the contrast between real and imagined characters, going along as symbols of my story and displaying semiotics.

This is one of the hottest celebrity events of the year. Every celebrity attending is in the public eye. We crave juicy details about these people’s lives. The movies and songs they’re promoting is the last thing we think of.  We want the real stories about these people’s lives.

 

 

Team Book Project Reflection

My group and I tried to show the concept of semiotics in different situations. We used our different videos as examples of semiotics. Whwether it was a black cat symbolizing superstition, or clothing representing representing an event we used such examples to explain the meaning of semiotics. He also explained semiotics through firstness, secondness, and thirdness.

 

The following are my video screenshots, which represent semiotics in my video BLSBlackCat BLSCrackedScreen BLSLadder BLSSalt

This is the text I wrote for my section of the book:

In this video the artist films people’s reactions to the “Bad Luck Spot.” Their reactions determine whether or not they are superstitious, which is why symbols of superstitious beliefs appear across the screen several times throughout the sequence. One of these symbols happens to be a black cat, which is a major icon of superstition.

In this particular image, a black cat subtlety appears on the screen. The drawn image blends into the background, creating a hidden symbol. Hidden symbols often go unnoticed, but unconsciously symbols tend to register in our mind.

The image, like the video itself contains no added tints because the original colors of the image are bright enough to symbolize the liveliness of this pavement. The video is proof that street art has a massive impact on the decisions that we make.  There is a lot of life happening in response to the “Bad Luck Spot” in the streets of New York.