Category — Collage Project

Sugar.  It’s everywhere.  It’s an addiction.  And it’s something that most people appreciate.  Some say it is part of the reason being obese or overweight is so widespread. There is talk of a sugar tax on drinks like the tax levied on cigarettes. The product is widely enjoyed, and its history is a reflection of globalization and industrialization

Once discovered by Europeans during the Crusades by coming into contact with the Arabic world, sugar was reserved for the wealthy and highly coveted.  Early on, sugar cane was processed in Italy and Christopher Columbus took some sugar cane with him where it flourished in the Caribbean because of the ideal weather conditions.  From then on, the Dutch, the United States, and much of Western Europe capitalized on the new discovery, importing slaves from Africa to Latin America and the Caribbean, notably Potosi (Bolivia), Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil.  In the imperialists’ dust is poor, infertile land and economies that have remained poor.

My collage reflects the slaves, workers, and people forgotten and exploited by the sugar trade and the obsession with sugar that allowed it.  Voyagers at first came for the gold and silver, and found sugar to be just as worthwhile a cause.  The image was created electronically, while there is a physical aspect.  The brownie bars are representative of gold, and the use of sugar as a commodity (as well as cacao).  They are the basis of an intricate and fragile system that falls as inequality rises and the sugar (brownies) became scarcer.  The collage is meant be interactive: brownies representative of the wealth amassed, and as it is consumed, the sugar globe falls, and just might break.

However, I clumsily dropped the sugar globe and it was in pieces; this speaks to the fragility of the connections.  The origami ball is meant to represent the same ideas; it should not be held together by anything but fragile connections (Mine isn’t for the sake of transportation).  If not held together by some sort of tape, the ball could be thrown and fall apart.  The origami ball was made in mind with the facets of Latin American representation as well as that of the United States and Asia.  It was made with old issues of The Economist.

Collage images from: http://diggingri.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/sugar-scrub.jpg
http://members.multimania.nl/pol/jan159.jpg
http://www.frenchcreoles.com/420px-Toussaint_L%27Ouverture.jpg
http://www.stcroixthisweek.com/images/sugar-cane-plant-2.jpg
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/slavery/slavery.gif
http://rlv.zcache.com/sugar_cane_harvest_in_hawaii_1917_poster-p228743524565603824qzz0_400.jpg
http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/true-size-of-africa.jpg
http://www.agronamex.com/sugar_cane.jpg
http://japanfocus.org/data/spices.jpg
http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/christopher-columbus/images/christopher-columbus-3.jpg
http://matthiashamann.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/rhodes-colossus-punch-18928×6.png?w=268&h=348
http://www.coloring-pictures.net/drawings/country/world-map.gif
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/organisations/voc/graphics/voc-heading.jpg

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

— Kurt Vonnegut

I always choose laughter. In tense situations, I am usually the one laughing, while everyone else mopes. Studies on laughter have shown it to relieve stress and improve quality of life. I can personally attest to this, as laughter has helped me get through some trying moments in my life. Laughter is the main way in which I deal with stress and it never fails to help me relax and feel better.

In this collage I tried to capture the joy and lightheartedness that laughter brings to people. My original plan was to record all my own photographs and videos and sound. However I soon realized that capturing laughter is not as easy as I expected it would be. One major obstacle was the speed of my camera. It takes several seconds for it to snap a picture once I have pressed down on the button. By the time it finally does take the shot, the moment has already passed.  Another obstacle was that the laughter often died off as soon as people saw the camera aimed at them. Many people seemed self-conscious about having their laughter recorded, though I believe that people look their best when they are smiling and laughing.

Another, different, kind of obstacle was the fact that I am technologically challenged. Just the simple task of cropping the clips I wanted in my video took me a long time to figure out. Fortunately I finally realized there was a ‘help’ option where I could type in my questions and this quickened the video making process greatly for me.

The first half of my collage along with the last three clips in it, are my own images and videos. All the still images are pictures I have taken in the past, without this project in mind. However all the movies have been recorded over the past couple weeks. I decided to include pictures from the internet to add some more body to my video, as well as to give it more diversity.

