Author: jl9546

A. Design

The inspiration of our project comes from the seven deadly sins. In our project, we try to depict how the seven deadly sins are shown in our every-day life.

The home page is made up of seven circles moving randomly on the page. Each circle represents one sin and can link to the corresponding page.

For gluttony, we use the concept of “stress eating”, which is a common phenomenon that the more stress we have the more we eat and the more we eat the happier we get. In this section, player can control the mouth on the screen using “left” and “right” button on the keyboard. The mouth will then eat the food on the screen.

For lust, we use the concept of “single dog (单身狗)” which is used to say someone who is single and longing for love. On the page, there are many couples and among them, there is a single man who looks quite unhappy. The player can drag the long picture either using their mouse or the “left” and “right” button on the keyboard.

For greed, we made a shopping page where if the user check one box all the boxes will be checked. And when they click “Buy”, there will be alert popping out saying “Out of Balance”. This shows the phenomenon that people who are into online shopping couldn’t resist the desire to buy more even if they may not have that much money.

For envy, we use the saying “green with envy”. There is a crowd at the left of the page and a lonely man at the right of the page. Each time the user hover their mouse on the crowd, there will be sounds of people chatting and laughing and the man on the right will shrink a little. We want to show the phenomenon that someone who is shy and afraid of socializing may sometimes envy those who can fit in.

For pride, we use the phenomenon that people like to photoshop their selfies before putting them on the social media in order to leave a good impression on others. When the user moves their mouse from the left side of the page to the right, the picture on the page will change from “before ps” to “after ps”.

For sloth, we use the idea that people having trouble waking up in the morning. This page is kind of like a comic where people can go to the next page by clicking on the webpage.

For wrath, we made a mosquito which flies to a random place on the page as soon as the user hover their mouse on it. There is also the annoying sound of the mosquito which only stops when the user manages to “kill” the mosquito by clicking on it.

B. Process

I think “the seven deadly sins” is a very interesting theme and we can explore a lot based on this idea. We did great in working as a team—we came up with the idea of our project together. And after we set out to doing our project, Steve was in charge of coding using P5 and I drew all the assets and helped Steve with some simple coding as well. However, we were a little over ambitious. We underestimated the time needed to finish a project that is composed of seven mini projects. Therefore, we had to simplify our ideas when we realized that we were running out of time. I think it will be better if we had made a plan before start doing the project. We should plan at what time which part of our project should be down ahead of time.

C. Future

If we were given more time, we can make each part of our project more like a little game. For example, for gluttony, we can add more food and also many add a “stress bar” which decreases as the mouth eats more food on the screen; and for sloth, we can make the format of the page less liner and make it more interactive. Also, we need to think more deeply about the meaning of our project. Whether or not we are using the most proper way to depict the seven deadly sins in modern society? Is there any better way to show the seven deadly sins? These questions are the foundation of our whole project.

The inspiration of our project comes from “The Seven Deadly Sins”. Pride, greed, lust, wrath, envy, gluttony, and sloth are seven vices that were mentioned in the Christian teachings. They were seen as an abuse or excessive perspectives of human nature. Works showing the seven sins in the mass media tend to be in a dark and gloomy tone. In this project we try to explore a different approach to depict the seven sins–we would like to show how these sins exist in our everyday life in a light and entertaining way. The reason why we want to use a less serious manner is that as is mentioned above, seven sins are actually something rooted in the human nature and we would like to show how these sins are represented in modern times, especially in our daily life. Also, in an age where people are encouraged to embrace and celebrate their nature and imperfection, these “sins” are no longer seen as evil. We are actually committing these “sins” unconsciously everyday in order to make life easier and somehow happier.

Our idea of seven deadly sins comes from the movie “Seven” directed by David Fincher. The movie tells the story of a serial killer who shows his criticism of the seven deadly sins in human nature in an extreme way–killing those who are seen as a symbol for these sins. However, in the end of the movie, the killer himself also becomes a symbol for one of the sins–envy. He envies the perfect family that the detective in the movie has, and kills the detective’s wife, which suggests that the seven sins are actually rooted in everyone’s nature. No one can say that they are innocent, not even those who claim to be a hater and rebel of the sins within human nature. Therefore, we try to show the universality of the seven sins from a daily-life perspective by making this project. The style of our project is inspired by an official account in WeChat called “GQ Lab”. this account uses interactive comics to illustrate social phenomena in an entertaining as well as sarcastic tone which help readers reflect on their everyday life while being entertained.

We will have a start page where all seven sins will be displayed. There will be one page for each sin and there will not be a storyline, it doesn’t matter where to start or where to end. The user can start with whichever sin he/she wants. Users can interact with our webpage by clicking, dragging, hovering and so on. For example, for the “sloth” part, the user can trigger the alarm by clicking on the page and thus, waking up the main character; and for the “envy” part, the user can trigger the audio by hovering the cursor on a specific part of the webpage. We will hand draw all the scenes and use animation as well as audio in our project. We will create our animation using p5. The reason why we decide to hand draw our elements in the page is that we would like to have a better control of the overall style of our project and hand drawing is a great way to create a casual, less serious style. We choose the Internet as the medium for our project, because it is a place where various interesting ways of interaction can take place. More people can see and interact with our project via internet, especially young people who can relate to the theme of this project.

