Category — Artistic Encounters

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.

Link to Collage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0EgIqNahb0

Kings of New York is a jam that has been held for the last seven years in New York City. Dancers from all over the world come to this event in hopes of reigning King for one year. However, this year was the most crucial Kings of New York to be ever held because it would be the last, whoever wins this year, would rein King forever. Kings of New York does not attract your conventional dancers; it attracts a more underground form of dancing that could only be truly experienced in New York City.

The types of dances range from popping to break dancing (bboying) and a culture follows each dance. The roots of many of these dances originated in the Bronx itself and were forms of rebellion. Gradually the dances branched off and formed different styles that were unique. During Kings of New York there was a clash of cultures, however, hostility was not a feeling that these dancers felt towards one another. There were poppers watching the bboy competitions and bboys watching the locking competitions. Different forms of dancing were united for one night.

My collage focused mainly on urban dance culture. The various forms of dancing and the different moves that are incorporated into a dance form a collage unto themselves. It could be said that what I essentially have created are two collages, one collage of all the dances and another of the different movements each dance uses. Getting the scenes for this collage was the most difficult part of making it. I attended the jam at around 10pm and it last until 5am on a Monday morning. In the end it was worth it because the experience was one that was very different from a conventional dance competition. After I recorded the scenes I decided to put many dance forms and dance moves into the video creating a collage of movements; however, I wanted to remain true to the dance form so I decided to let the video flow in continuous motion. Dance is a continuum and I felt that if I cut the video into many different segments I would not be respecting the art that is dance.

I chose to do my collage on dance because I felt that dance was a changing collage. It is rare that we ever see a dancer use the same movements over and over. Dancers must be able to free style and follow the music. Since music is always changing throughout a melody a dancer must be ready to react properly. I also wanted to expose everyone to the underground forms of dancing. Too often we are presented with mainstream dancing such as hip-hop, ballet, or salsa. There is another world of dancing outside of mainstream dance that gets little attention and those dance forms are popping, locking, and bboying. If these forms of dance do get media attention, the media destroys the culture and meaning behind these dance forms. Everyone that bboys or pops are brought together through these forms of dance and we become a community. We know each other and respect the original meaning of the dance.

Link To Collage: Magazine Collage Project

I chose to do my collage theme on magazines because I felt that it was something that represented a wide range of different demographics in our society. There are magazines for technophiles, reading groups and even pornography. Not only do magazines represent a wide range of cultural possibilities but most magazines, especially magazine covers tend to be very visual. I thought this visual aspect was something I could easily integrate into a collage, unlike newspapers or other forms of media.

What I felt was most important to my collage was representing the diverse and eclectic mix of magazines we have in this country. There are literally hundreds of magazines I could have chose from, but I decided that my collage would work best if I chose the most recognizable and widely read magazines. What I had to do next was show all of this in a collage.

At first I wanted to do a collage that was a just a still image of different magazine covers mixed up together, but after listening to what other people’s ideas were as well as some advice from our local Tech Fellow I decided to make a movie. I wanted the video to show the diversity of magazines.  One night, while I was watching television I saw an iPad commercial and realized the same concept might work just as well if I replaced the iPad’s apps with magazine covers.

I chose a variety of magazine covers, some more famous than others, that I thought would be a good sample population of the different kinds of magazines that are out there. After finishing the movie I felt like I had only scratched the surface of all different magazine combinations. So, I decided to expand my collage by taking a much larger sample of magazines by taking names of magazines in their original fonts and colors and putting them altogether on a white canvas. After this was completed I had two different collages.

I thought that having two collages might be confusing, so I added my still image collage of al the different magazine names and added it to my movie collage. I did this by adding the opening theme music from 2001: A Space Odyssey and some dramatic camera sweeping. In the end I felt that the combination of the iPad parody and the more traditional collage got my point across in a more thorough and entertaining way than if I only did one or the other.

Magazines have played such an important role in American culture. Television and newspapers usually overshadow them but magazines have impacted us in ways that no other form of media can. For example Time magazine has recorded down the most influential people of all time, while Mad changed the very ideas of humor and popular culture during its prime. The Economist and The New Yorker influence our opinions in ways newspapers cannot. The Rolling Stones set the standard for serious music critique since its foundation. The history of magazines is just as varied as the selection of magazines on store shelves today.

In the end all I really wanted to do was provide people with a view of how varied and diverse magazines can be. From Playboy to The NewYorker, no matter who you are, or where you come from you will probably find a magazine that is right for you

Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQlvn-upmfk

How does music make you feel?

