Kai and I have met with and spoken to the Director of Development of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We have discussed how we will set up our book for people to write their reasons for worship at St. Patrick’s Cathedral stories in. We were also given a private tour of the cathedral and learned even more about its history. We were shown pictures of the cathedral from 1903 and 1940. We also saw drawings of what the church looked like back in the 1800’s when it was being built. The Director also showed us the back rooms of the church where the priest puts on his vestments. He showed us where all the past archbishops of New York are buried and told us some about the design of the church. He discussed how part of the church incorporate the Art Deco trend of Art Nouveau which was big at the time in the 1930’s, when that part of the church was built. He also discussed how the inside of the church is painted white to match the white stone on the outside. Apparently, this was very important to the architect. We learned about the Galeros, which are red hats of the cardinals, that hang from the ceiling. It is an old tradition that when a cardinal’s Galero falls to the ground, that means he has officially ascended into heaven. This tradition is not popular anymore, and the Galeros at the cathedral are hung with wire, so they will not fall down. We learned about the 3 organs they have, the giant brass doors that were carved with clay originally by hand, and the stained glass windows that were added in the 1940’s. We plan to have the book made over the weekend that way we can go down to the church and have people begin signing it.
Category Archives: Homework
Final Project Proposal
Project Proposal by Olivia and Kai
Project Proposal
For our Collective Memory final project, we have decided to focus on St. Patrick’s Cathedral. After researching the history of the Cathedral, we learned that it has been in New York since the 1800s and was restored multiple times, including currently. Many famous people, including Andy Warhol and Babe Ruth, had requiem masses held for them there. Looking at this information, we were inspired by the Cathedral’s history and its surrounding changes over time.
Upon further investigation, we found a video interview with an elderly woman who talked about her personal memory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. She said for 40 days, every day she went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to pray for the man she was in love with to ask her out on a date. After the 40 days, she attended a Christmas Party the man also showed up and ended up proposing to her. They have been happily married since. This personal story inspired us to settle on our final decision to collect prayer intentions of individuals who visit the Cathedral. Why are they there? What are they praying for? Has their prayer been answered? There are five and a half million people who visit the Cathedral from over the world each year. To collect some of their diverse encounters, memories, and intentions relating to the Cathedral in our book will be the ultimate goal. We will acquire bookbinding techniques to design the book, containing these testimonies.
We paid a visit to the Cathedral, made observations and have communicated our intention of leaving our prayer intentions book within the Cathedral. Having spoken to multiple people in the parish office, including one of the priests at the church, we are awaiting a response email from the Rector of the Cathedral. After we receive permission to put our book in the Cathedrals, we will proceed to the making of the book.
iMovie Practice Test 1
9/11 Memorial and Museum Response
Spending the morning at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum triggered many different emotions within me that I wasn’t expecting. Going in, I wasn’t sure what to expect from myself. I remember only being five years old when the tragedy occurred. I simply remember seeing the burning towers on the news, the frantic and shocked reactions of my parents and then being told that I wasn’t going to school that day. Growing up and learning about what happened, I could never imagine how it must have felt being in New York that horrible day. Now, having lived in the city a few months and going over the events again, where they actually occurred, I was overcome with an eerie feeling combined with sorrow and anger. Looking at the pictures of everyone that died that day and being able to read about who they were and what their families had to say about them, left me even more sorrowful. So many innocent people with futures and full of life were gone in a matter of a few hours. It was so personal and yet I still couldn’t imagine what they must have been feeling right before they died that day. Looking at the personal artifacts that belonged to these people, now in a museum, added to my uneasiness. That wallet must have traveled a million places with that person who died that day, and that telephone must have held many a personal conversation for the person had it. It made me ask so many questions. How did they loose it that day? If they had it with them, would they have been able to get out faster or tell someone they loved them before they died? Did they have it with them when they died? Did someone else have it with them? What was that person doing before they realized what was going on? It really made me stop and look at my everyday actions and think about how precious every moment really is. Continuing through the museum, looking at photos of the city that day and the people’s reactions transported me somehow briefly to them that day. Seeing places I recognized in those photos added to the weight of the reality of what happened. With this is mind, going through the timeline of what happened that day and seeing the pictures of the men who hijacked the planes made me sick. As I watched the airport surveillance video of them passing security, I become angrier. Looking into their eyes in those photos I asked myself over and over again what every person asks at some point: how can a person find it in themselves to do something so unimaginably horrible? Don’t they have a conscious? I will never be able to understand it.
