Author: Santiago Hernandez

What is Critical Making

Critical making is kind of what all art is about. Without a goal, art has no purpose.

Before I took art seriously, I never made things with a goal in mind. A clear example was my final project for Interaction Lab a few years ago. Throughout the process I had no clear vision about what I was making and only realized once I started taking art classes that art without meaning can often be nothing.

In light of this, I try to come up with a solid idea for everything I make, and , more importantly, one that means something. My final, for example, was supposed to be about something I was passionate about and that I felt I could use to change people’s hearts. My first painting was about a memory that I cherish deeply and that is about a critical moment in my life.

Making with new media also needs to carry this sentiment. The cause doesn’t change, only the tools with which you create. I liked this reading since it gave me a good reinforcement of what it means to make things and how I aim to make my art in the future.

Comm Lab

Balance

Balance

By Santiago, Alaric, and Karla

A: Concept & Idea

We originally conceived the idea for this project when sharing excerpts with each other, we realized that the main ideas of Luthen’s speech and the quote from Fernando Pessoa’s Book of disquiet were strongly correlated. Both of these works involve goals; working towards them, dreaming of them, but neither characters are likely to see these goals accomplished. Luthen, a character from the television series “Andor”, tirelessly works towards a dream that he will never live to see realized. He is well aware that he will never enjoy the fruits of his labor, and that his work will cost him everything important to him, yet he continues to push forward regardless. Conversely, the Character Bernardo, from Fernando Pessoa’s “The Book of Disquiet”, is captivated by everything, yet does nothing to achieve these goals. Bernardo finds that while he has many dreams, he also has an inability to find lasting engagement in anything, leaving him in a perpetual state of dreaming. Both characters are detached from their goals, but for opposite reasons. Both of these messages resonate strongly with us, especially considering our experience at NYU. All of us were originally supposed to graduate in spring 2023, but are still working towards our degrees for various reasons. Juxtaposing these two excerpts gave us an opportunity to metaphorically express all the uncertainties, sacrifices, and setbacks we experienced throughout our time at university.

B: Creation Process

Started w storyboard
Location
Trouble encountered
Editing & Screenshots
What we learned

We began with a storyboard, allowing us to visualize the overarching ideas we wanted to portray and the general direction we wanted to go in the project.

After discussing the general ideas and the atmosphere we wanted to create, the next step was finding a location to shoot the different scenes.

For Alaric’s scenes, we wanted to visualize the quote from “the Book of Disquiet”, so we knew we had to shoot somewhere dark and isolated, to evoke the forlorn and dissatisfied feelings the excerpt explores. We found an alleyway in Jing’an that we felt worked perfectly for this, the dark lighting, isolated surroundings, and occasional piles of trash all helped to create the desolate, fruitless feelings we wanted to evoke. Some shots we would end up doing several times, as we didnt have a fully controlled environment and occasionally had someone walk through or occupy the space we wanted to shoot in.

C: Collaboration

We each had specific roles, acting, voice over, directing, editing etc
My role
Appreciation
Everyone had different ideas/interpretations, we had different inputs and ideas even if all were not used.

I (Santiago) was in charge of directing, video editing (besides the title cards, and sound design. This gave me full control and oversight into what I wanted to do with the project and allowed me the most flexibility in terms of editing as a whole. I was open to the ideas of my teammates and actors, and I think we created something that well all liked in the end.

D: Aesthetics and Results

Shots (, medium
Color correction
How did this all inform the tone?

In the first part we filmed, we began with a medium shot. The character, played by me, occupied the center of the frame as the focal point. In the shots following this, we mostly used long shots where I was walking away from the camera, and the focus shifted more to the surroundings. This change in focus helped to create a more barren, bleak and isolated tone, emphasizing the loneliness of the surroundings, and the feelings of detachment from Pessoa’s quote. The colors in these scenes were altered to have a

In the scenes we shot with Karla, we headed to Taikooli and took a variety of shots that I thought would juxtapose well with the recordings of Al. Karla’s moments are meant to look busy, determined, but also stressed and nervous in a way. For one, we shot during the day instead of at night, and her shots are more dynamic.

In terms of color, I made sure to give Al’s shot pink and green highlights and tones to emphasize the lost, dreamlike emotion. Similarly with the sound design, I gave Al an echoed voice to further emphasize this. Karla’s parts are opposite. Her tones and highlights are opposite on the color wheel, which gives us a good quaternary color scheme that worked out really nicely.