It’s hardly an easy–if even possible–question to answer. Still, we all listen to music. We each have different tastes for different voices, genres, styles—but have you ever noticed the way that individual music affects the individual? How that one split second in a song that you haven’t heard in years can bring you back to an event, an emotion? Many are deeply affected by the power of music, and in countless ways.

This revelation can’t be missed, even on these very streets. Performers that I have seen in the subways, in the parks, all attracted—or didn’t attract—an audience. The main audiences that I noticed were, surprisingly, children. More often than not, I noticed that many adults felt uncomfortable openly watching street performers—but children were an entirely different story. More often than not, I saw children staring in wonder at performers, as their parents looked the other way. One such example was the picture from the Delancey Street Station near the dorms. However, every once in a while, I lucked out and saw adults looking along with their kids—such as the picture of the mother and child at Union Square. Street performers aren’t the only avenue through which music calls out, though. Another example is the magic of the concert.

I myself have attended at least a dozen concerts in past years, but one of the first times that I really noticed the effect of music on the people around me was at my third Anberlin concert, this past October. Here, I noticed that even hours before the concert was to begin, there was an electrified feeling to the air–I was not the only one fidgeting frantically, awaiting a night of high energy and amazing music. Once in the concert hall, though, one was able to see the direst human response to music: all around me, people were moving as one, waving hands, pumping fists—no matter what it was, people were recognizing their own emotion, and reacting in turn as those around them did (and, amazingly, in response to only a few instruments and a singer).

One definition of music is “an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.” It’s truly astounding how just a simple organization of sound in time can evoke such a powerful response. There seems to be nothing else that brings people together to the extent that music does—or as universally.

Be it adults jumping in unison in crowded halls, or children leaning out of strollers and laps for a better glimpse of guitars and kazoos, the power of music is quite irrefutable. It is even supported by science: MRIs and other scans have proven that the brain not only becomes more active while listening to music, but its most emotion-related parts, such as the cingulated cortex, are incredibly active?

What does this tell us? Undeniably, whether we recognize it or not, we are all affected, by individuals and as a people, by the power of music.

What has music done for you?

LINK–> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cm2Ny04h_Q

For my collage theme, I decided to do it on the city that doesn’t sleep, New York City. Personally, I am ALWAYS tired and that’s pretty much the reason I decided to do this topic. Most days going to school in the morning, I sleep on the train. Most days going home, I sleep on the train. Some days when I get home, I take a nap. I love sleep. You can almost say that my hobby is sleeping and I know I’m not the only one. I always see other people sleeping on trains, on buses, even on the street. You can walk through Madison Square Park right outside of school and see people laying in the grass sleeping or on benches sleeping. Everyone sleeps, obviously, but I want to capture the moments that don’t just happen between the hours 11pm-8am in our own cozy beds. I wanted to be able to capture the moments where people just happen to fall asleep, whether it be on the floor of a living room, or a bench in a park. I want to point out all the naps and rests that the city that “doesn’t sleep” has to offer. In New York City, people make “beds” out of whatever is available to them when they are tired.

In my collage, you will see various places where people sleep. You’ll see people laying in bed, sitting on a couch, sitting on a park bench, laying on the grass, sitting in a train, standing in a train, DRIVING, and then some people just snoozing on the floor. There isn’t a place where people don’t sleep. For example, my dad’s favorite place to sleep is on the toilet bowl…but I didn’t find it appropriate to include a picture of that for obvious reasons. And I know the reason that New York City is labeled as the city that never sleeps. There is always something going on in the city regardless of what time it is. I just thought it would be fun to take pictures of people who aren’t always part of that “middle of the night”, lively atmosphere…and I was right. It was both fun and funny. As creepy as it sounds, I really enjoyed taking picture of people sleeping. Sure, I would get an occasional weird look from people, but for the most part people didn’t even notice. It was funny being able to be right in front of someone’s face without them knowing and the humor in it helped me get it done.

I wasn’t sure the style in which I was going to do my collage at first. I knew I couldn’t do a video because a video of people sleeping would put everyone watching to sleep! But I also didn’t want to do the old fashioned cut and paste on to paper. I didn’t find any excitement in that…especially with what the topic of my project was. I ended up figuring out how to work iPhoto and used that to help me make my collage with music and all. I had control of everything and I am pleased with the way it came out.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF5E_JDwpos

The theme I chose for my collage is subway art. I meant to juxtapose the feeling one gets from seeing art that is placed there by the MTA in specific subway stations with a vision behind it, to the colder feeling one gets at the sight of the vandalization that is now considered a form of art. When I started going out with the intention to work on this project, I found that my original ideas were wrong. My ideas of “intentional” and “unintentional” art mixed together and I began to appreciate the two equally. I decided that I should switch my focus to try to show the viewer how these two forms of art are quite similar. This would be a little harder to pull off then my first goal: many of my graffiti pictures were taken by sticking my camera out of the window of a train cart in the tunnels and blindly taking pictures to review later and find the art there. These all naturally give a darker feeling than the usually cheery art the MTA provides. How could I  show that these two were the same when the look of my photos was inherently different?

