Bridge 1: SELF

Studio: Create 2 self portraits, one based on how your presence is seen online and another based on how you see yourself. Consider what possible images of yourself emerge out of the following: the content you share on social networks, what advertisers think you like, the information that can be collected about you through online surveillance, your browsing history, what algorithms prioritize for you, and what shows up on your social media feeds. The final form of this project will be 2 photo collages juxtaposing the portrait of who you are to data collection agencies and who you feel that you are.

Seminar: Write a max. 800-word piece reflecting on any or all of the following questions: to what degree is your online self ‘real’? Is your IRL self more real? To what degree do people in 2018 have ‘real’ selves at all? What does it mean to lose privacy, and have we fully lost it now? If not, which aspects of your life are still private?

While we created collages that represented out digital vs real selves in studio, in seminar we were tasked with really thinking about the question of whether our online personas were really us. As an incoming freshman in college, looking at who I was is how I became who I am. This project really made me look at the way I presented myself in a different light, and help me find out who I wanted to be. This project is the embodiment of my development into adulthood.

Bridge 2: Thinking Outside the Box

Studio : Select an artwork from the exhibition Half the Picture at the Brooklyn Museum that speaks to a concern that resonates with you. Spend time with the artwork and share your experience with a partner. Working together with your partner, imagine a utopian place in which both of the issues you have identified have been solved. This would be the perfect place for both of you. Where is this place? What is it like? Who is included/excluded? Your piece can be a drawing, sculpture, video, sound piece, or performance. It has to be able to be installed in the classroom for presentation.

Seminar: Write a max 800-word piece reflecting on the process of creating a utopia. What are some of its features? Why do you consider them utopian? What might go wrong in this utopia over time? Is it possible to create a world without problems, or only worlds with different problems?

In Bridge 2, I had to create a Utopia in studio, while thinking what really defines a utopia in seminar. With little to no restrictions in this project, my partner and I really want to push ourselves to see what we could create. We not only went out of our own comfort zones whether it was a digital artsits going tradition or a tradition artist using technology for the first time but really looked to find a way to combine our strengths to do something neither of us could do alone.

One thing that I was taught growing up was that “To stand taller than a giant, you must stand on his shoulders” and this lesson really resonated with me throughout my time here in studio and seminar. With each project, I always used tools or ideas that I acquired in previous projects. You can see how both my black and white collage and my Bridge 2 have a similar structure to it. Working on my collage was what gave me the inspiration to create my Bridge 2.

Even when thinking outside the box, I have come to realize that the first step is to always look back on what you have done to see what you could do.

Bridge 3: Working in a Team

Studio: In groups, produce a movie poster for a fictional horror film that you develop in Seminar. The fictional film’s plot should address an urgent, real life, concern, through the perspective of a cyborg, a human-machine hybrid. The poster will communicate key ideas not only about the character’s perspective but about the world within which it takes place as well. Each group will collaborate to develop the many components involved in the production process: costume design and styling for the character, setting and props, copywriting, illustration, photography and lighting, image processing, poster layout, and typography.

Seminar: Write a max 800-word ‘review’ of this imaginary film — pretend it’s a real film that you’ve seen, and convey its essence and good/bad qualities to a potential viewer.

Working as a team is always hard. Rather than doing whatever you want, you now have to consider what others want as well and we all know that humans are inherently selfish. But with this con comes a lot of pros. Rather than one brain working, you now have many, each with their own unique ideas. And when these ideas fall together like puzzle pieces, we are left with something better than what any single person can do on their own.

Bridge 4: Integration of Different Media

Studio: Create a 3-5 minute sound portrait of a person, place, event, or object. Explore ways to incorporate research, contextual references, and observation into a final composition that functions as a sound-based avatar of your chosen subject. Through various methods of recording, editing, and composing, you will employ sound as a medium for storytelling. The final form for this project will be a resonant object or designed environment in which the sound portrait will be experienced.

Seminar: Write a min 3-page research paper on a person that intrigues you.

I have never used sound as an art form in my life. Art has always been a visual media to me. Music was music and art was art. But this project showed me differently. Why I didn’t think so? Because I lacked depth in my idea. Before this project, most of my work was something I thought up in a matter of minutes or hours, but this was more than that. To create a portrait using only sound that embodied a person was something you cannot do in a day. Seminar really allowed me to explore the person I was researching and it was only then, I was able to think of an idea for my sound portrait.
And it wasn’t until I created my sound portrait that I was able to create my installation. From writing to sound to painting, each one influenced the other. It was a combination of research and creative thought that gave me to ability nad tools to make what I did.