Archives for October 2022

Ritchin arranges this piece of writing to discuss the transition of photography from the past, to the present, and the possible future. With the “fluidity of the digital”, Ritchin meant that because photography and technology are so advanced now, there is a new meaning to photography. With the help of manipulation and editing in new software, there is now a fluidity with how photos can be crafted. Not only does it exist on physical paper films, but it exists on the internet too. We can see this on social media, magazines, and billboards. There are also many types of photography such as journalistic and underwater photography. If we take social media, for example, the interpretation that viewers take away can be so different. Essentially, there is an algorithm in most social media apps that through a time of analyzing which types of content you like, they will curate a media personalized to you. The issue with this is that sometime the content will be so focused on one topic that it becomes biased. There, it’s possible that you have a different perspective on one subject compared to other people. Publishers are also able to manipulate images as they like such as in photoshop and then post them on social media. This fluctuation of perception is one reason for the “fluidity of the digital”. 

Photography captures the world in a single moment. Thus, I don’t think it’s capable of capturing reality. The single snapshot could be so different once it’s played out like in videos. A moment frozen in time could be out of coincidence or a bad picture. A lot of times when the whole story is told and acted out, the meaning behind it and its purpose will then be clearly shown. That is why I wouldn’t trust an image to depict the reality of the world even though photographs are able to hold deep meanings. 

The overall concept for my Diptych is academic pressure on college students. I want to create a photo that depicts the heaviness of stress students have to carry every day. Not only is college academically tough, but there are also high expectations as well from friends and family. Everyone wants to be successful, but when there seems to be never-ending homework, exams, and projects, it’s difficult to always be so motivated. Over time, overworking turns into burning out. The once intriguing idea of learning now becomes dull and lifeless. It is merely a task, a to-do list checklist. We, as students, want good grades, social life, and to pursue a career we love. This unrealistic perfection is what causes many students to deviate from their true selves. To be simply put, school is stressful. Sometimes assignments are due, so we sleep late. We’re constantly running our lives through the 11:59 deadline. When does it end? After graduation?

I would like one image to show how it might look like from the outside, and the second picture to show all the baggage we carry mentally.  

I want to create photos that consist of tension and contrast in color in a way that you can feel the pressure too. I plan to take photos of textbooks and stationery supplies. I would specifically like this to be in a classroom setting, but it is vague enough to not be related to NYU. With photoshop, I want to show the heaviness and pressure of it all. The school work, the expectation, the struggle, and future endeavors. 

Best Lover By 88rising & BIBI: https://open.spotify.com/track/0iWFz0Q5Qha9bx325ocFWq?si=2f36bdd1131146f0

The song that inspired my Sound Visualization Project was Best Lover by 88rising and BIBI. I chose this song as it instantly brightens my mood every time I listen to it. Aside from the lyrics, the music was smooth, bouncy, and light with ripple/echo effects. With noise-cancellation headphones, it’s like you’re in space where sounds loop around you which is why I embedded of what looks to be galaxy esque loops. Although my design may seem a little disorganized, the way the music was composed is also random as it introduces new sounds and rhythms to every other beat. Most of the backtracking alongside the artist produced soft sounds, therefore I steered away from hard jagged shapes. Most of the designed used were falling off the page as I wanted to reinforce the idea of a spatial dimension as it cannot all fit into one page. 

Gestalt Principles Used 

Bottom left circle

• • law of similarity and proximity 
  • repeated same letters and overlapping to create gradient effect and unison 

Circle of Z’s 

• • Law of Pragnanz and closure 
  • Z rings are only attached to one part of ribbon-like structure 

String of letters across the board 

• • law of continuity and closure 
  • line is meant to fall through the big ring on the bottom

 

Creating the one black square design taught me to keep things simplified as we had a scarcity of paper in that project. 

Personally, this project had some difficulty. Thus, there were failures and successes. The failure was keeping the draft as the final draft. Although I had the big picture in mind, I stuck with the designs I had already inputed into Adobe. As a result, my first attempt at the visualization was much more chaotic and random. In general, I felt a little lost working on this project, but after an office hour with Professor Zhang, I did more brainstorming and came up with this final design. It was suggested that I be careful with the fluidity of the whole piece and repetition of designs. I think it’s better now that my design is more minimal to convey a cleaner message to the viewers. The comfortability ties into how I feel about the song. 

If I were to do this project again, I would like to add more to the background and fill in empty spaces. I would also like to explore more of the tools Adobe Illustrator has to offer as this was my first time working with it. I’m sure there are many cool features that can elevate my work. 

 

We would like to introduce a piece of technology from Earth called virtual reality goggles. They allow us to see a realistic visual field without being physically present. Once you have the goggles on, it feels like you are living in a different dimension. It allows you to experience all types of scenery which is why we are recommending this technology. As Heptopods are discovering more about human life and Earth, it will give them an insight into how humans perceive the world and close to a first-hand perspective on Earth as transportation between the two worlds may be difficult. These VR goggles provide audio as well. There are different sounds from different planets and galaxies which are affected by their respective atmospheres such as pressure, gravity, and other factors. 

Heptapods can bounce back and forth between the future and the present. VR goggles are similar in a way that what it is showing is timeless. The virtual dimensions do not have a time that Heptapods do not perceive anyways. We thought this would be a perfect technology to introduce to Heptapods, so we created this pioneer plaque to convey our message. 

As seen from our pioneer plague, there is a man wearing VR goggles outside of a building with a fence and two trees. This is his current setting. If you look closely at the VR goggles, you can see two special star-like buttons, these are the different modes on the goggles so that one may choose where he wants to be. With a click of either button, the VR goggles will bring this man to new sceneries. We represented this concept via arrows and the same star-like buttons. As shown in our diagram, the top button will take the viewer into the wonders of nature in a mountain whereas the second button will take the viewer to explore the unknown world of outer space. Now in this reality, he feels one place but sees and hears another. On the left-hand side, we have embedded Heptapods’ semasiographic language that specifically translates to “learn” and “human”, in hopes of the Heptapods to understand our message that this is a human technology that we want them to learn more about. Lastly on the top, we showed the planets in alignment to convey how easy it is to experience planets just from where you are. We hope that this is a comprehensive piece the Heptapods will understand.