Link to the PDF file:
Narrative:
The story is told from Kieron’s (the character) point of view.
Kieron has been living in New York for a month. It was early in the morning, Kieron is meeting up with all of his old friends who came to New York for school, just like him. He goes out for a stroll like he always did when he woke up early, before he came to NYC. He passes the park beside his apartment, seeing the white flowers that reminded him of his backyard back when he lived in LA. He passes the big majestic arch that he appreciates so much. He spent hours around the neighbourhood to take in as much as this small portion of New York can offer. He arrives in the restaurant, and meets up with his friends. They spend the entire day together recalling their lives since they were simple minded children. At night they eat in the dimly lighted Japanese restaurant. Kieron might be a bit drunk at this point, no one knows what happens next. Not even Kieron. He wakes up suddenly in the midst of the street. He must have blacked out, Kieron thinks. Upon waking up he realizes one issue. He cannot remember who he is. At that confusing moment, he sees a Chinese restaurant before him. It feels like a familiar sight, as it reminds him of a certain place. Furthermore. He can only see the strong red of the characters which are popping up to him. Everything else is desaturated. He doesn’t know why but he’s got a strong attraction to this colour. He wanders around the street, but it does not feel like a random stroll around the streets, he is following his pure instincts. The more he walks the more familiarity forms, but he just cannot shape what is it that is missing. He sees a red sign in front of him, and it is apparently an art store. Yet again, Kieron is confused on why did his mind take him to this spot. The strong red is like a magnet to his eyes, as he feels a strong connection to this sign. Kieron starts moving on again, this time to a bar, the red catches his eyes, a sudden spark of visual memory flashes through his head. He sees people, drinking. The faces seem blurred out, but he can feel that strong connection yet again. The instinct driven thoughts and actions become stronger. It drags him to the subways next, he knows exactly where he is going while he consciously doesn’t. Dawn comes, he can begin to see the sky light up. He stops for a moment as he hears a sound drawing near. A fire truck passes and the although the sound is sharp and ear piercing, it somehow brings peace to him. Through the noise he feels another spark coursing through his mind. Kieron decides to keep on persevering despite his exhaustion. He gets a bike and takes the wheels uptown. He stops right outside of a guitar shop. Yet again, a different sign but with the same poppy red attracts him. He feels compelled to go in. Kieron without hesitation heads into the store and gets overwhelmed with visual details. He moves toward the guitars, and as his eyes slowly move across the rows, he can start hearing music fast tempo music playing in his head as his fingers move unconsciously. Kieron goes back out and start seeing the world around him saturate. His feet start moving faster. In the duration of a few seconds, he passes a market, his mind registers the smell of the fresh fruit, which covers up the stench of the city street and gives him another sign of familiarity. The sun is rising, and a ray of yellow is visible. He is drawn by it. And he follows the long avenue up toward the sunlight. As the tint of the yellow gets stronger the more saturated the world seemed. And finally, in that split second when a stream of light hits his eyes. Everything became clear, and his memories flood back in, as he stands still and looks at the familiar sky.
Reflection: For this assignment I took pictures of random scenes or objects that reminded me of something. Mostly things that reminded me of my past back in LA, or further back, when I was in Shanghai. I went out to the streets without having any specific places as an objective. I simply went out with my camera, walking the streets and taking turns randomly. I would observe everything slowly, and when I saw something that suits the prompt, I snapped a photo of it. The process of me taking the pictures does sort of relate to the idea of shift. I am through constant motion shifting through Manhattan, and my images present the shift through space, from one location to another distinct location, and also the shift of the hour, from day to night. From the many pictures I had taken, I selected about 24 pictures to actually choose from for my final piece. Then came the hard part. Arranging images to tell a story is not an easy task, it was pretty challenging, especially when I had to work with 18 images in total. Through the process I thought that maybe the raw images were not enough, I could go a step further and tweak the photos slightly. I found a pattern in the photo, all of them have the colour red as focus points. I decided to desaturate everything except for the red in the photos with the pattern I mentioned. And use that as an addition to the narrative. It was a bit time consuming and difficult as it was the first time I tried this in photoshop. For each individual picture I had to create two layers and then isolate the colour I wanted. Despite it being the first time, it did turn out well in my opinion. As for the story, it also follows the shift concept. It has a very half mysterious and confusing plot. It is pretty open for interpretation of others. The gist is basically that this Kieron character wakes up after he blacked out for an unknown reason, and finds himself in a state of amnesia. The colour red is the only colour he can see upon waking up is because it left the greatest impression on him since he was born. The places that are the most memorable to him has the colour red and it catches his eyes. Each place or thing he sees makes him get closer to rediscovering himself. The main three elements are visual, audio, and scent memories. After the guitar scene he comes out and sees that the colours of the world are becoming more saturated. It is just a way to indicate that he is becoming more clear of who he is. Eventually, in the end, the beautiful sunrise completely breaks his amnesia and makes Kieron remember himself. The thing is that the memories flooding back are not of New York. It is that the things he sees in Manhattan reminds him of where he comes from. And as for the six word memoir I thought more on the wording rather than the concept, as the I had a clear concept in my head. In the end after some thoughts at night, I went with “Find the past in the new” which is trying to express that, even if you are in a new place, you can find elements of where you came from, the environment that had shaped you into who you are and eventually led you to the new place.