Choosing the music for my video was easy. I immediately knew to look through my show tunes in order to find the kind of corny music I was looking for. Just this week, the popular television show Glee performed a cover of “Make ‘Em Laugh” from the musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” which I immediately decided to include in my collage. The other song, “I Love to Laugh,” is from the musical Mary Poppins. These are both fun, cheery tunes that I think everyone will recognize. I also included the sounds of sitcom laughter to accompany a series of close-ups on laughing mouths.

Overall, I am happy with my final collage. I just wish I had been able to capture more laughter on camera. However, I think the few pictures and video clips I had were effective in portraying the spirit of laughter.

Photo Credit to Roman Brodetskiy

http://www.photodom.com/member/odessa

The New York Stock Exchange is a symbol of the free market: American capitalism at its best. It is at the center of our economic prosperity and our economic downfall. Around it, are its citizens, its innocent, or not so innocent, bystanders who live their lives consciously of its significance, or passionately and independently as artists, with little concern towards the competitive monetary gauge. Herein exists the dynamic the American citizen: poor or rich, white collar or artistic, either a benefactor or a victim of the free market system.
In my collage I tried to express the dynamic citizen that our capitalist society produces: rebel or successor. I used a variety of photos that were taken by my father at different times. The background is a single shot of the New York Stock Exchange, and class distinguishes the overlaying figures around it.
The man on the top left is a random stranger on the street that my father photographed for a dollar. The violinist on the top right is a blend between these two figures, an artist and a professional, producing a unique good as an artist on a quite professional and respectful level. The man beneath him is a junkie from rehab. The one to the left of him is a street performer, perhaps disenchanted by the system, surveying pedestrians for dollar bills like a forgotten muse.
Directly beneath the American flag is your white collar, suit and tie, American success story; a true champion of the free market system, with a private fund manager, enjoying a cigar. At the bottom left of the screen is as Southern fisherman who takes stock only in fresh water salmon, not concerned by the intricacies of the market.
In constructing this collage, I tried to intertwine my two prospective majors: economics and philosophy and provide a visual anecdote of how a single system have propagate a variety of individuals and different stereotypes. Some may say “so what?” but I find it important that a uniform system is interpreted and implemented personally on many different levels, establishing value to perspective.

The American flag is a perfect center because it evokes these very ideas: capitalism, democracy, freedom of expression, and individualism. It networks these individuals through a common authority in their livelihood. In some respect each one of use belongs in this collage; we are in no way discounted from its composition, neither by mentality nor by social consensus.

I composed the piece by taking my fathers works and manipulating them with various filters that give them an artsy appearance. Brush strokes were simulated to accentuate the details in the images before the photographs were cut out and blended onto a background. The lighting and contrast for each figure was adjusted and was set to distinguish each person from one another, not to sell them as a uniform group. In essence this photograph is a memorial of American life: socially and economically, artistically and professionally, offering insight on the dynamic of our country’s life.

The New York Stock Exchange is a symbol of the free market: American capitalism at its best. It is at the center of our economic prosperity and our economic downfall. Around it, are its citizens, its innocent, or not so innocent, bystanders who live their lives consciously of its significance, or passionately and independently as artists, with little concern towards the competitive monetary gauge. Herein exists the dynamic the American citizen: poor or rich, white collar or artistic, either a benefactor or a victim of the free market system.
In my collage I tried to express the dynamic citizen that our capitalist society produces: rebel or successor. I used a variety of photos that were taken by my father at different times. The background is a single shot of the New York Stock Exchange, and class distinguishes the overlaying figures around it.
The man on the top left is a random stranger on the street that my father photographed for a dollar. The violinist on the top right is a blend between these two figures, an artist and a professional, producing a unique good as an artist on a quite professional and respectful level. The man beneath him is a junkie from rehab. The one to the left of him is a street performer, perhaps disenchanted by the system, surveying pedestrians for dollar bills like a forgotten muse.
Directly beneath the American flag is your white collar, suit and tie, American success story; a true champion of the free market system, with a private fund manager, enjoying a cigar. At the bottom left of the screen is as Southern fisherman who takes stock only in fresh water salmon, not concerned by the intricacies of the market.
In constructing this collage, I tried to intertwine my two prospective majors: economics and philosophy and provide a visual anecdote of how a single system have propagate a variety of individuals and different stereotypes. Some may say “so what?” but I find it important that a uniform system is interpreted and implemented personally on many different levels, establishing value to perspective.

