Month: May 2017
FINAL PROJECT – A LINEAR CIRCLE
Life and time relate to each other so much and in so many ways they are basically the same thing to me. I wonder about life and death a lot and it is in fact starting to severely affect my sleep. I am not very sure about whether this is a mental health issue or not but every time I turn off the lights to get ready to sleep, millions and millions of questions about death will just start bombarding me. I still remember how much I “looked forward” to death when I was very little. I wanted to know whether aliens exist, I wanted to know who built the pyramids… I thought if I die, I’ll know everything, so I kind of looked forward to it. Now thinking of how time passes, how people age and die, and how we will never understand what time is or if it is even real, I get this pure, black fear exploding me. I barely think about this during day times. Probably because how much I am distracted by school and life. This fear only strikes me right before I go to sleep – and it happens EVERY NIGHT. I’d start sweating, trembling; my pulse accelerates, then I’ll suffer breathing difficulty. Sometimes when it gets serious, I’d even lose sight for a few seconds. Am I just over thinking? This makes me care about myself, and my life a lot more. Maybe, I should just give it a break, since no matter how much and how hard I think about it, I won’t be able to get a convincing answer. This passion and love for my life derived from that dark fear will be something I’ll keep pouring into my work – which hopefully will stay on this world for a very, very long time.
A few days prior to starting this project, I watched an American show. In the show, the kids said “Love you, bye!” to their mom before their mom leaves for work. I then realized I have never said “I love you” in person to my parents because in Chinese culture this is considered rather awkward. Therefore people usually say “take care”. Initially I wanted to create a film that portrays a girl who grew up in the Chinese culture, realizes the same problem, and after a long struggle within herself, she finally said the three words to her parents. Her parents are shocked and for the first time they said it back to her. However, just a week after I finished my storyboard, I was struck by the news that one of my friends’ dad suddenly passed away in his sleep. There were no any signs, and he was only a little older than 40 years old. It was very devastating. Her mom was trying to stay strong so that she could keep the family from collapsing. After hearing this I did not sleep for three nights in a row. I was reminded of how close death is to all of us. She may ask from time to time, why chose my dad, of all people? Yeah, why chose her dad? … but then I cannot say “choose somebody else” because that somebody may be some other people’s father, some other people’s son, some other people’s husband… In front of fate, life and death, all we can do is wait. For we don’t know what happens after we die, or if anything will happen, we fear death. Yet it is because of this fear, we need to treasure this time, this dimension we different souls share and live in. Some say love is a chemical reaction in the brain and when we die and the brain decays, so will love. If that is true, it is very sad in deed. Love is an amazing feeling, I’d hate to not feel it anymore. Especially the love within a family. It’s indescribable. Therefore, in the end, I changed my story to where the girl, which is the main character, suddenly lost her mother, like my friend did. Even if time is like a circle as described in one of Einstein’s Dreams’ chapters, even if everything will repeat itself precisely and endlessly, if you’ve never told your mom you love her and then she passes away, she will never hear you say those three words. In other words, assuming that time repeats itself, then the fact that you’ve never said “I love you” to your mom while she is alive will also repeat itself. Since my friend’s father passing away left a great impact on me, I just want to convey the message that, though this is a very cliché thing to say, treasure every single moment with your loved ones! You never know, maybe that fierce argument you had with your loved one will be your last conversation – don’t let it be.
[PARSONS FIRST YEAR] CROSS-COURSE REFLECTION
ABOUT ME
I am Ming (Ameily) Chang. I’m from Taiwan but I grew up in several different places in China. This is my very first year in the United States. Though my major is illustration I have strong passion for many other types of art as well, ranging from 2-dimensional art like photography (both portrait and landscape), painting and graphic design to more complicated art like animation, film making, industrial design and a little bit of architecture.
MY FIRST YEAR AT PARSONS
When it comes to major projects, like the final projects, especially, we really have to learn to use our time practically and wisely. A big project is usually assigned several weeks before it’s due. In order to create my best work, I need to do a lot of research, prepare, make drafts/models, do critics and refine my drafts/models. Therefore in the very first days of those weeks I’ll have to make a rough plan about when to do what, along with projects/assignments from other courses.
I think what makes a project/paper exciting is how challenging, meaningful and inspiring it is. Especially when the assignment is very broad, which means we get to choose what we want to do. I believe for most people, the more interested they are in what they’re doing, the more time and effort are they willing to put into their work.
