Chantal Shen
1-29-20
Ruth Eisenberg
Wk 2 In-Class Assignment–Group Review of Color-Coded Word List
An interesting idea that we came up with was exploring the concept of how memories can be influenced. Whether it be by time or the persuasion of another. We talked about how your brain can trick you into thinking or remembering a certain thing happening, even when it hasn’t. Some examples we discussed were about how some interrogation methods include coercing potential a person of interest into confessing to something they actually haven’t done. We also talked about how people can convince themselves something hasn’t happened and their brain can trick them as a way of protection or as a coping mechanism.
Ideas –
Dreams:
- Sleeping
- I take a lot of naps
- My mom thinks I sleep too much
- Sometimes my sleeping habits allow me to escape life
- How I mostly have nightmares
- My friend keeps a dream journal
- I find it interesting what my dreams potentially mean
- Dreaming about death and apocalypse worlds
New York:
- Trash, dirty streets, finding new things every day
- Finding cool street art
- Living in close quarters
- Subway
- A guy got hit by a train while my friends and I were going back to the dorm from Chinatown
- Canal street
- Asian culture in NY
- Lunar new year
- Shanghai dumplings
- Soup dumplings and rice cakes
Time:
- Growing up in LA
- My old house
- Already being in my second semester
- Memories
- How things I’ve read in high school still impact my art
- How I still love experimenting with new art practices
Some interesting questions:
An interesting idea that kept coming up in my writing was the idea of memory and how it affects the present even though it occurred in the past. The concept of physical/five senses affecting memory and the act of remembrance in everyday life really intrigues me. Some of the questions that I came up with were, how does memory and experience affect how we react in certain situations? Why are we sometimes triggered by words or smells or tastes, taking us back to a moment in time that we remember? Why do certain memories stick out? Are the mundane experiences or high-intensity situations more memorable?
Something that relates to memory I think is also the effect it has on dreams, and what that means in relation to what is happening in real-life. I think that dreams are fascinating and I have had some pretty crazy-weird ones. Some questions that came up for dreams was, why do we have the dreams we do? Do some people see them as premonitions or memories or something completely conceptual? What are the most common dreams amongst people? What do dreams reflect? How do dreams relate to emotion and memory?
