Archives for March 2022

My memory for this Memory Soundscape Project is “my neighborhoods when I was in kindergarten.” The emotions and scenes the place gave us at that time remain a special memory for me and my family. The old house was the first house that my parents bought after moving out of the rented house after their marriage. In Korea today, relationships between neighbors are almost dead. We don’t even know who lives next door and even if we meet by chance we don’t say hello to each other. However, at that time when I was in kindergarten, neighbors were almost like family members and we shared everything. And now, tall apartments are popularized in Korea, and areas that are underdeveloped like the neighborhood I used to live in are gradually disappearing due to the redevelopment of luxury apartment complexes. To remember the lifestyle that can no longer be found, I chose my neighborhood when I was in kindergarten as the topic of this project. At that time, I could hear various sounds such as cars and bicycles in the neighborhood, children playing around, dogs barking next door, and my mother making dinner. And I would ask my mom for more details.

Differences in Perspectives– Jeeho Kim

 

Concept

The initial concept of my Diptych project was “Time and Atmosphere.” I planned to demonstrate how one place was viewed as a different atmosphere over time in the project. For example, the cafe on the second floor in AB is very lively and crowded with students during the day, but it turns into a quiet and dark place at dawn. For the concept, I was planning to take a photo of a middle school next to Jinyang dorm. Because I couldn’t think of any other place where the atmosphere is changing significantly over time except for the school. So I tried to use a picture of students spilled out from the school during the end of school hours. Unfortunately, however, as the danger of Covid-19 in SH increased, every school was converted into online classes, making it impossible to meet students. So I had no option but to change my concept to “differences in perspectives.” Through this concept, the message I want to convey is that most people understand things and spaces only as of the way they saw them before or want to see them. And to reinforce the effect of the message, I used a photo of the city of Shanghai where the future and past coexist. It is undeniable that representative images of Shanghai are Mega-city, Future and High-tech, and younger generations of Chinese and foreigners will only have the perception that Shanghai is the most westernized city in China. But, on the other hand, the older generations of Chinese or those who have lived in Shanghai for a long time may miss old Shanghai, which has turned into a completely different city right now. So I tried to co-exist the image of the city viewed by different generations, and I thought the plan fit with my concept of “difference in perspectives.”

Process

First of all, I went to Waitan to take a picture of the Oriental Pearl for the current image of the city of Shanghai viewed by the younger generations. Waitan and Oriental Pearl are the first representative place that comes to mind when thinking of Shanghai and is always crowded with the visitor. And I visited Yu Garden for the trace of Old Shanghai, but the garden was closed and I had to take some pictures of only parts of traditional Chinese structures from the outside of the garden.

I used brightness and contrast effects to make the overall color of a photo of Oriental Pearl deeper and stronger. And, I used a “Cyon” photo filter, blue color, to create an image of Shanghai as a coastal city. In addition, the picture of the Chinese traditional structure taken in Yu Gardem was cropped and only the part I wanted was placed on the left side of the Oriental Pearl, and the color of the traditional structure was adjusted to be relatively dark using contrast and brightness effect. A dark traditional Chinese structure was placed right next to the bright Oriental Pearl to express the image of current Shanghai. This has a message that most people are now fascinated by the present image of Shanghai and turn a blind eye to the old Shanghai. And finally, the image of me taking a picture was placed in the upper right corner to shape typically tourists.

I spent most of this project working on Photoshop. Because I was not familiar with using it and lacked an understanding of functions, I had difficulty making the outcome exactly as I wanted.

Conclusion

or future improvement, I need to find photos that fit my concept more that the ones I used, and I also need to practice Photoshop to get used to the functions.

 

1. What does Ritchin mean with the “fluidity of the digital”? Give an example of digital imaging/digital photography that exemplifies this.

According to “In Our Own Image”, “fluidity of the digital” refers to changes in photography and editing technology with the development of digital technology. When the camera was first invented, it was always inevitable to use a heavy and huge camera, and of course, it was impossible to upload photos online. Even before 2010, we took photos using digital cameras separately from mobile phones and had to go through a complicated process to upload them on the internet. However, through the process of technology development and the widespread of smartphones, revolutionary changes have occurred in photographing and editing. An era has begun in which cameras are built into our phones and photos can be stored in phones rather than memory chips. So, software developers created various social media apps such as Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter by utilizing those advantages of smartphones. People can easily and conveniently upload photos using social media to communicate and record their good memories. However, unlike the intention of software developers and social media users, photos on SNS are sometimes used with impure intentions. Some users steal others’ photos and use them for illegal activities, and infringe on healthy SNS cultures. 

 

1. Reflect on the extent to which photography is capable of capturing reality; and compare it to other media (technology) (e.g. text, video, virtual reality, books). 

The extent to which photography in capturing reality is not as great compared to text, video, virtual reality, books.  The reason why I think this is because the picture shows only one specific scene. Text, video, and books have a beginning and end so that audiences can understand the situation before and after. However, due to the characteristic of the picture, the person cannot speak or move in the scene, so the audience has no choice but to believe it by looking at the specific scene and behavior shown in the picture. 

My overall concept for Diptych Project is “time and atmosphere.” The reason why I chose this concept is that individuals only think of everything in the world as they see it. For me, as a NYUSH student, the cafe on the second floor of our academic building is always recognized as a crowded and active space, but it might be seen as a quiet and dark space for security guards working at dawn. So the topic I want to convey through this project is that if an individual looks at one space or thing from various angles, he/she can have more understanding of it. 

