Author: Ruby Kim

Link: http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~sk7383/audio/audioProject/index.html

Description : The source of the inspiration for the project stems out from the “firework”. On the black screen, various fireworks appear as the user clicks on wherever they would like to. During the process, the progress bar, which is on the bottom of the screen, will fill up and if the bar gets full of color,  they will see all different kinds of fireworks at once. However, the main focus was to create sounds of a firework on our own. 

Process : In terms of division of labor, Jon mainly focused on coding(visuals) and I mainly worked on audios. But in the end, we worked on editing audios together. Since this project values more on audios, we decided to use an example code that Jon had found on the Internet for fireworks. Nonetheless, it still needed a lot of time for him to make appropriate for our use. For audios, I first made a list of sounds that might contribute to making the sound of fireworks: balloon pop, whistle, paper cracking, percussion, and so on. By using Blue Yeti and Tascam, I recorded sounds of paper, plastic bag cracking, hitting on the whiteboard, clapping, and even using my laptop charger. For the rest of the sounds, I mainly downloaded from ‘freesound.org’ or converted Youtube videos into audio files. 

While working on, I thought it would be more interesting if I do not use a sound that users can predict. Therefore, I decided to add sounds of animals, bubbles, and others and make them unique. For animals, I included the audio files of dog, cat, lion, and elephant. Some functions that I frequently used was fade out and change pitch. After working for the audios overall, I and Jon listened to them together and revised them based on suggestions. For example, at first, I created a big bomb-like sound to be quickly repeated twice; however, after receiving the feedback from my partner and professor, I agreed that it would be better if the sound had one big strike. Also, even for subtle changes for pitch, volume, and timing, I could easily figure out the better version through conversation.

Post-Mortem : At first, Jon and I struggled with coming up with a project idea. However, since we have decided to work on fireworks, We quickly divided our roles and eventually made a result that we both are satisfied. Also, as my first time using recording equipment, it was a great experience for me to explore different kinds of tools. Furthermore, before I had started the project, I was not completely aware of the importance of audio and how much it is hard to create a single sound that could convey the appropriate ambiance or message to the audience. However,  even though my recordings were relatively simple, coming up with the idea itself was really challenging. I hope to utilize more functions in Audacity and add my own recordings in my future project. 

In the article “Ecstasy of Influence”, Jonathan Lethem primarily focuses on  “plagiarism”. He is especially concerned about how should we distinguish or define “inspiration” and “plagiarism”. One of the masterpieces such as Hamlet of Shakespeare and Disney is even considered as a work of plagiarism in this article. From this example, I could relate to myself since I also look for previous works of others when brainstorming for the project. In addition, even though someone might argue that his or her work is solely from its own inspiration, that would be inevitably based on external sources that the person has experienced throughout his or her life. Therefore, the quote that “most artists are converted to art by art itself” struck me the most. Furthermore, since there are so many similar/identical products and artworks exposed through social media and the internet, people will likely accept them as a standard or will be familiarized with certain things. In my opinion, therefore, a technology that develops at an exponential speed limits our creativity, which makes people easier to duplicate others’ works. As it is getting trickier to classify inspiration and plagiarism, as Susan Meiselas argues in “On the Rights of Molotov Man”, I think understanding the context of the work and the intent of the creator should be taken as a priority, and the definition of “copyright” should be flexible by case.  

After reading this article, I was able to think of the issue of “plagiarism” again. Plagiarism in my mind is about copying or busing the content that is done by others. However, I had not thought about how that would be applicable to the  “context” of work. In this story, the essential reason why Susan sued Joy was not only that he did not ask for permission but also she was disappointed that he “decontextualized” her work, which it was a new approach of thinking for me. Every artist or creator will struggle with their work, hoping a certain theme or intent would be delivered through them. In my opinion, I also do not agree that an artist can “control” the art. Nonetheless, I strongly support the argument that it is a violation when others produce a work that mistranslates or degrades the originality of the work. Therefore, the biggest lesson that I learned from this article is that violating copyright might not necessarily mean merely copying others’ works, but rather rendering the pure intention or context of the work.

