For the first project, the Personal Flag, because I wanted to show that games had a huge impact on my life and that it’s something I want to pursue, I made my project interact. The folders replicate folders on a computer, clicking through an adventure and exploring different paths.
For the second project, the Body Extension, my partner and I chose to do something with vision. The design of it looks similar to an Oculus Rift (please don’t sue me), which was something I realized while building my piece. When worn, the wearer can see everything in a more magnified, but distorted light. We connected this to the fact that the more you search the truth, especially in this day and age with fake news even from “authorities”, the blurrier it gets. So what is the truth exactly?
For the third project, the Site-Specific Installation in Washington Square Park, The Five Footer’s (our collective name), manifesto was to reveal the truth of George Washington. We idolized him throughout history almost as a god, ignoring the inhumane things he did and that fact that, he too, is just a human. The medium we used for this project was flyers, stickers, and badges, attempting to emulate other protesters using this easy method as an accessible way of spreading information and awareness.
The fourth project, the Conceptual Avatar Project, I chose to create an origin story for an anti-hero, a vigilante basically. Just like many other animated shorts, I wanted to illustrate a narrated story and make it somewhat animated at least. I just ended up with an abstract music video however.
My Ambition and My Mission
Throughout the semester in the studio, I worked with mostly photoshop and just illustrating my ideas, however, the one time this was not the case was the project on body extensions, which was required that we build something. I was not familiar with arts and crafts, but I took my time meticulously calculating measurements so the ocular headset’s open rectangular prism would be built accurately. I was not familiar with what sorts of materials I wished to build my body extension with and although I had first sketched out plans to craft with wood (the only thing I knew how to build with at that point in time), I ended up using vinyl, foam sheets, and magnifying sheets – many sheets, and I am glad I did so because of how clean it looked. I was going for a minimalistic look and I figured a block of wood painted white wouldn’t fit that description. As for After Effects and Photoshop, I want to keep improving myself in those mediums and work hard towards my goal of being a game designer.
Sketches from my first DnD game with my friends. I had interest in this game for a long time now because of its live storytelling.
The one concept that stuck with me the most from seminar stems from Nelson Goodman’s text, Ways of Worldmaking: Fact from Fiction, and Elinor Ochs and Lisa Capps’ text, Narrating the Self. I was able to connect the two when researching the relationship between cultural trauma and cultural identity and, consequently, its effects. In the case in which a horrendous event occurs to the point a collective’s cultural identity is also drastically affected, is when this happening is labeled cultural trauma. What comes from this is not only devastation and destruction, but creative work such as personal narratives – work is created from their real experiences. When they take shape, they form their own meanings and concepts, bringing fact from fiction.
The research I gathered from the topic of the effects of cultural trauma on a collectives identity surrounds major, horrendous man-made events, such as the Holocaust and slavery. However, I also ran into natural disasters, which was something I had not thought of since I was so focused on infamous iconic events. The text, Ten Years after Katrina: Critical Perspectives of the Storm’s Effect on American Culture and Identity, focused not on the destruction this event caused on the Gulf Residents and America as a whole, but the creative output it caused in order to understand how our stories reflect and produce cultural identity. After learning that this event not only affects the collective but the lives surrounding that collective as well, I researched on individuals. For example, the Japanese living America in World War II were viewed as “enemy aliens” after the bombing of pearl harbor. I am sure that this collective harbored conflictive feelings seeing their home country being bombed as well. An artist, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, at that time was forced to confront questions of his loyalty, assimilation and national and racial identity.
For someone going into game design, the narration is also something imperative to storytelling games. My character’s backstory goes through this trauma of having her parents killed and then herself being killed as well. The fact that she was reborn and awoke with the power to manipulate her own blood is something I wanted to explore as I built her character. How does this trauma affect her individuality? Becoming reborn seems to be representative of having a double personality, “awakening” her other side. Has that other side always been there? Waiting to manifest? Or could it just be a defense mechanism for herself to avoid the truth since being hot-blooded with hatred and anger is easier to handle than confronting the truth herself? Instead of focusing on cultural trauma and a collective, I want to explore trauma and its effects on individuality.
Something I was surprised to discover was how much popularity our George Washington stickers and badges had. Our collective had based on the idea of handing out flyers and badges to send a message, but we did not predict the prospect of the stickers being collectibles. I had an epiphany when I remembered a while back in high school, there was a person handing out stickers of Black lives matter, which I then spotted pretty much everywhere in school (and on it). Many other protests also use this method of sending messages through an item that sticks onto your stuff. I mean it is a sticker, what else would you do with it (besides throwing it out)? I think for many of the projects, excluding the body extension, I would stare at the prompt and think of a way to own it and work on photoshop or illustrate it, two methods I am most passionate about. Another point would be to take a step back and maybe show your progress to someone in order to have a fresh perspective because for the conceptual avatar project, I was narrating everything in my head, and the flaw in doing so was that nobody else would understand but me. They would at least view it as something abstract, which was part of my intention at certain scenes, but not for the entirety of the animated short.
Michelle currently studies at Parsons school of design and commutes from Queens every day because of costly dorming expenses. Of course, they each have their own advantages and disadvantages, but, to sum it all up, Michelle believes commuting is annoying and wishes she could dorm. In her free time, she dreams of fantasy worlds and that world’s individual characters. She entered Parsons wanting to pursue game design because of her love and admiration for storytelling games. She imagines working with a team and going through rough and rigorous days to complete projects, an experience that already sounds familiar. But creating a game for the enjoyment of others and herself is worth it.
Here’s my mind map created from my experiences in this semester:
A List of things imperative to the process of creation:
- Why is this important? To you? To the world?
- Before getting a picture of what your creation will look like, what is it even about?
- From that what kind of materials can you use to portray that?
- mind maps, sketches, and actual drafts (not my inadequate ones for Bridge 4;_;)
Also since there’s a due date for these projects, you have to manage your time well. As shown in my mind map, I’m pretty much a mess 99% of the time – the 1% is me telling myself I should do something productive. What I wanted to get into was that I was able to flesh out all my ideas I wanted to do for Bridge 4, but that was also just me messing up my origin story into some weird abstract music video. I wanted to achieve something like:
but I made something like:
– but at least Battleborn’s animated intro had a clear story to it.
So in terms of narration, specifically a narrative animation, I needed to flesh out my ideas of the universe I built so that other people could understand it. For a quite a long time now I’ve been at a deadlock, just drawing in my sketchbook and not pursuing bigger projects. So this semester was really great for me, despite being difficult, to be exposed to new things.