FIRST SEMESTER —————————————————————-
DRAWING & IMAGING
In this class we first started with blind continuous contour drawing, which was very interesting to me because I haven’t really done it before. Later we went into creating patterns digitally using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Then we combined digital designs with hand-drawn designs.
SPACE & MATERIALITY
we first started with making very detailed and precise industrial drawings of objects. Then we used wires to create a 3D shoe. Later in the semester we went into the wood shop and made a birdhouse and a lamp.
INTEGRATIVE STUDIO/SEMINAR: MEMORY
In the seminar class we did a lot of readings and went to several exhibitions about memories and our perception of this world. This is the class that involved the most group work. In the beginning of the semester we created masks based on our memories in studio class. The most memorable project for me was exploring a neighborhood with a small group and creating a book together about the trip. For the final project we did a photo shoot that recreates a scene of a fairy tale.
OBJECT AS HISTORY
At first I was like “uh history”. Then the readings and the lectures proved me right, they were a little too overwhelming for me – even though they were interesting. I tried really hard to catch up and participate. The final project was writing a paper comparing several historical art objects. I thought it was very challenging and exciting therefore I spent a lot of time and effort doing research and polishing the paper. As I love dragons very much, I did a paper that compares the meaning of dragons in Chinese and western arts.
SECOND SEMESTER ————————————————————
TIME: COMPOSITION
In this class we did many readings about how time is perceived, which really got me thinking a lot. Most our projects include creating films using Adobe Premiere Pro. As I am very interested in film-making, every project was exciting for me and I tried to do my best with all of them.
They are posted on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiHfXfuBuUP2fBEhsbjfxtQ
In the very beginning of the semester we made books using Adobe In Design using our own images.
we also have an on-going project throughout the semester – doing the same thing for 108 days and recording it.
SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS
I think this class is very important and meaningful in many ways. Prior to having this class, I am already very concerned with the environment and have always been trying to live as eco-friendly as I can. This class really just pushed it further.
INTEGRATIVE STUDIO/SEMINAR: VISUAL CULTURE
In the seminar class we did a lot of readings regarding how visual culture is affecting the society and our lives. The book Craft of Research was especially helpful for the final project, which is a paper about whatever we want to write about. In the studio class, we visited museums and made masks.
DIGITAL TOOLS: LAYOUT AND DESIGN
The projects in this class are very interesting and practical. In the very beginning we made a poster using Adobe In Design. Then most of the rest of the semester was about a very big project – virtual exhibition. Where we take photographs of locations where we think is the most suitable to exhibit our works. Then we photoshopped our works into those location photographs. Later we made posters, logos, mailers, e-vite… about the exhibition.
DRAWING THE IMAGINATION
In this class we did a lot of drawings that unleashed our imaginations. And we have a project that goes all the way through the semester – making 50 dream diaries. There were model drawings and collages. We did drawings in many mediums as well.
HIGHLIGHTS
SPACE AND MATERIALITY – THE LAMP PROJECT
To create the lamp base, we went out on the street to draw gum splats on the street. Each of us did about 15 drawings of different gum splats. Then we chose one of the drawings and created in 3-dimension using clay. Next we cut the clay model into slices with the same thickness. We then traced each slices to get line drawings of the shape of each slice. Then we cut wood to match the slices and put the pieces of wood together to recreate the clay model.
We went shopping at the lighting store together.
I thought about putting man-made plants on my lamp to create a more natural and cozy feeling. It was very unique and successful.
TIME:COMPOSITION – STILL TO MOVING IMAGES
The aim is to create a roughly 1 minute and 30 seconds video using a maximum of 36 still images with Adobe Premiere Pro.
I first chose my music (Dream, from the game Deemo). Then I made a story board while listening to the music. After I put the music and the pictures together, I worked on the voice over.
I used Chinese, which is my first language because I feel detached from any other languages.
Though I am from Taiwan, I grew up in a small, quiet town in Northern mainland China.
Now that my family has moved to another city, I am never going back to that town.
Ever since I moved to New York, I’ve been having these dreams where I found myself back in the town. In those dreams, I am the happiest person in the world and when I woke up to reality, I burst into tears.
CONCLUSION
Even though my major is illustration, I really hope I still get to have projects that involves film-making and going to the wood shop. I want to learn more about those things and hopefully become very good at them.