Overall, the project ran smoothly and with the help of my teammates I was able to turn my full attention towards the editting and mastering process for the project. I couldn’t have done it without them.

DCIMI

Final Project

My final project was, off the bat, much less of a success than I wanted it or envisioned it to be. It was probably a combination of a bad idea, limited feedback on my end, poor time management, and a dash of bad luck.

Initially my idea was to create a sculpture that would flip peoples mindsets on how they view snakes. I would have liked to represent this with flowers blooming from an abstraction of a snake. However, after approaching a few of my professors and some friends, they all said it was a dumb idea. In hindsight, I think if I had allotted the time, I could have made it work.

Instead, A was advised by my professor to pursue a snakeskin concept, as that way I could more effectively display the data I had.

The data I was using was a ten year observation of snakebites in Nepal from 2008-2017, along with mortality rates. While small, the dataset had a lot that I could work with.

The sculpture has a steel wire skeleton and rises up from a ceramic vase. Covering parts of it is clay with the 3d printed bands of snakeskin placed throughout the piece. Initially I wanted the bands to represent a certain year and they would look drastically different. This is where i ran into some bad luck, as when they were printed, the differentiating part of the bands did not print at all and they all came out looking the same. The end result was a sculpture that looks rushed and unfinished.

They quality of the bands, however, was quite nice and I thought of making a ring out of them.

They were meant to vary somewhat like this, with the neater bands representing years with higher survival rates. By using attractor points to change the intensity of the scales, I was able to create a big variety of snakeskins for every year. At the end of the day, I was only able to print 4 bands in total.

Unfortunately, my undoing was the cramped timeframe I had at the time. Most of my classes this semester were project heavy, and I found it difficult to allot the appropriate time for each of them. Moving forward in my new IMA major, time management will be crucial to keep myself at the fore.

DCIMI

Shenzhen Experience

Although this wasn’t my first time in Guangdong, it was my first time in Shenzhen. It was also my first time taking a train in China. I love taking trains and this part of the trip was one of my favorites.

After arriving, dropping our stuff off at the hotel, and eating breakfast, we headed to our first stop: Elegoo. Of all the places we visited, this was probably my favorite. Seeing the high end printers up close was pretty cool. In terms of what I want to do with myself in the future, This place the most relevant for what I see myself doing. I can see the enormous potential of 3d printing in the realm of traditional visual arts.

They second office we went to showed off the potential of Lydar scanning tech, and this too has a lot of implications for what I aspire to in the future. Scanning large areas and modeling them for planning is something that can really help gallerists and curators. On the surface, the idea is generally simple. I have learned, however, that sometimes the simple ideas are the ones that are usually the ones with the highest potential.

That night we ate the best of the trip at a vegetarian place (owned by Chef Remy from Ratatouille apparently). The food was fantastic and that night we all got some much needed rest.

The next morning, we heading early to our last destination. Of the places we went to, this one felt the least interesting (to me at least). The showcase of the tech was still impressive.

Overall, while the trip was exhausting, I learned and got to ingest quite a lot and I am grateful that we were able to take a trip like this this semester.

DCIMI

Project 3 Progress

At about the midpoint of my work, I ended up with this definition for my snakeskin sculpture. Creating a series of rings that formed a larger ring

The model above is what I first had to work with. When I printed this out it looked downright awful and I knew that there were some serious changes to be made.

I wouldn’t get the chance to work on it until a few days before the final but the final product was a big step ahead from what this is.

I think my biggest issue at this point was me not utilizing all the tools I had learned to try and find a solution to this mess. Well, that and I suppose time management too. My grasshopper ability is also not as strong as I think it should be by now, but I was still confident that I could come up with a solid solution to end up with something usable.

Comm Lab

Memory Soundscape

The goal for this project was to create a sonic rendition of a memory using Adobe Audition. Right off the bat I knew exactly what it was that I wanted to create

The memory I chose was that of a summer memory with my best friend. We would often drive through the countryside and listen to music and I was always very excited to do so.

The sounds I collected reflect the feeling of excitement first, then a moving vehicle, and after that the arrival at the destination. I used sounds from inside campus, from beside the road, my own objects, and even my own voice.

The editting process was actually rather straightforward for me. Many of my closest friend make music and I have seen them do it many times. This exposure to audio engineering gave me a solid foothold, and exploring Audition was easy.

