I am Vee (Qinglin) Wang. I come from Wuhan, China. I applied for Communication Design when I was admitted and decided to transfer to Design and Technology this semester.

For the first year study at Parsons, I made 7 videos, 5 animations, 9 drawing projects, 3 soft structure projects, 2 sound projects, 2 experimental projects (tree drawing and drawing), 7 3d modeling projects, 1 monoprints project, and 1 zine, and wrote 2 research papers. I found out that I did a lot of digital works as well as time-based work. For example, 5 of my drawing projects are digital drawings or combining of drawings on paper and digital drawings.Also, I often used narrative in my work. There are a lot of works of mine are involved in my work.

Highlights:

1.TIME — LIGHTHOUSE STORY

This project is the final project of Time class. It’s the visualization of the 5.1 surround sound story project, the final project of Sound and Space class. I started 5.1 sound project with generating 3 random words and make a story according to those three words. I got “depress, storm, page”. Because this is a sound project, I couldn’t use visual elements. After several revisions, the story became a really dark story: “You” are woken up in a fantasy world by the ringing of a phone, finding you are trapped in a lighthouse and the voice on the phone says you are going to die if you can get back to the real world. The storm is coming. And you try to find a way to escape but you fail. Finally, you become desperate and decide to suicide by jumping into a whirlpool. But you are not dead.

The visualization is different from sound because the imagination of the viewers plays an important role in perceiving the story. So this Time project is different from Sound and Space project. I began with making a storyboard. And I started to draw every scene frames by frames. I want the viewers to feel they are watching through the person’s eyes, so the only part of the person in my work that can be seen is the hands. And there are many blackout scenes. Longer blackout scenes appearing with sounds are designed for viewers to imagine what is happening. Because the sounds are effective in telling the story, using blackout can make it more mysterious and more effective. I combine what I learn in Time class and what I learn in Sound and Space class，which is an important reason for highlighting this piece.

And the tone of this piece is depressed and dark for the realistic drawings and creepy sounds. For the drawing part, I drew hands on top of the photos to show its realistic quality. And I also refer to the views of games to give the viewers a feeling of actually being in the scene.

Time class is my favorite class of foundation year because I love making time-based media.And I learned how to animate in Photoshop, how to edit videos in Premiere, and how to shoot using different compositions.

2.SOFT STRUCTURE — “I AM” OPTIMISTIC

This is an empowerment tool I designed in Soft Structure class. We started from sketching for different ideas. I finally chose the panda because it’s cute and panda is one of my favorite animals. It also indicates where I come from.

I made a hybrid animal in the first semester. That was the first time I made an animal. But this time, after taking Soft Structure class, I become professional. I developed the pattern all by myself.From designing, choosing fabrics, making a prototype, and writing empowering words, to sewing the final one on an industrial machine and presenting it to the class. I put lots of effort into this piece and I like it so much.I learned tons of things from doing it. More importantly, it’s an empowering tool.It has a “brain”, a “heart”, and a body filled with loving and encouraging words.Every time I see it, I become more positive.

I took this class until the spring break.This was the midterm project.I learned how to use industrial sewing machines and how to pattern in this class.Maybe I would never go into the fashion industry, but I love doing things by hands and this class has been really helpful.

The first year of college is really challenging for me in many aspects. Difficulties in language, culture, time management, assignments, doing presentations, participating class discussions made me exhausted. It’s hard to adapt to college life abroad.But I learned things that prepare us for future study.

Throughout the “torture” of the first year, I became more comfortable with speaking in class but still, I am quiet, especially in a class full of native speakers. Next semester I will work on it by setting little goals. I hope I can be more confident and contribute more to the class. In the first semester, I learned wood carving, figure drawing，and the basic of academic paper writing. I learned how to observe, and transfer concepts and ideas into a work. More importantly, the study of first year semester got us to interact with the city and nature. For example, in Drawing and Imaging class, we were asked to do observational drawings every week, so I went to the park a lot, and we did research and visited an abandoned place in the city for a project. In Space and Materiality class, we were asked to do tree drawing (attaching pens to branches and the wind would make branches move to make marks on a paper), and to observe the relationship of trees and people in the city, to observe different memorials in downtown, and to observe a tree and make a sculpture of the tree in wire. In Integrated Studio 1, we went to Union Square to do golden ratio in nature observation; we went to Central Park to do GPS drawing. This semester, we also had opportunities to get around the city while learning and practicing. For Integrated Studio 2, we had the color walk, and we were asked to go to museums like the MET, New Museum, and Whitney. Because of this class, I learn visit museums with questions and deeper thought instead of wandering around for fun. In Integrated Seminar 2, I went to the park for Ways of Seeing exercise, from which I learned how to observe, how to find problems through observing, and to be a positive learner. Semiotics exercise makes me learn to observe different signs around the city and help me have a better understanding of visual culture. In Soft Structure class, we were given the precious opportunities to visit New York Toy Fair and this is one of the happiest experiences in my freshman year (despite the fact that I withdrew this class to maintain the sanity). In Sound and Space class, we had a field trip to the Dream House and the High Line. We felt the sounds in different space to learn how space impact sounds, and we also felt the city with our heart due to so. Because I don’t  have a lot of free time to travel the city, I  appreciate those opportunities to get us out there to know more about the city and people here as when are doing homework and learning and experiencing new things.