How do we define art? What does art do? These are the two questions that come to my mind whenever I hear my friends expressing their opinions on art. A friend of mine who is very fond of art claims that art has to be something “beautiful” and “superior” which the majority of people cannot accept or understand. I cannot agree with him on this. I feel like everything can be artistic in some way. Often there are times when I glance at something/someone and suddenly find it/him/her very different. Unique. Amazing. And these are the moments that I realize the existence of art. Since “art” is really just a concept created by us human, there will never be a “right” or universal definition of it, and there shouldn’t be one. However, I find it quite important to find a definition for art that is accepted by a community, since it’s impossible to talk with others about art without a clear sense of what art is. And it is also impossible to build any conversation about art if each person involved in that conversation has a different definition for art. So, personally, I define art as a thought generator. Art provides its audience with a new way of looking at and thinking about things. Therefore, the real artistic moment to me is the moment when a new idea pops up inside my head.

With a definition for “art”, we can finally start talking about Internet Art. The art works that the artists create on the Internet are doing almost the same thing that other traditional art works were doing—telling stories, distinguishing self and others, expressing opinions and emotions, conveying and innovating ideas. The only difference that distinguishes Internet Art from other forms of art is its medium—the Internet. At a time when art is commercialized and mass produced, Internet becomes a pure land where artists can express their unique thoughts with few limitations. Turning to the Internet and experimenting art on the Internet can be seen as an act of rebellion towards the diminishing of public’s awareness of think freely and independently caused by the mass production of traditional art as well as the political control of the content of art. Also, Internet Art is more interactive than any of the existing art form, which blurs the boundary of audience and artists. “Art is for all”. Internet artists gives new ideas to the audience, and the audience in turn innovates artists, which makes Internet Art an art that is constantly growing and evolving.

link: https://www.cameronsworld.net/

This webpage is a collection of the texts and images from GeoCities where people could create their own home pages. The webpage sorts the texts and images into different categories and each category has its own style. I really like the mixing of different styles. And these styles somehow share something in common which makes them coherent with each other. Since  GeoCities was shut down in 2009, this webpage serves as a memorial for the past. It’s really fascinating to explore the content in this page and to see so many ideas living in the internet. It’s also sad to realize that this page is actually like a museum exhibiting the glory past.

Link: to be added

Description of the project

Our video project is about Starbucks in China. We want to show some amazing facts about Starbucks in China as well as cultural phenomenon that are brought to China by Starbucks. It is really interesting to look into how Starbucks operates in China and to what extend Chinese people adopt Starbucks culture. Because Starbucks is seen as a symbol of capitalism and the development of Starbucks in China actually illustrates the process of capitalist values entering into Chinese society after the Open-up Policy in 1978.

We went to three Starbucks in Shanghai—the one near Jinqiao, the one near AB and the biggest Starbucks in the world on East Nanjing Rd. Our introduction part was shot in Jinqiao and it is intended to show the phenomenon that Chinese people see Starbucks as something cool and fancy and is worth sharing on their social media. Then comes the part shot in the Starbucks near our AB by Demi. In this part, Demi criticized certain types of Starbucks customers in a humorous manner. The last part shot in the world’s largest Starbucks by Laila illustrates some facts about Starbucks in China—their marketing, merchandising, revenue, and future.

Process

Deciding the theme: Each of us posted our ideas in our group chat and then we decided to use Demi’s idea—Starbucks in China.

Storyboard:

           

Shooting: I shot my part on Tuesday morning, and Demi and Laila shot their parts on Friday and Saturday.

Editing: I used iMovie to edit my video clip, which I found very convenient.

            I wanted to use a long in my video but failed. Because there were so many uncertainties during the shooting process. So I had to split my shots and I used transition effects between clips in order to make the change of the scene more natural. I adjusted the speed of the video in order for it to match the beats of the background music.

Gathering materials: We share our materials on Google Drive and Demi gathers our materials and put them into our webpage.

Post Mortem

I really like our video project and I’m really thankful for Laila and Demi. During the process of making a video, I realized that what I imagined in my storyboard can be really different from what I shot at last. Some angles and ways of shooting are really difficult for a beginner like me, so I was constantly adjusting my plan while shooting. I also realized that those shots in the movies, even the very normal ones, are not easy to make. It really takes time and effort to make a beautiful film. It needs imagination, practice and cooperation between members in the group to produce a high-quality film. Also, I realized the importance of audio in video. I really had a hard time looking for a proper background music for my clip, and I’m still not very satisfied with the current background music. I think I’ll try using the original sound of the environment next time I make a video.