The American flag is a perfect center because it evokes these very ideas: capitalism, democracy, freedom of expression, and individualism. It networks these individuals through a common authority in their livelihood. In some respect each one of use belongs in this collage; we are in no way discounted from its composition, neither by mentality nor by social consensus.

I composed the piece by taking my fathers works and manipulating them with various filters that give them an artsy appearance. Brush strokes were simulated to accentuate the details in the images before the photographs were cut out and blended onto a background. The lighting and contrast for each figure was adjusted and was set to distinguish each person from one another, not to sell them as a uniform group. In essence this photograph is a memorial of American life: socially and economically, artistically and professionally, offering insight on the dynamic of our country’s life.

Mondrian-inspired Collage:
Click on a photo to view. [photosmash=]

Dutch-born painter Piet Mondrian  (1872-1944) discovered an artistic form in the dynamics of New York City street life. A true cosmopolitan, he yo-yoed between Holland and Paris before making his mark in New York. There, he created his most famous painting “Broadway Boogie Woogie,” (1942) a slight modification of his typical style that still used his signature primary colors and vertical and horizontal bands. The intersection of red, blue, and yellow lines seem to respond to the vibrations from the city’s jazz music, the flashing of its neon signs, and the honking from its traffic. In a most creative way, Mondrian crafts a mosaic using interlacing blocks of color.

My own Mondrian-inspired collage highlights the moving pace of New York,  a city that tolerates no slowpokes. To show that, I handpicked typical New York City street photos and singled out one moving object in the scene. I created my artwork by applying a black-and-white filter to street photos and, in some cases, a motion blur to create a sense of motion. I then used bright contrast colors to apply a Mondrian-print onto that moving object, which is meant to pop out from the rest of the black-and-white street scene.

My collage photos portray New York City as a sea of umbrellas on a rainy day; an outdoor exercise complex on a sunny day, and a fashion runway just about every day. Cyclists. Cabbies. Skateboarders. Joggers. Pedestrians. All compete for space. Foot traffic has become part of the city landscape.

My three collages set the spotlight on three categories of foot traffic:

• All The Pretty Ladies steal the city’s gaze as they promenade along the sidewalks. Roll out the red carpet, here I come!
• Exercise fanatics and cyclists own the road. I like to Move it, Move it. Get outta my way!
• Umbrellas reign in the rain. A rainy day in the city looks like Umbrella. Umbrella. Umbrella. Make way, people!

Mondrian’s minimalist style is often imitated, though no artist has been able to achieve the same effect. His grid style has gained popularity among designers and similar prints have shown up on Nike sneakers and women’s dresses. Mondrian continues to inspire the art, fashion, advertising, and design worlds, as New York City continues to attract worldwide attention. New York City is a city like no other.

Photo credit:

http://www.limitemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/full-bleed-new-york-city-skateboard-photography-2.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/sfb111/image_xlimage_2010_03_R5455_Rain_03292010.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.stylelist.com/blog/media/2009/02/sephora-store-front.jpg

http://www.feeldesain.com/feel/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/72810bikelegs_8843Web.jpg

http://www.feeldesain.com/feel/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/91110_LSD_MG_3018lowres.jpg

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/dv1088022/Digital-Vision

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Mondrian_lookalike.svg/400px-Mondrian_lookalike.svg.png

http://images.inmagine.com/img/imagesource/is098q0tx/is098r06p.jpg

http://www.aidan.co.uk/md/UsNycTaxiDakBlg5414.jpg

Go To: ballparks.dantonios.net

For my entire life, I have always been a baseball fan, yet what I have always enjoyed more than the game itself or the players on the field has been where the game is played: different ballparks. Naturally then, a collage project that could convey my liking for the stadiums would be in order.