I was not prompted to take pictures like I usually am when going to museums and like many other people were prompted to do. I was too upset and had too many questions. I only took a few photos of a piece of art that really spoke to me. It was a wall covered in tiles, each painted a different shade of blue in watercolors. The tiles surround the words “No day shall erase you from the memory of time,” by Virgil. The blue, watercolor tiles were painted by Spencer Finch. They are his attempt to try and remember what shade of blue the sky was on that day. Reading about this, the idea that everyone has their own distinct memory of that day, each one different, but each connecting back to that collective memory of what happened and how it has brought us together as a country for at least one day and one cause really stayed with me. The quote by Virgil is forged out of remaining steel from the World Trade Center by the artist Tom Joyce. Once again, the idea that these letters that form a quote that brings hope, which were created by steel becoming bendable by fire, the same way the towers were made collapsible, had an odd beautiful irony to it. It reinforced the idea that even in the darkest of times, we can find hope in one another and in the future. The idea that we can grow as individuals and a society from something as horrible as 9/11.
Walking back outside after going through the museum, I stood by the waterfalls that are now there in place of the twin towers. I looked around and couldn’t help but notice what a beautiful day it was outside and how peaceful the trees looked surrounding the waterfalls. Once again, I was struck by the eerie feeling that I was standing in the same spot where thousands of people ran for their lives, courageous men and women helped save the people around them and where many beautiful and innocent people died that day back in 2001.
Stories We Tell and Our Own Perspectives
After watching “Stories We Tell” by Sarah Polley, the whole idea of perspective and memories is called into question. It is interesting how a person’s own perspective can feel like the whole story to that one person, but in reality, the whole story cannot be told without the perspectives of everyone involved in the story. This idea presents another aspect of authenticity when it comes to documentary. Knowing that documentaries are a form of film and digital story-telling, we know that they can be edited. With that being known, the person making the documentary has to be careful not to edit out part of each individual person’s truth when it comes to the story. Rather, as Harry Gulkin put it, the point of art is to find a truth in a situation. Hopefully, ethically, the person making the documentary will be able to edit each person’s story, without taking out anything essential to that person’s truth and perspective regarding the overall story. As artists, we have the responsibility to stay true to our own vision for the work of art while not sacrificing the truth that is held in the data we collect for it. We must re-work the data to show our own vision, while still preserving the dignity of that which we used to communicate our own vision. Finding out that Sarah’s father is not actually her biological father opened up a new window of perspectives that were taken into play. It was interesting to hear people claim different things about the same situation in one story. For instance, Harry claimed that Diane’s affair with him was a public affair and that most of her friends were aware of it, but after interviewing some of Diane’s friends, it is clear that they did not view her affair with Harry as a public one. Once the audience knows that the attempt of the documentary is for Sarah to try and piece together the story of her mother’s life and how she loved and was loved, by collecting the accounts of everyone who is alive who can attest to it, it adds an importance to each individual’s perspective, without which, the story may not be the same.
Stop Motion
After viewing the stop motion devices at the MOMI and realizing the vast amount of movies that have been created using stop motion, I think there are several different ways to use stop motion for my class assignment. I think creating a flip book effect with sketches and drawings would allow me to be more abstract in my representation of the story. I think it would also be challenging and interesting to try and create miniature scenes using dioramas and dolls to realistically tell the story on a smaller scale. I would definitely find some inspiration from Mark Hogencamp if I were to go that route. I could also be interesting to try and create my own claymation. I could even create a “movie” through photographs I have taken and the stop motion would be in how long the moment of rest between the photos is. I think stop motion gives a new, organic element to story telling that can’t be found in movies or just photos. Stop motion gives you the option of telling a specific story through images but also having the advantage of that moment of rest between the frames that can allow for more change in between the frames and it adds a more playful feel to the whole story.
MoMI Response
Spending time at the Museum of the Moving Image was spectacular. I have always been fascinated by movies and animation. Seeing the sketches by Chuck Jones and how they translated from those sketches into the cartoons made me even more intrigued with the process of animated movies and shows. Seeing the Zoetrope really resonated with me and made me excited on what and how I can make my own stop image. Hoping to go into Fashion Design, costume design as always been something about movies that has always interested me and something I have considered going into more. Seeing the costumes on the second floor from movies like Chicago and Mrs. Doubtfire really inspired me and it intrigued me to look at the costume sketches next to the actual pieces because that is something that I have always wondered about: how exact are the costume sketches to the finished product.