The Soundscape, I feel, expresses exactly what I wanted it to. a peaceful but excited experience with a good friend.

Comm Lab

Mitosis – Photo Diptych

Mitosis is the second finished work in a series of artworks centered around my axolotl ring. The idea came to me after I took a look at my contact sheet and homed in on the picture I wanted to use as a base for my project.

Contact Sheet

I didn’t really have any goal or idea in mind when I was taking photos for the contact sheet. It was only after I took them and received feedback on the shots that I decided on my idea.

The base photo is a shot that I took of my ring while working on a drawing project for the Foundations of Visual Art class (a fantastic class). I took a picture of it under a set of spotlights to get three shadows of the same object. The drawing that followed is called Metamorphosis, and is about how I am as adaptable as the creature on the ring.

Photoshop

My first attempts at using photoshop were miserable, as I didn’t know that photos needed to be rasterized before you could do anything to them. After that however, I was able to ply around with my idea. Expanding on the theme of my drawing, I had made a painting beforehand that depicted en evolution of the drawing in a sense, with a single white ring splitting into rings of different colors. This represents the different kinds of person I can become, with no real limit as to what I can be.

I overlapped the painting with the image I took for reference for the drawing and duplicated the shadows to create a circular visual. By resizing the individual colored rings, I was able to further augment the feeling of adaptability by creating a variety of shapes.

Mitosis

The name come from the biological term for replicating cells during growth, which is another main idea I wished to express.

Uncategorized

Visual Metaphor Proposal

Project Title: (TBA)　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Team Members: Santiago, Karla, Alaric
Concept | Storyline:

We wish to juxtapose two characters, with one embodying the first monologue and the other embodying the second one.

What is the piece (article, poem, story) for the narrative voice over? Or who are you going to interview?:

Luthen’s speech from Andor and an excerpt from The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa read by either Karla or Alaric

What’s the story about?:

We are juxtaposing the monologues because they mirror each other in context. In addition, our group feels like we strongly relate to the contents of both pieces given that we are all super seniors. Hearing both of the audios will give you a better sense of what I mean when I say they are like two sides of a coin.

Which part of the story are you going to focus on?:

Both of these excerpts are centered around dreams; in Luthen’s monologue, he details how he must sacrifice his life and his values, for the sake of a dream that he will never see come to fruition, a fact that he is keenly aware of, yet is still unwavering in his resolve. Conversely, Bernardo exists in a state of perpetual daydreaming, yet struggles to ground himself in reality. One character sacrifices everything for a goal he won’t see accomplished, while the other relishes in a dream he can’t seem to work towards.

What kind of style/aesthetics are you going to pursue?

Dark, fruitless, forlorn. Maybe in the style of a Music video

Execution Plan:

What equipment are you going to use when shooting the movie? (cell phone, DSLR camera, sound recorder, stabilizer..):

Cell Phone and stabilizer because we feel the video quality is strong enough without the need to use a camera and its equipment. Some audio equipment for Al’s voiceover

Which locations will it be shot at? When is it? Day time/night/unknown? Why?:

At night and after sunset in Xuhui, preferably in older, darker areas to really set the scene to match with the audios.

What are some challenges you might encounter and how will you prepare?:

Troubleshooting in terms of filming techniques. None of us have any experience working behind a camera so I think that will probably be the toughest hurdle.

How will you collaborate? How will you divide work? (Gantt Chart below*):

Storyboard Draft (subject to change):

DCIMI

Project 2

For this second project, I had a hard time figuring out exactly what I wanted to make with the new Rhino techniques I had learned. Fortunately for me, I had just finished a painting and I remembered an issue I had.

I’ve never understood why paintbrushes are so skinny. I’m not sure if it’s to cut production costs or if it’s just traditional, but I noticed that I could create a solution. I thought back to when I was in elementary school when the most random things would become trendy. There was a period when pencil grips were all the hype around the schoolyard, and it hit me. I can recreate the concept, but with paintbrushes in mind instead of pencils.

I started with utilizing what we learned in week 8. I figured that for something like a small grip, the best way to make different iterations of the same object would be to adjust the main grip substructure, while keeping the texture more or less the same. In my experience, there was always a variety of shapes in those pencil grips I remembered, so that is the basis I was working towards. The graph mapper served the best in this capacity.

The main challenge for me was probably just making it hollow. Although in hindsight, there was a very simple solution to making it hollow with the shape cutter function.

Uncategorized