I thought that a way to connect the two and get rid of this disjointed feeling could be to fade in and out of color. By this I mean that the organization of my video is as follows: first my series of MTA art photos which start in full color and fade into black and white, then my pedestrian art begins which starts in black and white and slowly comes back into color for the ending. I think that my choice of playing with the coloring narrows the distinction between the two forms.

The song I chose to put in the background is called She Moves She by Four Tet. I knew I would want something instrumental because words would likely grab the viewers attention away from the photos I wanted to show. But I still had a lot of trouble choosing the right song: I originally wanted to insert a Steve Reich piece which starts with a clarinet and adds 12 more pre-recorded clarinets that gradually build up because it sounded like something I would hear in a train station, but when I showed it to friends they found the piece annoying. I decided to go with something less repetitive and more disjointed and random- this “folktronica” piece I think captures more of the essence of what I wanted to play in the background, which is an exotic but simple piece that you’d think you’d never hear anywhere else.

I think my decision to make this collage a video was a successful one. I thought it would be another challenge to put the video together, since I am technologically challenged and still not used to Mac products. I edited and cropped the photos as I could first and then started to put the video together. Surprisingly, iMovie was easy to use and pretty self explanatory, I got the hang of it right away and there wasn’t much else to do once I placed in the photos I wanted and controlled the panning and time that each picture would take up because I thought the collage would have more power in simplicity.

New York City streets are decorated with countless cigarette butts, scraps of litter, and smoke spewing out of trucks and cars’ mufflers. I always contemplated how the world used to appear before cigarettes, paper, automobiles, and other human inventions were made. The world used to be bountiful in green landscapes, vibrantly colored flowers, and full of all kinds of animals. I chose this topic to display aspects of nature alone, untouched by humans, and transition to today’s world when humans leave behind traces of their existence. Many passersby in the city streets ignore the trash that is carelessly thrown onto the ground, as if the trash will disintegrate and will not be existent in the days that follow.

I decided to capture the beauty of nature as well as its counterparts, the humans’ traces left behind in nature, by taking photographs and recording videos to put into the collage. I used the audio from the videos to demonstrate the difference between the peaceful sounds of nature versus the raucous sounds that are human-made. By using photography, I was able to use my eyes to see what I found suitable to use as examples of untouched nature and of humans’ traces. If I were to cut out images from magazines or other forms of paper media, I would have very limited options to display what I thought would be a good comparison of the before and after of humans in nature. Creating an 8×11 inch page collage is extremely restrictive because I can only put a number of items and pictures on the page before running out of space. Using a video to display various pictures and using audio makes the project more realistic because you can both view and hear nature as well as the effects of humans on nature.

As great as creating a video for my collage is, a video is also limiting in the sense that you can only see and hear what it has to offer. Looking back on my project now, I can see that if I had created a paper collage instead, I could have incorporated pieces of nature as well as scraps of litter found on the streets; for the nature portion, I could have picked up leaves and pasted them on the page, as well as flowers or feathers found on the floor, and for the humans’ effects portion of the page I could have picked up cigarette butts and paper litter and cans to put on the page. Using actual objects found on the streets and parks of New York City emphasize the fact that we New Yorkers are the cause of all the trash laying around in the city, while using a video can be viewed almost anywhere and not personalize the fact that humans polluting the environment is an issue in our particular city. Adding in the audio presented many challenges for me since I had to extract them from the videos I recorded and insert them where I found suitable; I also had to make them transition well so they would not sound choppy and out of place.

Starting digitally presented me with a wide array of options on how and where to capture my images to use in the video collage. I was able to choose which particular flower or scenery I wished to include, and I was able to carry my camera around and snap a picture whenever I saw it was necessary. Using the VadoCam, I walked around in the city and was able to capture sounds of birds chirping and trucks’ noises to incorporate into my collage. Using my camera, the VadoCam, and my laptop really broadened my creativity because I could edit my video however I wanted and incorporate sounds where I wanted them to be.

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg5AMMVlTxM

(Photographs by Brian Yee)

(A larger image may be seen at http://oi52.tinypic.com/2jafc4p.jpg)

Initially, I had wild plans for my collage. In my mind, I imagined music, video clips, and pictures all incorporated into one piece that exposed the rich variety of hip-hop dancing. However, I was later inspired by a topic that was much closer to my heart. After a visit with my former high school track team, I decided to take my collage in a completely different direction.

