Line
A place is not one dimensional, it is the embodiment of sight, sound, scent, and touch. A place means more than its physical appearance, it symbolize a past experience, an emotion, a sudden memory, a story and so much more. De Certeau claims that “places are fragmentary and inward-turning histories, pasts that others are not allowed to read”. In a sense, a place is a personal account of the human experience. As all things good and bad happens in a physical location. The elements that make up a place are unique trademarks that helps an individual to feel a certain way, and to remind him/her of an experience. A traveller, who “explore deserted places of his memories”, might be reminded of an experience five years ago based on a scent in a place completely unrelated to that experience. In this project, I would present five diagram of places that would cause an emotional reaction in me through any of the four elements that make up a physical location: sight, sound, scent, and touch.
Art Book Fair MOMA PS1
The Art Book fair in MOMA PS1 was an eye opening experience. Because for the first time, not only I’m I able to see the art works laid out on the table, I could also talk to the artists who are willing to share about their creative processes in doing these works. Unlike a white cube exhibition in MET or MOMA in which there are guards around the art works and a lack of interaction, the art book fair allows me to weave through the facility without a sense of formality or tenseness to interact with other artistically minded people. The art being displayed are diverse. There are pure conceptual graphic design works as shown in the image and also a merge between the medium of photography and graphic design. Some works that left an impression on me are pages being teared up, folded and rescanned. The crevices in these graphic projects shows a sense of nostalgia as they add depth and a separate intricate layer of emotion. Other works intrigued me based on their simplicity. Andrew Win’s “Phone Drawings II” is an example as such because it shows how random variation of lines being put together could provide some sense of unity.
News
In this Newspaper project, my goal is to do alter the context in which we see the world by cutting out key words and photos from a wide range of newspapers to convey a theme. The faces of all subjects are covered as photos are cultural codes which give us a preconception/bias of the news. All that is left for the readers to interpret are the ways pictures interact with each other combined with words. This would finally allow the telling of a true story. According to Nate Lowman, one of the artists who created the The Last Newspaper project, “Newspaper is the few quiet shared things…we are all in our own electronic world based on who we are…its hard to have a common sense of self and what’s going on in the world. Newspaper is the ideal place/community for people to come and have discussions.” (Lowman) But due to a wide range of newspaper outlets like CNN and Fox that tell partial stories, a newspaper with its subjects erased would tell a more strait forward message to the audience and spark discussion to all who looks at them.
Week 3 Reading Response
WWW and Labyrinths all dealt with the idea of finding new information. The world Wide Web is something incredible because it gives an unlimited space for people to find the information one is looking for, as each piece of information is linked by URL. In Jorge Luis Borges’ “Labyrinths”, the setting is a large library (space), in which there is an infinity of books. Unlike W3, the books in Borge’s imaginative library does have clearly labeled URLs to display and organize such a big collection of information. There are books that are non-sense but there are also books that could provide vindications for individuals to predict their future. However, these vindications are incredibly difficult to find. According to Borges, “but the searchers did not remember that the possibility of a man’s finding his vindication, or some treacherous thereof, can be computed as zero” (Borges 55). In WWW however, the W3 system offers a development to create “a name service that will allow documents to be referenced by name, independent of their location” (Lee, 793). If all the files in the library of Borges’ fiction are referenced by name, then, everyone could find their Vindications! Another point worth mentioning is when Borges tries to locate books “to locate book A, consult first a book B which indicates A’s position” (Borges 56). This is just like how links function. In WWW, “links can point to anything that can be displayed, including search results” (Lee 792). In this case, consulting a book to find the location of another is just like clicking on a link to direct one to another.
Light Muted Green
Light muted green (#CAD4B6) as the example below is a special color that conveys melancholy due to how muted it is. Green is often used in color grading for movies and it is a tint that appears on older film cameras. From and older image, the green under tone gives off a nostalgic feeling, in which a moment happened in the past that we are incapable of going back to. A moment that is tinted and sealed that there is no way of breaking that seal again. The green here, with a blue hue, is the seal that separates now and the past. Its neutrality in saturation and slight darkness give off a penchant to sadness or neutrality. But are there any moment that we feel neutral? There are a wide spectrum of emotions and there isn’t a single moment that we feel neutral because our mind is constantly thinking and moving. This green is the closest we can get to that feeling of “neutrality”. Its slightly yellow tone is perfectly balanced with a cold tone to mute the positivity. Yet Light Muted Green is not dark nor cold enough to be sad. Therefore it sits at a middle position between happy and sad. Its usage in old cameras adds upon a feeling of nostalgic and melancholy to it. In cinematic movies, this muted green creates a timelessness, in which footage could be filmed in anytime (since color movie is invented).