I chose to listen to “99% Invisible: Pockets” by Avery Trufelman. This podcast really offered me a striking insight since I have never thought about pockets being a metaphor of “privilege”, more specifically, of men. As the title informs, it made a unique approach to the way of viewing daily products.

While listening to the audio, I could definitely empathize with a lot of points. For example, I get annoyed when the pockets are not big enough to carry my purse, phone, and etc. So most of the time I just bring a small bag with me. But since this has been a case that happens too often, I realized that now I do not even think deeply about it and take carrying my bag as granted. Also, pockets of some of the clothes that I bought were not even functioning as pockets, but rather as mere ornaments. The fact that the issue of gender discrimination is embedded in pockets is thus so striking since I was not able to realize it even though I was aware that they had a lot of problems. 

Furthermore, the argument that pockets are internal while bags are external, was also interesting. Since pockets are usually attached to the clothes, the things inside are invisible and closer, or intimate, to our bodies than bags do. Therefore, I think that the ridiculously small size of the pockets and sometimes even removing them are one of disrespectful behaviors towards women.

Since our upcoming topic of the class is about audio, I tried to focus on the background music for the second time of listening. Then, I could realize that when talking about history, revealing that the pockets were actually separated from the clothes, the audio was full of tension that made me feel more mysterious and focused on to the story. 

Overall, from this podcast, I could think deeply about whether “fashion always takes useful things and makes them ridiculous”. I am still not sure if I should consider pockets, high heels, and other fashion items as products of gender discrimination, but it definitely enlightens 99% of the people who would not notice the hidden meaning behind.

Link: http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~sk7383/comic-coding/title.html

Description: To summarize the plot of our comic project, the main theme is about budgeting. There appears a potato, who is a freshman in NYUSH, starting the day of school, and readers are provided with several options. For example, the readers can choose whether to take a shuttle, didi, or metro when going to school. At the end of the story, Potato gets a result of either succeeding or failing to stay on a budget. 

Process

For the illustrations, Oona mainly contributed on drawing characters , and I focused on backgrounds. Using electronic devices, such as iPad, we separately drew the pictures and combined them. 

       

In order to add detail for buttons, I drew different facial expressions for them and used “if/else” statement in JavaScript. Thus, when the reader puts the mouse cursor over the button, the face of the fries changes.

       

     

One of the hardest thing to figure out was making the image to change by using keypress (arrow keys). There are several scenes before lunch, and if the reader keeps pressing the next button to continue, we thought that would be a little bit troublesome. Therefore, we came up with the idea to do with pressing arrow keys.  While searching for the information online, I figured out that ‘addEventListner’ would work, but as I did not put my ‘if/else’ statement inside the ‘switch’, it did not work.

Our main goal was to show the total amount of spending to the user at the end of the story. Thus, we had to make a calculation for every option, but at first we had no idea how to do. But thanks to professor Moon, we found that ‘localStorage’ is the key. By setting ‘let’ to price, I could share the information between HTML and JavaScript and subtract money from the total budget, 200rmb.

The highlight was showing the result of either success or failure based on the readers’ performance. As the reader clicks the next button of the previous page, the next page has to automatically show up the result.  I found that ‘window.loaction.assign(“url”)’ is the one of the ways to redirect HTML, but after from professor Moon, ‘window.open’ is a more typical way to solve the problem. Also by including “_self” inside the parenthesis after ‘open’, we could have a new page happening without making a new window, but within the same page.

Post-mortem

I think the overall project went well than I expected in the beginning. However, one thing that I wanted to add was the sound for an alarm clock in the scene where Potato gets up. Also, it would have been nice if we used not only the buttons to continue the story but also the scroll or other effects. But still, I really enjoyed the project and it also gave me confidence. I feel really accomplished when I finally finished it. I am already excited to start my next project 🙂