I know it's a little late, but my friend showed me this video and not only is it cool, but I thought it went along with our most recent project. I found it pretty enlightening.

Inspirationnnn

My collage was based on an artist named Brian Andreas. He creates what he calls "Story People". They're sayings that go along with pictures or sometimes sculpture. Some of them are funny, some are "deep", if you will, and some are almost nonsense. Both the writing and illustrations are very simplistic and it seems that kids might have done them. I've always loved his work. What I like most about it is that it is child-like. Sometimes kids say the best stuff. I think they have a very unique and rewarding view on life. Everything is simpler and better and I wish more people could think like children. In the collage I recorded different people reading his work, and put images with it. Some of the images are from Andreas, some is original, and others are pictures and videos that I thought went along with the line. Please excuse some of the crude cuts; transitions were a little finicky.

My mashup is about what is really important to people our age. I used images and audio from the reality show Laguna Beach, as well as news reports. I find it slightly amusing and a little alarming that tv shows like Laguna Beach are watched more often than things that we might actually gain something from, like the news or political debates. Don't get me wrong, I'm the worst one of the bunch. I rarely watch television, but when I do I'm definitely not watching CNN. Is watching girls talk about boys really that entertaining? And is it worth giving up that time when we could be becoming more aware of the world we live in?

I was studying in Davis today - obviously very focused - and got to thinking about silence. None of us has any idea what silence actually is, what it sounds like. There is always something there, no matter how minute it is. If people with hearing disabilities can't "hear", are they hearing silence? The same goes for all the senses. Can we ever feel nothing? Or taste nothingness? I feel like I can't have a grasp of what nothing is unless I can experience it, which seems impossible. There's something eerie about that. ...and that was the culmination of my afternoon.

My playlist was based on the book The Rainbow Fish. The moral of the story has to do with beauty, and what it's worth if you don't share it. I started with one of my own pictures of the view from the grandmother's house, simply because it's pretty and one of my favorite photos. The hand is what is missing something, and looking for it. I wasn't expecting to put an actual fish into my collage, but I liked how the cartoon-like image juxtaposes with the rest of the canvas. Lastly, I added a silhouette. It seemed to fit. I see almost every song from my playlist in the collage, but they use the images differently which I think is interesting.

I did my collage on the song Red Right Ankle by the Decemberists. The lyrics made me think of everything that comes together to make a person. The phsyical aspects, the thoughts and ideas (and maybe secrets), and the relationships that that person has with others. Based on that interpretation, the collage is pretty easy to understand.

Lyrics

http://flickr.com/photos/59358686@N00/14538559/
http://flickr.com/photos/nicolelee/69625610/
http://flickr.com/photos/45746749@N00/33906710/
http://flickr.com/photos/acetin/180996793/

So this is the best thing ever. I'm not sure if it legitimately relates to what we're talking about in class, but it does involve music and aesthetic principles. Too bad it's a television commercial, just ignore that. Apparently it was done without computer graphics, they actually let 250,000 bouncy balls loose in San Francisco. Anywho, I just wanted to share.

Playlist
The playlist, being the first assignment, was a little rough. I've never been a computer person, and didn't know what to expect from this class. I had a really hard time coming up with an idea to get started so I resorted back to my favorite genre, childrens books. While it seems simplistic, I found that The Rainbow Fish is actually quite a book. There were numerous themes that I tried to portray through the songs I chose. I picked the Five for Fighting song Something About You for the smaller fish admiring the rainbow fish. Look at Miss Ohio is all about someone knowing what they should do, but wanting to do what's in their interest. I was suprised how easy it was to find songs that fit the feeling from the story. Who would have thought that the themes from good old rainbow fish share the themes from a group of songs of varying genres? Never having created a playlist before, it was interesting to see how songs worked with one another. Which ones fit, which ones didn't, when it was nice to have contrast and when it was better to have similarity.

So andrew and i decided to do our essay on which came first, the chicken or the egg. We've got some good interviews from gary the pit preacher, a rabbi, some professors, and a few students. it's pretty cool.

check it out

Deep in the ocean, where no person could swim, there lived millions of fish of all different shapes and sizes and colors. There was one fish in particular who stood out from the rest. He was covered in the most beautiful scales any fish had ever seen. Shades of blues and greens, and all different colors, with shiny scales that glimmered in the light as he swished his tail back and forth to swim. He was called Rainbow Fish. The other fish loved to watch Rainbow Fish swim by, and when he passed all eyes were on him.