The first decision that I made was that I wanted my project to be entirely digital; doing so I felt would be a significant aid in several respects the first of which being that it allowed for a multiplicity of design elements (sound, video, still photos, etc.). Yet for me, the ballparks themselves could not afford a simple passing glance as a mere frame in a movie, but rather they deserved something that could allow for a better appreciation of them by the viewer. And so, at that point I decided to break up my project into two parts, the latter of which would allow for a closer examination of the different playing fields throughout major league history. While it may sound at a first a bit disjointed, doing it in two parts allowed me to offer the viewer different perspectives on the same overall product, which ultimately (at least in my mind) bettered my final creation.

The next step was accomplishing said objective, and I believe that I was able to do so only with my choice of interactivity in the second part. As you will notice, the first part serves as a mere introduction and overview of what is to come; I accomplished this through the use of video, which hopefully enhances one’s enjoyment of the collage. (For those that might have missed it, the opening scenes of Ruth (3), Jeter (2), and Smith (1) are intended as a countdown, Ozzie Smith’s flip is too cool to leave out a baseball montage.) The second part, which opens only after seeing part one, is arguably the ‘true collage’ part. Scattered photos of all sizes, this part allows the user to click on any particular baseball team and be zoomed in on their current stadium (from multiple perspectives) as well as stadiums of their recent/not-so recent history. Unfortunately, the one thing that I seemingly forgot was to label the stadiums and so if time allows, I will try to produce a little guide to the collage in the coming days.

Making the collage itself was not all that difficult, in fact it was almost as simple as it can get. It came down to the programs that I decided to use and Microsoft’s ‘Deep Zoom Composer’ and their ‘Expression’ series were able to accomplish what I wanted to get done. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely helped that I had preexisting knowledge of the software but what I did anyone could easily do in the future. In the end, the multiple elements I believe were a good support for the collage, and because it was done digitally I believe I was able to offer something different than what one might ordinarily expect from a collage. Enjoy.

Forewarnings: There is some audio in part 1, and it may take some time to load and Pop-Up may be blocked; sorry!

Photos Thanks to PC-Ballparks, Video Property of MLB.

watch the digital collage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvIv3W0Fg-k

My mom always tells me to let a smile be my umbrella. I generally roll my eyes at the statement but in truth I can’t help but smile. Whether greeting a friend, acknowledging an acquaintance, catching the eye of a stranger or simply enjoying a song, photograph or film I need to grin. What is the downside? A smile is a peace sign, an expression of joy or humor and a salutation. It doesn’t matter whether you like a person or not, if you make eye contact, a smile is almost always better than any possible alternative.

I am not new to New York. My permanent residential address is in New Jersey but my grandparents lived in the city and my mom and dad grew up in Manhattan and Brooklyn respectively. I therefore have a habit of defending New York City- the people here aren’t that grumpy and self-involved, they’re just like everyone else, only faster paced. It’s not true though. New Yorkers seem to have come to embrace their hostile stereotype, and illustrate their contentment with the description by continuing to ignore, shove, death glare and cut off their neighbors and fellow city people.

I do it too. Pushing someone out of the way is faster than waiting your turn, and glaring at a person across from you on the subway is easier than striking up a conversation, but something is lost in these constant exchanges of hostilities- a sense of camaraderie and the smile that often comes with it.

New Yorkers don’t smile enough. I decided to play around with this idea in my collage. Smiles can cross any language barrier and therefore any culture, they shouldn’t be quite so rare. I focused on the people around me, snapping photographs of my friends smiling and frowning; often accompanied by a bright yellow smiley face sticker that either mirrored or contradicted their own expression. I also tried to incorporate audio elements by capturing video shots of some New York people explaining what they think about smiling. Answers varied, and were more often than not humorous (an unintended side effect of asking people about smiling is apparently a smile).

