Reflections on the video
Video: Red in her own words | link
~ Tech
Being a junior majoring in IMA, I always have this anxiety that I haven’t learned enough. I don’t have enough technical skills to make “cool / artistic stuff”. Although this is true (yes I learned how to code p5.js, but do I still remember how to …? NO 🙁 ), I think it is time to stop only focusing on questioning myself, and using “oh, I don’t remember how to code” as an excuse to not to create things that touch my heart. I really like one of the quotes from the video. Ms. Red said it is about ideas, not the technologies. Technology is there to help us, not to block us out of certain fields.
~ Art
Another anxiety I have is that I am not “artistic” enough. While I do admit my past installations could have been more refined and more delicate, this semester, I also need to tell myself that this is a learning process, and everything needs practice. Reflecting on my past experience, I should always know that I as long as I am willing to learn it, I have the potential to do it. It’s always trying, failing, and picking it up again.
Traditional art forms (art forms that don’t involve digital technologies) can be a part of the digital art world as well. This summer I experienced a change in mind-set. I took a summer class with CAS in Brazil. Before going there, I thought I would seize the opportunity to hop between museums to see what digital artists are doing in South America. However, it struck me that most of the art exhibitions I’ve been to were all about traditional art forms — oil paintings, sculpture … Nothing technical, nothing about digital media, but still, I found them very beautiful, very mind touching. The curators were able to use these artworks to construct engaging narratives around Brazilian culture and Brazilian identity. Ms. Red mentioned the significance of diversity, the significance of having cross-cultural conversations in the video. How to use the technology to create engaging, inclusive conversations, to enhance cross-cultural exchange and to preserve/ present traditional art forms and culture is something I should keep in mind.
IMA isn’t my primary major, and I didn’t expect myself to double major in humanities and IMA when I first came to NYU Shanghai. However, in the past 2 years, I’ve met amazing IMA peer students, and AMAZING IMA professors that brought me life-changing impact and made me want to stay with this community. I love the diversity, the creativity, the inclusivity and the dynamics of this community, and when Ms. Red talked about the engaging environment of ITP, she did remind me of what I have experienced in Shanghai. Additionally, it’s not only about how, within the IMA/ ITP community, how we can influence, impact and support each other, it’s also about how we as students studying computational media can use it to impact the society.
Switch
My led will light up if I am not sitting in the right position — I realize I always unconsciously cross my legs when sitting — it is really a comfortable position but it is bad for my overall spine health 😅 so here it is:
It would have been better if I have 2 pieces of conductive fabrics so that this switch can actually be a part of the pants 🙂
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