Synthesis

To be honest, I was puzzled about what to do when I read the Syllabus. Those modules sound really attractive and I try to imagine what could happen in the following three months. I have to admit I spend three days to find out why experts think the second picture is more compelling. During the time when we share our ideas in group, my classmates’ reasoning analysis had indeed made me broaden my outlook. After that, I found I need to more than others in class because I never think about being an expert in aesthetics. Thanks for having a so nice chance to learning something new. We have a great beginning from a “simple” picture.

The first step I took is my first assignment for module one. The key in this part is “connection” which I think is a really interesting viewpoint. I started from a very simple idea that I should find some connection. This kind of idea ran through the whole course. From the first step, I found intension and essence of art need to be deeply discussed. Most of time, we just think works of art are beautiful without thinking about the intension. When I see a picture, listen to a piece of music or watch a TV commercial, I think it’s only a form of artistic expression. I had never thought about the real meanings annotated behind it. Since then, I began to try to find the particular fascination of each kind of art and where does it originate from? There is no doubt that it is hard for me to understand and analysis these in the beginning. However, after reading articles and discussing with my friends and classmates, I began to love thinking about a lot of question about art and share my ideas with others. I got a lot of stimulating ideas from others, especially about some meaningful topics.

Here, I want to talk about another key “potential” in my view. In our daily life, the most important feeling we got from the work of art is beautiful. We seldom think about the potential meaning behind them. In another word, we could be under the misconception that art is a kind of unusual theme. Actually, focusing on their potential meaning, art always is “saying” something to appreciators. Some of works are very simple, but we still could get the complexity behind the simplicity.

After being a beginner, I begin to make an attempt in handling and creating works of arts. We made our first video on an object. To be honest, I don’t think my project is not good enough because I ignored the connection between an object and its potential meaning. Thanks to the help from my friends and his son, I could have a chance as a director. In this process which I called “the second step”, more and more ideas came true by technical tools. I learned several kinds of software, such as After Effects, Photoshop, Audacity and Premiere. However, it is easy to know how to use them, but it is hard to use them to carry out my notion, especially to express the connection between topic and my work. Taking fashion as an example, we could find this kind of connection between the art and education. Although there is not direct connection between fashion and educational space, but there are indirect, inevitable connections. At this point, when I turn back to the beginning of this semester, I found the method I analysis and the way I design have been totally changed by what we learned in class. In Fashion, “What Not to Wear” is a really good example for us to learn this kind of connection. This show had led to a leap forward in our understanding of many processes. In this course, we took a lot of forwards of this kind, which made me get a lot step by step. With these processes, I began to understand why I need to take this course, what it could bring me and how I can use tools to carry out different educational ideas.

I am really happy I could have this opportunity learning the “educational connection”. It’s more like giving us a tool to carry out my ideas than providing ability to be an appreciator. With the tool, as an educator, now I could better using a highly complex art form which combines many other arts to show my ideas in teaching and learning. Thanks David and Gaoming!

Fashion in a virtual world

Second Life is a 3D virtual world. It is developed by Linden Lab. Under special client software, People can create and modify everything in this virtual world. I am familiar with Second Life and basic coding skill is needed there. But, I want to talk about "Fashion" in Second Life.

In the real world, you may not buy everything you want for you may not have enough money. But in second life you can "create" what you want. You can create a LV bag, a GUCCI wallet, Chanel perfume(just a object without flavor), even a special configuration of hair. So lots of people there dress up with imagination and their made-up has a strong charactor. In this way, I think it's a very dependable and convenient way to let students join in an activity. Last week, I watched a tv program called "What Not To Wear" in learning channel. I think Second Life is a better way to see how the same plan works with less money. What's more, it will required less time. People in Second Life just need a series of functions to dress themselves up. If it is possible to retake this tv program in Second Life, we can design more dresses of a distinctive style or for a particular occasion with little money. Maybe, I have to say it could be boring if you put it on TV. However, if a lot of students need to do the same thing in class at the same time, there is no doubt that Second Life will be the best choice!