To accompany the visual elements I made the video’s audio backdrop a song called “Kids” by the band MGMT. It’s an upbeat song noting a happier time in most people’s lives where smiles probably came easier. At one points the lyrics read, “No time to think of consequences,” emphasizing my point- there is rarely a downside to smiling. Everyone knows it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown so why not just do it?

I think my digital collage was relatively upbeat and I hope it generates a few upwardly curved lips. To do a project on smiling seems corny but it ought to serve as a reminder that smiling is safe and feels good. Not only does it feel good but also it can put those around you at ease. My mom says let a smile be your umbrella. There is nothing both easier and better to show the world.

Sometimes, it is difficult for me to relate to the students at Baruch College. Most of them commute from home, and those that do not usually come from no further than one hundred miles away. Most were born and raised in New York City; it is their home by nature rather than by choice.

I have lived in New York City for a little over three months now. Yet it feels like I have been here forever. It feels like I am home.

Home is where the heart is. This is something I believe unconditionally. I have consciously chosen my home, something very few people at Baruch have yet to do. People are often put off by the lack of regard I seem to have for the people and places I left behind in Miami. “Don’t you miss them?” they ask me, “Don’t you want to go back home to visit them?” Yes I miss them; however, going back to visit them does not equal going back home. I am home in New York City. I knew this from the second I stepped off the plane, throwing my one-way ticket in the trash. New York City is my chosen home. And it feels more like a home than Miami ever did.

I had originally planned to do my collage project on Japan, but that idea, like life itself, changed without any warning. Looking through my photographs, listening to the song in my video, I was suddenly filled with a sense of warmth. A sense of belonging. A sense of being home. And because I have chosen this home, I can accept and reject the parts of it that I wish to. Through my camera lens, and my own eyes, I can choose to see only the parts that fill me with a sense of happiness.

In Miami, everything I liked and did not like was already out in the open, shoved down my throat before I could protect myself from it. I know the city too well, one could say, and because of this I know that it is not the right home for me. There is no other place like New York City, and there is nowhere else that feels more right as my chosen home.

My photographs are not special. They show people and places that I see almost every day. Yet that in itself makes them special to me, because they are photographs of my home. I am showing you my home. Although we all live in New York City, my home is not the same as your home. Home is a subjective place, an imagined existence which can be built just as easily as it can crumble. Here is my home. Call it Manhattan, call it the Lower East Side, call it New York City, call it the East Village. Call it what you wish. It has no proper name; it is a feeling. A feeling of acceptance and belonging. A feeling of always knowing who I am and where I am going. A feeling of familiarity and love. A feeling that I am never alone.

The song playing in the background of my video is one that I have known for a long time. It is in Japanese, and I do not understand all of the lyrics. When I listen to music, I do not listen to the words. I listen to the intonation of the vocals, the notes themselves. I listen to the feeling. The feeling of this song is, to me, incredibly uplifting. It is inspiring and soothing at the same time. It provides the same feeling as my home. It is the song of my home. My reality. The final lyric of the song is “subete wa honmono da”. Everything is real. New York City is my real life. I am finally living. Everything before this feels like a dream world. A dream. I was comatose, unmoving, stuck in a life I had not chosen for myself. Three months ago, I began living. Once I found a home of my own.

collage project photo link: http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/3410/sarany.jpg
collage project video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oljgmPKSuJM

Link–>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTMZAT92ev0

As Michael Jordan dribbled down the court, you could see the ferocity in his eyes; the type of ferocity a lion has when it locates its prey.  The Utah Jazz fans held their breath.  For many years the Jazz had been a great team, but they had aged, and this was perhaps their last chance to win it all.  However, Michael Jordan had his own goodbye to make, as he was considering retirement. After letting a few seconds go off the clock, Jordan dribbled to the top of the circle, crossed over to the left, giving Bryon Russell a slight nudge, ridding himself of the pesky defender.  He rose above the defense and let the ball go. When he came back down to the hardwood, he kept his extended hand in the air, like a dagger in the hopes and dreams of the Jazz and their faithful.  “SWISH.”  It was moments like these that made Jordan the greatest basketball player of all time.

