I am Irin and I am studying in Strategic Design and Management. This is my first semester at Parsons. Compared to an artist, I am more willing to be called a creator. I totally agree with Xiaobo Wang, a Chinese writer, who said: “The true meaning of art is to be unpredictable.” Because art is unpredictable, it is so hard to be represented by any kind of forms such as painting and filming. However, painting and filming are all called art by the public just because they are much closer to the art itself than any other normal things in our daily life. I think what efforts I did as an artist from the beginning to the end as an artist are guiding my audience and expressing my understanding of the world by my talents such as drawing and filming. What the audience can really know is just my feeling. Now, especially in our generations, it does not matter what art really is because real artists only force themselves to understand the world instead of explaining. For example, when you are writing, you can never show to your audience what things really are. You can only write is your own feeling and experience of the world itself. And that is what I am looking for as an artist in my whole life.
Basically, the similarity in all the courses I took this semester is teaching me the basic skills. For Time class, I learned how to develop my idea by using sketches, photographies and videos which is quite similar to what I learned in my studio class. And for seminar class, I learned some writing skills and how to write bibliography and annotations which is similar to my ESL class. For example, I remember there is a same project in my both seminar and ESL class that is choosing an artist to write about why he should be memorized. What different between those classes is how my teachers developed and divided class. And for the connection between my academic studies and studio making, I think my studio and seminar classes are highly related. I have the same bridge projects in my studio and seminar classes but I need to do those projects in different ways. For seminar class, I need to write essays and papers. For studio class, I need to do paintings, collages and music video. The most exciting project in my seminar class is bridge project two that we have to do a interview with my partner and write an essay about her. I enjoy interviewing my partner because this is a good chance for me to get to know her. 
I like the final project in my time class the most. For the final project, we need to create an installation and I did one made up four huge frames that people can walk through. And in each frame, there is ropes around and I provide the audience markers to write down their problems and mood on those frames. I want to convey the idea of get over the problems and live in the eternity by letting people walk through the frames with ropes and words. At first, I just wanted to create a cage that full of ropes and let people walk through but I thought this would turn out to be ordinary and less interesting. So I changed my idea a lot. And I did some research about ropes art especially about Patrick Ireland who is a minimalist and made an installations of ropes. I think this project is important because it is my final project and it shows what I learned in this semester and I become a real artist after doing this project. If I can do it again, maybe I will use projector to project some words that people typed on my computer on those frames to create a mass and abstract atmosphere.
Another project that excites me is the music video. I did a music video about my experience in New York as an art student. I divided my video into four parts: the city view, enjoying being alone, friends and detailed dress forever because I think these are important parts that made up my life in New York. So I took a few interesting and abstract videos about each part and I put them together in a certain order to show my experience in New York. For the background music, I used a song called “Island” from a koran band called Hyukoh. I chose this song because I think this song appropriately expresses the idea of the loneliness but positive feeling of a person who is in a big city alone. I think this project is important because I learned how to use Premiere and how to show my feelings and ideas to the audience by making music video. If I can do it again, I will take more shots that I can have more choices.
In the following semester, I will spend more time on bibliography and annotations because they are still confusing to me. Also I think I need to improve my aesthetic taste and painting skills. And my music video project inspires me to another music video about my experience in Chongqing which is a beautiful city and also my hometown. I want to learn how to use Illustrator and keep improving my writing skills in the future.