As I know, for the Diptych Project, it is important for the two photos to harmonize with each other and send messages to the audience. Also, the two photos have to fit with my concept. So I plan to place photos of day and night to focus on the atmosphere contrast over time. The audience will feel familiar with the atmosphere they have seen before. However, they will also see the photo of the atmosphere that they have never seen or thought of before and open up various perspectives on the place.

Although my concept is “Time and Atmosphere”, the main element that completes those two topics are the number of people in the photos. For instance, a crowded and noisy place during the day turns into a dark and boring place at night or vice versa. So I will find a place where many people work or walk by. The places I’m planning to take photos are in front of the middle school, markets, parks, subway stations, etc…

I haven’t taken pictures yet, so I don’t know which one to use. However, since the atmosphere of the two photos needs to be completely different, the number of people will be mainly focused in the photos, and the color of the photo with an active atmosphere will be highlighted more intensely.

The Starry Sky (Nimanty&Solarsoul)

Link 

Concept

Although the lyrics do not exist, this silent but sharp sound provides listeners an image of a profoundness of the universe with a calm inner state. A planet and its ring around it not only represent the universe realistically but also symbolize the infiniteness of space called the universe. The two different sizes of lines in the middle part expressed a continuation of thoughts that never stop even in a calm inner state. The letters in various languages expressed the existence of various cultures of humans, their peace and coexistence in the supernatural space of the universe, but the twisted form expresses complexity due to various internal conflicts such as desire, sadness, hope, and anger.

 

Process

When choosing a song for the Sound Visualization Project, I had a lot of thoughts in my head. This is because there are an endless number of songs in the world, and the message and inspiration given to the audience are all different depending on the genres, rhythms, beats, and lyrics. At the beginning of the project, I tried to choose one of the popular music, the songs people usually listen to, but I felt that the lyrics in the songs dominated the messages and inspiration of the song. I decided to find a song that could be interpreted differently by individual audiences. I’ve tried various kinds of classic songs and loud songs that might be played in the club, but The Starry Sky was the song that I felt most directly delivering the message without lyrics. I listened to this song over and over again to reinterpret it in my own way. When I first listened to this song, as the title suggests, I could only imagine the vast universe and the stars floating in the sky, but the more I listened to it, the more I began thinking about the relation between the images of the universe and the calmness that came out from the silence.

One Black Square 

In short, Gestalt’s theory is “The whole is different from the sum of its parts.” In the end, we look at a certain image as one image, but there are various combinations of shapes and arrangements inside of it. I don’t think I perfectly applied the Gestalt theory in my Sound Visualization Project, but I tried to apply it as much as possible. The circle at the top of the figure is a just one simple circle, but it is expressed as a planet with its angle and arrangement and location with the surrounding rings. In addition, the lines were written several times with the English alphabet S, but this was also expressed by Gestalt’s theory as a total of four endless lines.

Conclusion

In various aspects, I think my Sound Visualization Project needs to be supplemented with. The biggest issue was that I did not fully utilize the characteristics of “One Black Square.” Because I spent a lot of time choosing songs, which eventually led to a lack of illustrator work time. In addition, it was my first time using Adobe Illustrator, so I had a hard time working on it. However, I think it was good to interpret the song and deliver my own understanding of the music to the audiences. This was the first project, but I think this work was an important project to know the overall concept and purpose of Communication Lab projects in the future. In my next projects, I will create more creative and improved works through what I have learned in this project.

Choose an existing system or technology of earth/human culture and write a short text and an accompanying visual description communicating this chosen system or technology to the aliens in this fictional short story. 

For this project, Andrew, Shanet and I chose to introduce the concept of a pedometer to the heptapods. The picture shown above is a visual representation of how a pedometer functions and will also help the heptapods understand how a pedometer works. The main usage of a pedometer serves as a technology for humans to keep track of our movements and step count. To begin, the basic concept of a pedometer is a small device that can be attached to various parts of our body and the movements will be calculated by swings.The pedometer also has a small lever arm inside which moves up and down based on movement. The movement of walking is described as the body swinging from one side to another side and to capture the step counts, it is attached to the ankle and multiplies the number of swings by the average length of your steps. Because the anatomy of humans and heptapods are different, the way in which humans and heptapods walk are different. Humans have two legs that we walk on and two arms while the alien has “four legs, three non-adjacent arms curled up at its sides..limbs had no distinct joints…it’s “torso” rise atop the rippling limbs as smoothly as a hovercraft…seven lidless eyes ringed the top of the hetapod’s body” (Chiang 5). This description shows the fluidity in movement of the heptapods whereas humans must move each joint individually due to its anatomy. By introducing the pedometer to heptapods, we not only introduce a functional technological device, but also highlight how humans move. 

How would you describe it, based on your understanding of the linguistic characteristics of these alien’s mode of communication? 

The heptapod communicates in a way similarly to humans as they also verbally communicate and have the same senses as humans. For example, they also have eyes and a medium for verbal communication. When communicating with the aliens about the pedometer it would be best to demonstrate the usage of a pedometer visually, since they have eyes, as there is a very big language barrier. It would be best to use a person using the pedometer as he walks around. This would allow the heptapods to understand that by walking, the numbers on the pedometer will go up. Furthermore, it would also be best if we dismantle the technology and show that when the lever inside is moving up and down the step count increases. The heptapod will then understand fully how the machine works without any verbal exchanges. In the reading, it shows how the heptapod can understand simple concepts so it can be inferred that this type of communication is feasible. However, it is easier to communicate verbally but the most efficient way is to demonstrate visually as the alien’s language has not been translated completely.