If we have a educational program called "What Not to Build" in school to teach students how to build a house. Do we really want to give students a mount of money and let them build their house independently? The answer definitely is no. If we have Second Life, we can let them build there. They can create any kind of building with their imagination and don't need to worry what they may fail or it's hard for building workers. So, "fashion" in Second Life can be much easier to express and realized. I really would like to see what fashion could work in this virtual world.

A Good Design in Field Museum

I took this picture in Field Museum in Chicago. This brilliantly colored wall is at the end of a exhibition of species. Here is the words in the middle :" ...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." The wall is unique in design, excellent in manufacturing technique and profound in meaning. When I was standing in front of it, my heart is full.

Also, I think it implied a educational meaning as well. Sometimes, we spend the whole class to tell students something we think is important. We talk with them, listen to their ideas or views and lead them to set up a a multiplicity of ideas. However, when I standed in front of this wall, I was totally understood why people should protect the nature and preserve species diversity. I think most of us will have the same feeling as mine. There is only one words there, but this design is worth a thousand of words. Especially, a collection of different animals and plants make us feel amazing.

There is another two wonderful points in its design. First of all, every tiny picture is circle, which is the same as our earth. That means we all live in the earth. We, human humans, share this planet with other species and other forms of life. We need to respect each other. Second, when you stand in front of this wall, every picture is equal in distance. That means we are created equal. All the beings are equal. They are all around human beings, sharing our blue planet. We should protect them. When I think about these, I would like to see what a student could think about if he or she is standing there. I think it does work if we have such a wonderful thing to show them in a biology class.

Squirrels and Castle in Disney

This is a photo taken by Yiren in "Magic Kindom", Disney. One week ago, we took a wonderful trip to Disney in Florida. I like this photo because it has a good shot, also reminds me of a jolly good time there.

First of all, the squirrels actually are decorations of a barrier, which are sculptured in bronze. When at the first sight, I feel the smooth contour of the sculpture is so wonderful. Even if they are still, you can feel they are so fluent and lively as well. Here, we can easily see the appearance of animation of the figure in this sculpture. I love this kind of shaped beauty they presented, which express its definiteness.

Also, as I said, this photo has a really wonderful shot. Yiren made a good decision when she chose the how far from the subject her camera will be and what kind of background she needs. Fortunately, we had a pretty good light that day (always in Florida), so we did need to be worried about the light may affect the result.

Look at the sapphire sky, it is so blue. Let’s focus on the color in this photo. The photo has a pleasing balance of colors and spaces, especially it wants to say “something” in the relationship between squirrels and castle. As a guest, I can feel the words they want to say : “Welcome to our Kingdom, enjoy!” However, this kind of relationship is shown by the shape, color, even the sculpture itself. Like the words in Disney’s gate: “Where dreams come true”, every charactor in Disney seems to tell us that here is the realm of fairy tales.