Long Term Memory Research
Long Term Memory is intended to store information for over a long period of time. We have an unlimited amount of long term memory. These memories are encoded into our brains semantically – based on meaning and association. The process of making the memory consists of circuits of neurons, also known as neural networks, are created, altered, and/or strengthened in this process. These networks communicate through synapses, and with repeated use, these synapses are strengthened. These networks have connections to the visual cortex, auditory cortex, and associative regions of the cortex. These memories are not stored the same way short term memories are stored. Long term memories are stored in more stable and permanent changes in the neural networks spread throughout the brain. Short term memories can become long term memories though. The Hippocampus is used to move short term memories into long term memories. Forgetting, or not being able to recall long term memories occur because a once strong synapse is now weak, or because a new neural network has interfered with the one that already exists. Long Term Memory can be broken down into sub categories called Declarative (Explicit) – memories stored in your consciousness – and Non-Declarative (Implicit) – memories stored in your unconsciousness. Declarative can then be broken down into Episodic memory – the memories of specific events – and Semantic memory – memories of knowledge and information about the world. Likewise, Non-Declarative Memory can be split into Procedural memory – such as how to drive a car or ride a bike – and Priming/Conditioning, which is when you have learned to automatically associate stimuli together. For instance, you know not to touch a hot stove.
MoMA Response
Spending time at the Museum of Modern Art opened my eyes up to the amount of intention and work behind each art piece. As a younger teen, I never really gave modern art a chance. Now, more mature and more of an artist myself, I could tell these works of art told stories that I had never thought of before. I came to realize that it is important to learn more about the artist, their background, and the type of art that they are demonstrating in order to fully appreciate the art in front of me . One exhibit that spoke to me in a new way was the exhibition of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. His lithographs were representations of his memories of Paris at the time. Knowing this, the exhibit came to life in a new way. They were no longer just depictions of french women and men dancing or reading, I realized that these were real people – living and breathing at one point in time. Not only that, but these were Lautrec’s perception of them, which is interesting because you can learn more about Lautrec by looking at his depictions of others. These lithographs also show interesting elements of the memory. These memories of Lautrec’s now belong to future generations and how they will remember Paris at that time. Learning about the long and practiced art of lithographing also gave a new appreciation to the works in front of me. When looking at one of the works as a whole, it is beautiful enough, but once a person knows that each color in the picture depended on a new layer of ink and that most of the shapes, like heads, were created out of negative space, the audience can appreciate Lautrec’s work even more fully. Taking this new outlook and zeal with me, I explored rest of the museum and I even became intrigued in a new way by the works of Andy Warhol and Jason Pollock. It made me want to go home and do some more research on the intention behind their works and lives.
Marwencol Response
Mark Hogencamp uses his alternate doll world, named Marwencol, to cope with his loss of memory by playing out his emotions and coping processes through the alternate lives of the dolls. As he continues on his journey of recovery, he expresses his realizations, desires and flashbacks through this art craft. The photographs he takes of these dolls captures the human emotions in a a new and realistic way, that contradicts the artificial characteristics of the dolls. Through this, he creates very personal relationships with his dolls and creates new memories with them to compensate for the lost ones. For instance, since Hogencamp no longer remembers his real ex-wife and their marriage, he has created a very real relationship with his ideal “woman,” Anna, and created a marriage between her doll and his doll. Watching Hogencamp interact with the dolls, and seeing his genuine care and love for them was incredibly impactful. The vulnerability shown in the documentary and the sincerity put into his work and the progress he was trying to make was touching and shone a new light on how our memories form us and who we are. It was interesting to see how Mark rediscovered who he was in a way. For example, he didn’t realize that the women’s shoes in his apartment were his and that he liked to wear them. His memory of the attack had an enormous impact on him and his confidence in wearing them again. Once again, this shows how our memories have such a strong affect on our future behavior. With this new outlook, it is interesting to look back even on my more minute memories and how they have affected who I am today. I am going to take this new outlook as I approach my own memories and the way I articulate them in my work.