Intro

Welcome to Ethan Briens website. I am a Junior at Freestyle taking English. Design and Digital Media. This is my first completed project in which This is my first website so there might be some glitches so work with me.

The purpose of this Conceptual Project is to allow us to explore and develop our abstract thinking and communication skills and how to combine both these aspects into creations of art. In English class we were required to write an Expository Essay about one of our biggest passion and create haiku, free verse, spoken word, and ekphrastic poems. In Digital Media we had to take our Haiku and use our newfound knowledge of Pro Tools to create music, record our poems and create a clip in Animate. In Design we were suppose to take one of our poems that we wrote in english a produce a photo that reflects the poem. We then had to create a concept statement of our photo that we chose or picked. Throughout my websites it shows all of the work I have done in this unit. In my poems section it has the 3 poems I wrote in English. In my Haiku section there will be another video with music and voice recording for me performing the poem. I made this video Pro Tools and Animate to create the video. My Art section shows my Conceptual Art that I created and finally in my Music section it shows my experimental music that I created on my own.

Poems

In English we started the poems unit. Starting with the free verse and then the spoken word. After our trip to the SF MOMA we explored ekphrastic poems. We started to then learn how to create music and edit pictures to create an audio and picture clip for each of our poems. We did this by using Photoshop, Protools and Animate.

Photo of Free Verse Poem
Free Verse Poem
Photo of Spoken Word Poem
Spoken Word Poem
Photo of Ekphrastic Poem
Ekphrastic Poem
Haiku

We started our year in Freestyle with Haikus. I learned about the elements of a Haiku. We looked at metaphors, a kigo (seasonal word), and a kireji (cutting word). Our Haiku’s were based off of the concept statement that we were given in class. “Exploring the feeling of worry through the experience of getting caught”. Our assignment was to write our haiku off of these statements, using all the elements of a Haiku that we learned, and then to attach a photo that goes with the Haiku for a visual that connects to the message. The background image of my Haiku was taken on a plane flying back from Iceland this summer. I took the photo on my phone myself.

In Digital media, we took the photo haikus and made them into videos using Adobe Animate, with music made in Pro Tools to set the tone. I learned how to use Animate and Pro Tools for the first time by doing this project.

Art

I am exploring the feeling of texture through the process of repetition.

Photo of Free Verse Poem
Conceptual Art

The Design Conceptual Art assignment was to express our concept statements through the art of photography. ("Exploring the feeling of texture through the process of repetition") We also learned how to edit our photographs using Photoshop. We also learned about the important Elements of Design such as form, color, texture, etc. For the first time I had to apply the knowledge learned about aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to an actual project, and not for just practice.

I wanted to explore how to create a texture in a picture. I wanted to create this using the lines “Layers of pain on top of me Scratch my face like tree branches on a windy day. White lines, deep blue Broken plastics on my face. I play over and over” I wanted a superficial piece so I didn’t use any exterior objects and shot the paper as is. However, I did have to bring in extra lighting to get the correct show cast on the background. Taking the photo I had issues framing the picture because of the paper falling over and my face in the bathroom and parts of me that I didn’t want showing.

I had taken a class in photography sophomore year which had taught me a lot of about how to properly adjust the shutter speed and exposure so that my photos would not turn out too dark or too bright. This turned out to be super helpful. The final edit that I created was something where i just wanted to experiment. I selected half of the picture and desaturated that selection to create a half color, half black and white picture. From there I increased the vibrance and exposure of the color selection to create a larger contrast between the two sides.

Music

The Experimental Music assignment was to create a one minute song using Pro Tools. The mood of my music is calming and simple. Not having played an instrument for 5 years put me at a disadvantage because I didn’t know any notes and didn’t know how to read music.