- What skills did you practice and develop over the course of the semester? What skills do you want to continue to develop in the spring? Describe at least 2 or 3 specific skills. [skills can relate to studio practices, writing, research, etc.]
- Premiere pro. I used is Adobe video making software for the first time this semester am now familiar with many techniques to use in it. In the past, I have always been editing videos with iMovie and it was a very easy experience. With Premiere Pro, a lot of special effects have to be done manually, however, this also means I can personally manipulate each effect to my best wish. It is very fun to use the software for editing knowing the fact that most of the major moving images are edited with it.
- Problem-solving skills for life, art creation, and academics. Although this is a very broad skill to describe, I want to cover it in this reflection. Problem-solving in all aspects of life is vital for one’s mental health. I have learned this during high school senior year where I was stuck on one college application essay and that was the darkest period of time in my life. I overcame that time period by thinking out of the box and finding another approach to the problem. Since then, I have applied this skill of thinking creatively and directly at the problem to events I faced this semester. I also wish I can keep developing this skill not only in the spring but in the future as well.
- Effective reading skills. This is the skill that I have always wanted to develop and I am very happy and surprised that I have gained this skill during the first semester of college. Both the seminar class and the poetry class I took at Lang help me with this skill. With the huge amount of readings I receive every week, I was forced to read faster and more effectively. The talking notes from the seminar class have entirely changed my way of reading, I started to read actively and not as a “consumer.” I stopped to look for what is interesting or fun to me in the text and read with an objective.
- How did your understanding of art and design change between the start of term and now? What are you still hoping to learn?
Before coming to college, my understanding of art and design was very constrained to myself. I could only understand art and design through my own practices as my high school has very different people, and only a small amount of them were doing art. In the first semester of college, I have met numerous fantastic artists (both classmates and professor) that use very different or similar approaches to create art and interpret art. For example, I used to think of installation to be merely a collection of the various materials used to express a single idea of the artist. however, after talking with many other classmates of mine who also make installations, I discovered that each individual artist has their own understanding of the medium of installation and also other media used for artistic creations.
It is exactly these distinct, unique interpretations held by each individual artist that makes their work insightful and stand out from other artworks. However, I still hope to learn the functioning of the art world. This is definitely a huge topic and probably impossible goal to achieve but I guess this is just like me saying I want to learn how the adult world works so that I can thrive in it without acting dumb to get what I want. Hence, I guess to be more specific, I hope to gain more insights into the art world so that I can find my own position in it. This is not a short term goal and it probably cannot be achieved in decades. Yet, I believe if I keep this goal in my mind while making art and engaging with different artists, I will be able to become a better artist myself.
- What insights have you had about your working process? What do you think you do well? What do you want to continue to work on? [working process = time management, organization, planning, asking questions, working through course material, etc.]
Throughout the first semester of college, I have created 26 pieces of artworks in total from all my classes. I have never created more artworks in such a period of time. The number was striking to me as I counted all the works I have made this semester because although it was exhausting both mentally and physically, I never felt the lack of inspiration or idea throughout the fifteen weeks.
I would never imagine that I can create almost two works per week. However, I did it. Although some of them were not my proudest works, I have managed to not fail any of my ideas. For example, once introduced to an assignment, I am always Abel to generate multiple ideas for the prompt and then quickly settle on one specific idea that I am most interested to work on. It was not until this semester that I discovered this ability of mine to quickly set goals and plan out the overall timeline for the project. Moreover, I very much enjoy the process of problem-solving (generating ideas and rejecting them because of certain limitations I found regarding the idea). However, I do also realized my limitation in using only certain materials that I am familiar with to create work. For the future, I wish I can explore and work with more materials that I am not familiar with right now. This way, I can expand my art creation skills and maybe even explore more topics to work within my art creations.
- Look back at your Manifesto (Bridge Project 1). What do you think of it now at the end of the semester? Have your goals been met? Have your goals changed?