Growing up as the son of a huge Knicks fanatic, whenever the Knicks played the Bulls, I would often hear my dad yelling at the television screen in anguish, as Michael Jordan crushed the Knicks hopes time after time.  However, the Knicks weren’t his only victims.  In his reign in the NBA, he took down major powerhouses such as the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Detroit Pistons, and created his own dynasty.  He went on to win six championships, five MVP trophies, and set many records.  Over the past three decades, Jordan has become a superlative for greatness.  Even today if I do something well, I will say, “ I’m the Jordan of … (whatever I have done well)”.  Never has there been an athlete as popular or as dominant in his sport than Jordan.

The reason why I chose to do my collage project on Michael Jordan, was because of the masterpieces he created on the court.  When I look at old videos and photographs of Michael Jordan playing basketball, I am always amazed by the countless number of stunning images that capture some of his most magical moments.  Although Jordan probably has been commemorated hundreds of times before, I thought that I should do it with my personal touch.  For my music I used three tracks.  One was the recognizable theme song of the Chicago Bulls.  The second was the instrumental portion of Eminem’s Lose Yourself.  I used this song, because in this song Eminem tells listeners to make the most out of the moments they are in, which Jordan has done consistently over the course of his career.  I end the video with a portion of Drake’s song “Forever”, where he says his name is Greatest Ever, but I use it for Jordan, who, when it comes to basketball, truly is the Greatest Ever.  For the photos and video clips of my collage, I picked my six favorite Michael Jordan moments, one representing each Larry O’Brien Trophy he has hoisted in his career.  My favorite moment is the one I wrote about above, where Michael Jordan ended his legendary career as a Bull with an unforgettable shot; this moment has a very artistic feeling to it.  Another moment I included is what some consider as the leaning dunk, and others as the Superman dunk.  This dunk/photo gives me chills every time I see it, because his body is at an angle where it almost seems as if he is flying.  I also included his free throw line dunk, which is well known as the logo for the Jordan brand.  As much as it hurt me to do so, I even included a photo of Michael Jordan throwing down a vicious dunk on Knicks star Patrick Ewing, just because of the aesthetic beauty of the dunk itself.  I added a dream like effect to all of these photos and videos, because some of these things that Michael Jordan did on the basketball court could only be conceived in a dream.

If ever there was a basketball god, Michael Jordan would be it.  The combination of poise and skill that thrived within him, truly allowed him to make the game of basketball look like it was easy.  It was this sense of easiness that he brought to the game, which allowed for these photographic masterpieces to be produced.

Sidekick Collage

(Written piece is in the description of the video and below.)

Whenever we hear the names Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Superman, Batman, and the like, we recognize what they mean to us as a society. These individuals, whether fictional or not, have contributed to their respective careers, whether winning NBA championships or saving the day. However, you rarely heard of the underrated individuals who work alongside them. Even though this select group of people rarely gets the credit they desire, still they work with their better counterparts to be great. These sidekicks not only have assisted these “heroes” in whatever task they are supposed to perform, but also they have been unappreciated in the process. That is why for this particular collage project I have chosen to pay tribute to all the sidekicks who never got the recognition they truly deserve. To me, these sidekicks are heroes.

The song in the background is called The Show Goes On by Lupe Fiasco. The reason behind it was that for every single sidekick, the show had to go on even if they never deserved the attention or fame they should have achieved. These athletes or superheroes continued to struggle and survive, hoping one day they achieve something more than fame; they achieve greatness. I began the collage with one of the most well known sidekicks, Robin, who helped Batman battle and defeat all those criminals who were in Gotham City. Even though everyone knows about the courageous acts of batman, we rarely give credit to the acrobatic Robin who always helps Batman in times of crises. Similarly, basketball players such as Scottie Pippin and John Starks have helped superstars such as Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing win. Rarely do you hear about these sidekicks, and every time commentators talk about the game, it’s always the names of the superstars and how much they have contributed to the growth of the game.