☀﹑Personal & Politcal。: HW 38

On the Trail from B1z， on Vimeo.

1. What insights about cool does the art integrate? What do you hope people will realize or question from their encounter with your art?

My video is basically trying to bring out the message of “don’t be afraid to change your own map”. In this cool unit, we did talked about cultural maps and how people are live off based on their roots, and whatever their maps shaped them is their meaning of living. So in my video, I am trying to advise others to cross over the boundaries, and modify their own maps if it is necessary in their lives. I want other viewers to question themselves and ask whether if they know “what’s going on in their lives”. I believe a lot of us are born to this world without being ready for it most of the time. We might wake up in the morning, and not ready to live since no one ever left us the exact answer. All we can do is to try to make sense of things and live with it. Since we don’t know, it seems many of us are just blind in a way while living, interacting with the others. Such as the scene from the video when I was lost in the hallway, then transit to a great sight but still did not recognize the beauty of our lives until the very last. It reveals how most of the time people take things for granted, and do not really know how to live cool. To sum up my point is to make people realize that although there’s no right or wrong answers of how to live our own lives, or in other words, a way to live cool, what we can do is to choose the best we can – live for the moment, and don’t stuck on the same trail unless that’s the direction that you want to go. Look at things in varies of perspective! (I personally think the video is a little unclear to some reviewers)

2. Describe the process of making the project - how'd you do each step? If it was a group project, what did you contribute?

The process of making this project is fun, but also frustrated. Since I am the type of person who’s having a hard time to work in groups, I often end up doing my own since it will come out to be the way I wanted, or is easier to do it without compromising. So I start out videotaping a lot of the random clips and try to make sense of it. But lots of them end up being useless, and the final product always end up to be something else. The most difficult part is to connect the art and make it relevant to the topic, which I struggle a lot making decisions of what to film. But once the idea came up to me, I start filming myself, and often times choose angles…etc. After filming every part, the editing part is a long process (more than 7 hours editing). Deciding which part to cut, how to keep with the flow, what effects and transitions, music, subtitles, many of the decisions are hard to make because it will affect the overall product. But I do enjoy the whole process of making this piece, and the filming part is definitely something that I never thought of doing. I am glad that I get to try something new, and be able to spend time doing something that I actually enjoy doing.

3. Does making art seem cool to you? Why or why not?

Absolutely! Having the chance to spend a lot of time to do something that I normally do in spare time makes the assignment seem to be less stressful. I love editing videos/photographs, and being able to do it and submit it as homework assignments is more challenging and cool. By saying that, doesn’t mean words are not as good as images, both do reveals great opinions in many ways if it were expressed relevantly. But making art requires more creativity in my opinion, because writing sometimes could be very flat and bored, and still send out the meaning. Art in the other hand is more challenging to bring out the meaning and to make sense to the others. Moreover, art is way too universal and is often easier to curve into people’s mind if it was powerful and successfully depicted.

I also did a video with Dinorah (her project). For more explanation, check it out from her blog.