To my surprise, I have met most of the goals I listed on my manifesto. This is a very exciting thing for me to learn because I have always enjoyed making new year resolutions but never end up in achieving half of them. At this point, I have met nine goals out of the eleven I set for myself. I’m not sure if it’s me who has changed after I came to the US or that I have become better at goal setting. However, the two goals I have not yet met are to lose weight and read more. These two both require high commitment and determination. As I am very good at finding excuses for myself at times, I tend to not be able to achieve such goals throughout the year.
Looking back at the eleven goals I set for myself 15 weeks ago at the beginning of the semester, I find it interesting that none of them have changed. I still wish myself to do the same as I wished at the beginning and now that I have achieved most of them, I wish I can maintain the status in the future. I am extremely happy to learn this fact because this means that now I am developing into a somewhat static person who does not easily shift from one to another.
- Look back at your past work this semester across all of your courses. What are you most proud of? Why?
I am most proud of a short video I created for my Time class. The assignment was to shoot five 5 seconds individual clips and edit them together. A sixth clip could be added to the whole film at the beginning, the end or in between the five clips (but could not be in the middle of one clip). This sixth clip could be at any length but no longer than ten seconds. This was a challenging assignment for me because I have never made films with such strict restrictions (especially in length). I had no sense of time in terms of filming—the time in filmmaking is very different than in real life. A shooting can alter the sense of time drastically if the shot is well designed. However, I was not interested in making a narrative for that project as I am more interested in conceptual visuals than narrative stories. I have picked the audio for this project at the very beginning and everything else follows very naturally with the audio.
Apart from the compliments received from classmates and the professor, I am most proud of this project because of the making process. I went to DUMBO in Brooklyn with my boyfriend to shoot the clips. To have more visual effects, I stayed at DUMBO from the afternoon to the evening to capture different light in a day. While walking around the area, I have captured many unexpected scenes. This way, when I was editing I had plenty of sources to work with. Moreover, for the project, I have used a digital video recorder to fo the filming. It was an interesting experience because I got to work with a medium from the past and the effects it creates were also very worth experimenting. The videos were recorded on an actual cassette tape and this fact gives more weight to the project, which also aids me in making the project more fascinating.
- (Answer this question after your Bridge 4 Presentation) What feedback did you receive? What is your interpretation and response? What will you improve/keep in mind for future projects?
For Bridge 4, I have created a proposal and model for a public art idea that I have developed. During the critique, I have received both positive and negative feedback which is very helpful for my reflections on this project and possible future execution. The positive feedback includes my use of bright, contrasting, primary colors; the abstract geometric shape constructed in the sculpture; the purpose of creating an iconic recognizable installation for Tompkins Square Park; and the engagement with local skateboarders. These aspects mentioned by my classmates and teacher boosted my confidence in standing with my idea. In the initial brainstorming phase, I was not certain about this idea as it has multiple purposes (which is often not a good thing for a piece of artwork) and it involves a subculture of skateboarding that most of my audience in class are not familiar with. However, the responses I received from the critique proved my success in expressing my message both verbally and through the model.
Some negative feedback and suggestions include comment on the scale of the sculpture, the application of artificial turf, and the interaction with skateboarders. These comments help me with further developing my ideas. For example, the scale of the sculpture is intended to be about two floors high and there is no accessibility to the upper part of the work. Some comments I received during critique inspired me to do further designs on the “second floor” of the sculpture so that more people can engage with the work. The application of artificial turf at certain surfaces on the sculpture was also talked a lot during the critique. Apart from its purpose being a farce to the rally happened earlier in the summer of 2019, the application of the turf on this proposed work can have more thoughts and more options to be installed. For instance, as I do not wish the addition of the turf to the sculpture would affect skateboarders exploring the work, a mirror or reflective material could be added to the opposing side of the turf so that passersby can see the turf while skateboarders are not limited by the turf.