My work on the project 3

Last week, I try my hard to do the project called “The tale of two retail spaces”. The places I chose are “Oriental Mart” and “Dahua Mart”. They both retail Asian goods, including Asian food (mainly), Asian daily necessities and Asian decoration, so I think they occupy a similar market niche in East Lansing.
The first thing that grabs my attention as I walk into oriental is the Chinese traditional paintings, and sculptures, such as effigies of Buddha, the God of Wealth, wooden screen, Chinese fans and so on. These objects reveal a Chinese traditional atmosphere. In Dahua, the first thing I noticed is the hanging paper flowers, which create a festive merry feeling.Describe any signs you see in the interior that are promoting the products, or have the logo incorporated - in the windows, on the walls, hanging for the ceiling, or on a display stand.
Dahua has a poster in the interior which list all the goods at a discounted price. They hang the poster in the doorway so that every customer can see it as soon as they open the door.
Oriental Mart doesn’t have any list to show which goods are on sale. But they also put some signs there to promote the products. However, they just put a card with a title “special”, without any logo incorporated. Dahua and Oriental Mart both have one type of normal lighting. Because Dahua is a smaller than Oriental, its ceiling is well decorated with a kind of white plasterboard. But, this kind of design makes an uncomfortably confined space. It be hard for customers to cause the desire for material goods in such a confined space Oriental’s ceiling looks like the ceiling of a factory workspace, simple, roomy and clean. This kind of surrounding makes people take their time when buying shopping goods and they often like to compare. Dahua displays the different products just by type. Oriental Mart did a good job on that. They have different areas marked by different numbers. The goods from different countries are displayed in different areas. What’s more, if you can’t find something and ask the shop assistants, they can tell you where the thing you want is, located by number. The number signs that label each area make shopping a breeze.The Dahua makes the red as the predominant color in a design. Red is an auspicious color in Chinese culture. As the most favorite color of the Chinese people, red represents auspiciousness. It appears on each day for jubilation. Oriental Mart chose Golden as the predominant color. In China, Golden means a river of gold flow into your pockets. Money and treasures will be plentiful. Anyway, both of them don’t use any color on the wall. Dahua doesn’t have too much artwork on the wall. They only have stickers on the window. Oriental has lots of artworks. The boss there told me changes have been made in the way artworks are displayed, which makes customers can appreciate them while they are shopping. Also, they put the price of artwork there, if customers would like to buy it, they could know the price immediately. Both of the two marts display some products around the counter. Dahua put different kinds of drink there. Without being placed in an orderly arrangement, they can not draw customers’ attention a lot. Oriental Mart put some food for taken-out, such as spring-rolls, desert. Dahua is smaller compared with Oriental Mart. So those narrow rows and too many shoppers cause the inconvenience sometimes. As mentioned before, Oriental Mart is roomy and clean because they make a more sensible arrangement and make the most of their space. On another hand, they consider sufficiently the wants of the customers and have a better shopping environment.
As a small shop, Dahua is so far so good. However, Oriental Mart has not only a good assortment of goods, but also a comfortable environment and you may choose things conveniently. In sum, Dahua and Oriental Mart are similar but different. I enjoy each of them in some details. In the process of comparing their architecture and interior design, I applied what I have learned in class, summed up, and got a the experiences mentioned above.

Why I do not like advertisement...

Last week, we focus on advertisement. A lot of ads there were shown to us. Some of them are really funny and well-designed. But, to be honest, I don't like ad.

I don't like ad because of a funny reason. A beautiful girl used to be my neighboor. When we were all in junior high school, we were sharing the same desk. She is beautiful and tender. I didn't like doing homework, she did her homework and mine. I didn't like taking not in class, she did and made a copy for me. I thought she was so nice and we could be in the same senior high school after the middle school examination.

But...

She left me alone. She said she had to learn advertisement designing because she thought it could be proper. And she said the most disappointing words I had ever heard:"I am a stupid girl, advertisement designing could be ok for me if I want to go to college."

That hurts me a lot. And everytime when I saw an advertisement, I always think of the "stupid" girl.

Music, make photos alive in video

I want to talk about this, because I found a few people like to add still photos in their video. As we know, picture is picture. If we are satisfied with slides show, movies will be abandoned sooner or later. Why should a series of still pictures be blended on a screen to produce motion pictures? I think what we need is a reflection of the real world rather a momentary character. Whatever we use 24 frames, 32 frames or 64frames, what we want to get is a reflection of object in real world. So we need show others what a object should be.

However, photos can give us another effect, sometimes. Think about that, have you ever stared at something in television or movie screen for a long time? Have you need a stop in show because you want to see all details? Or have you ever recall a still picture in your mind when you were watching a detective film? You may not agree that we all would like see still photos in a movie, but definitely, we all want to get still photos in a proper time.

Now, if we just put something out there, still, silent, without any off scene sound, what do you think?

So, we need something along with still pictures. I believe that this "something" is supposed to be music. A good background music can make photos alive in video. For example, sound music heightened the joyous atmosphere of the movie. And a music with sadness or slushy emotional music could draw tears from audience. That's music!

In sum, I believe next time when I add music to my video, I should be more conservative than this time.