This is my Conceptual Project page, here I have 5 sections. 1st section is Introduction, 2nd section is Poems, 3rd section is Photo Haiku, 4th section is Art, and lastly my 5th section is Music. You will see all the projects I have done this year through out each of my class. In Freestyle all classes in a way connect. For example, in English we have had our poetry unit. We wrote poetry, after in web audio we took our poems and used Photoshop to add a photo for the background and than pro tools to add music before and after we have recorded ourselves saying our poems. In English we had written a haiku in which we then took a photo to display our haiku. We later on took our poems and photo and make a video in Flash. In the section 4th "Art" you will see my conceptual project we had in design. We were given a conceptual statement in English, and we were to display it in a photo. My conceptual statement was, "I am exploring the feeling of shock through the experience of accepting others who are different." Finally, in our music section you will see my first music that I have composed my self. I do hope that you find my final projects interesting! Thank you for visiting my Conceptual website page.

 

In our poetry unit for English we had written four poems. One was a 10 line poem, second was a ekphrastic poem, and third was our spoken word poem. The poetry unit was quite exciting for me, I was impressed with my final poems. For my ten line poem we had to write about our conceptual statement and the object we brought to represent our statement. My conceptual statement was, "I am exploring the feeling of shock through the experience of accepting others who are different." I brought a yearbook for my object, it was an old yearbook from my dyslexic school. I chose it because it showed all the different people there were in this school, yet we all got along. For our ekphrastic poem we went to the SF Fine Arts Museum that displayed art. We had to choose one painting that we would write a poem about. I chose the painting "If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink" by Jess (Burgess Franklin Collins). As for our last poem we had to write a spoken word poem and present it in class. I chose to write about the journey of my dyslexia. I tried to put complicated words into my poem. I hope you enjoy all of my poems, I loved writing them all.

We were assigned a project were we were given a conceptual statement in class. I received the statement, "I am exploring the feeling of shock through the experiences of accepting others who are different." We had to write a haiku based off our statement, and then take a photo to match with our poem. Our haiku needed a cutting word, a seasonal clue, and a shift tone. I made the word "wild" the cutting word, the seasonal clue was the line "barefoot in the grass" to represent summer. Lastly, my tone shifting in my poem was when I said the line, "But we're all the same". I took a photo of two children playing in the park, the children in our society can be seen as "wild" or "crazy". But at their age children do not think about their differences, and without hesitation they accept one other. Also children are youthful and playful which represent summer as well.

 

In Web audio we took our photo and transformed it into a video by using Flash. We had intro music with the title of out haiku photo, and then we recorded ourselves saying our poem while displaying our photo. Finally, in the end of our video we added more music. While I am saying my poem in the video I added bird sounds, I couldn't find children laughing soundtrack. I really wanted to make the photo come alive. I have an intro music that is 21 seconds long, it is this beautiful violin piece, I couldn't force myself to cut it short. Although, this project was stressful it was extremely exciting to learn how to use Flash. I hope you enjoy my photo haiku video!

Conceptual Art assignment was to take the conceptual statement we received in English and to display it in a photo. We weren't allowed to have any animals or human no matter if they were dead or not in our photo. In our photo we had to have multiple objects that worked together to represent our two points in our statement. For instance, I had to show the feeling of shock and the experience of accepting others for their difference. While taking our photo we had to think about our background, our light, our line composition, and many other rules of photography that we learned in class. We were required to pick one object in our photo that we would apply a filter. OF course the filter and to have a meaning for its use. After we had finished editing our photo we had to write a paper describing the process and intentions. This was an exciting project for me.

My conceptual statement was, “I am exploring the feeling of shock through the experience of accepting others who are different.” For my photography conceptual project I thought of people and different ethnicities and how they might mix. To represent this I chose Barbie dolls of four different ethnicity. One I believe to be Latino, one Indian, one African American, and one white. I wanted to put different body parts on each doll that had a different shade of skin color. This would show that they accept their different ethnicities because they are all the same. In my photo I have the dolls placed as if they were building each other. And their arms are up as if they are embracing each other. It was also a plus that all the dolls are smiling, showing they are happy to be together. To display shock, my first thoughts was to display the feeling through the composition of the photo. But during class my group gave me ideas about religion, race, sexuality and how people react to it. They also mentioned burning all these objects which I thought was a tad extreme. I decided that to have blood in my photo added a discomfort, and surprise into it. Without the blood the barbies looked content and perfect like usual. At the most basic level we have all the same blood. Yet by adding blood the situation became much more dramatic. Finally the fact that the barbies faces were smiling while they were pulling of body parts and reconstructing them was creepy in my opinion.

I took the photo from many different angles to show different views. Ultimately I believed having a front view is the most effective. It shows what is going on very clearly. The viewer is able to see the faces of the dolls, and their happy smiles. They then can also see how one Barbie is putting the head on for the other, along with all the body parts that they have to construct the dolls. To make the photo more dramatic, I painted on a poster blood dripping down the walls to use as a background. It also adds lines going in different directions, and with different shapes. I feel that it completes the photo, with all the objects I put in front making the story alive. I tried to present depth with the body parts in the front, then the rows of barbies. Since we had learned how to use the select tool I was able to an item and use a filter. After I had feather my object, I decided to use Smudge Stick, I thought my photo had already a lot going on so I decided to put a faint filter on. I chose the brunette Barbie or the Latino Barbie in the front, because she had the most change in her body color. She had a white skin head, with a dark color skin torso, with one white leg and one black. She had all the skin colors, and she looked happy. I wanted the viewer to really notice her. Putting the Smudge Stick filter emphasized her body. I also turned up the brightest for the background, unfortunately while I was shooting I did not have a lot of light.

I hope that when viewers see my photo they understand how all the objects work together to help present my conceptual statement. The barbies were suppose to present people and our differences. We always define ourselves with our race first, I’ve notice that race creates a social barrier in our society. By having barbies with same skin color it was to bring them together, and remind everyone that we may have different color skin inside but we are all the same. The blood was just to add a disgust, and shocking feeling. Together they are trying to tell the viewer that the barbies are gruesomely reconstructing each other to be unite as one race. I also hope that I will trigger a feeling from the viewers, whether if it's hate, love, shock, or puzzlement about the interactions of people of different races.

In the photo above is a screen shot of the process of editing my photo. In Photoshop we had to change the brightness, the exposure, the saturation, and the hue. On top of that we also had to crop our photo if it was necessary and select an object by using the select tool to apply a filter. I used the filter Smudge Stick, if you look closely at the photo I have selected the brunette or Latino Barbie to put a filter. Although, at the beginning of the year Photoshop was intimidating to use, this project really helped us becoming more familiar.

 

This was my first time composing my own music. It was a lot more difficult than I thought, I kept on switching genres at the beginning. I started with Jazz, than to Classical, than to Hard Rock, than to Tech-no, and than I went back to Hard Rock. I didn't know how to create my own music on the keyboard, so I depended on music loops. Which later I found out it was more difficult than expected. In the end I came up with a hard rock song, it is a bit repetitive but I do love a strong guitar solo. At the bottom there is screen shot of the process of making my music, I used the tool Xpand to make my trumpets, and of course you can not have a traditional rock song without drums, and basses. I tried to experiment with other instruments but was unable to create my own tune. So I turned to loops, I suppose I picked hard rock over my frustration in making my own music. It sounds rushed, and perfectly displayed how I felt throughout this process of creating it. Over time I am definitely coming back to this song and making it even better.