At that point, I knew that I wanted to create a more traditional photograph collage. While I had no prior experience with image editing programs, I thought I might dive into a new challenge. In the beginning, I felt overwhelmed with all the possible effects that were available and the use of different image layers. In a way, the many options that technology offered made me feel trapped. I saw that I could take the collage in many different directions, and I simply had no idea how to get started. At first, I considered avoiding this obstacle by switching to the old paper and scissors method. After some thought, however, I realized that printing out the photographs, and cutting and pasting them might be a waste of my time and materials.

The original photos I used to create the top center image in my collage.

Once I gathered the photographs that I wanted to use, I realized that I was not sure how I wanted to blend them into one image. When I began playing around with Paint.NET’s various effects, I tried one out called “ink sketch.” This effect allowed me to customize the ink outlines of the photographs, as well as the amount of coloring in each of them. Essentially, it turned photographs into images that appeared illustrated. When I continued to work with “ink sketch,” I saw that it allowed me to combine photographs into a more unified picture. This is seen at the top left of my collage, in which I used three different photographs to make one longer image. I tried to make it appear as though the different groups of competitors were running one behind the other, which was easier to accomplish with this particular effect. I also used this technique for the top middle image, in which I placed two candid photographs side by side to create a single picture.

I also had the option of merging together all the separate images through fading effects and by altering their transparencies. In the end, however, I created a more comic book-like feel to my collage by keeping the photographs defined in clearly boxed shapes. At the same time, I noticed that I could have cut and pasted the photographs by hand and still accomplished the same basic formatting of my collage. Nevertheless, I feel that working with the photographs digitally was more time efficient and less tiresome. Instead of carefully cutting each photograph in a clean straight line, I was quickly able to “cut and paste” each image with a just a few clicks. Although in the end, using technology to create my collage was very useful and efficient, I must admit that I was only able to utilize it by keeping my plans simple. There were certainly more effects and techniques that I could have used, but I decided to take baby steps when it came to manipulating and working with digital images.

Click here to see the collage!

In my original collage proposal, I presented the idea of combining many pictures from different cars into “one” supercar. Since then, my idea of the perfect car collage changed. I incorporated that original idea in the introduction to my new collage by having forty-two cars flash by very quickly. These first forty-two cars are part of my top 100 list that can be seen here: http://bit.ly/aqHE7W. The cars flash by too quickly to focus in on any particular one, so I used the rest of the video to take a closer look at my favorite engineering marvels of the automotive world.

I used the instrumental track from the Swizz Beatz song – It’s Me Snitches to augment the stop-motion nature of many of the shots in my video. Since the song is perfect for pop-lock-and-drop dance, I envisioned it tying together the choppy nature of my collage, and it fit the video perfectly. I synchronized the shots and clips to match the sound effects from the music track, and this can be seen at various moments in my collage. For example, at 0:27, a GT4088R turbocharger from a Mazda RX-7 spools up together with the “spooling up” of the music.

Opening the video is a stop-motion capture of my favorite car, the Toyota Supra Twin-Turbo. This is Steven O’Donnell’s 600HP Pearl Blue Toyota Supra, owner of www.ClubSupra.com. Shots of his car are followed by two separate clips from the 2001 movie, The Fast and the Furious. The first clip has the camera moving towards the back of the rear wheels of the car. This was shot inside the garage where the car was being worked on. I noticed that this was the same exact angle that the wheels were being shot from during a race against a Ferrari F355, so I combined the two clips. At first glance, it even appears as though the Supra is launching out of the garage.

The next car in my collage is an R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R. This particular car was used in the 2009 Fast & Furious. Godzilla, as the Japanese call it, can be seen as a direct rival to the Supra, and I found it appropriate to have a juxtaposition of the two Japanese supercars in my collage. It is illegal to import any more of these cars from Japan, and since they were never produced in America, they are very expensive, and a rare sight on the streets.

The BMW GINA is a concept car that was designed by a team led by Chris Bangle. What makes this car unique is its exterior. The GINA uses a flex-fabric that can be customized into any shape that the user wants. A few shots of this magnificent car capture the magic of this design and the talent of BMW’s finest engineers and designers. Once again, the sound track is synchronized to the lights shutting off, and the headlights closing.

Bugatti has been consistently producing the most impressive, and expensive, cars known to drivers. Featured in my collage is one of their latest concept cars that is expected to reach the market in 2013 – the Galibier. This four-door sedan, which will cost more than a million dollars, combines art, technology, and passion. The full-length promotional video of this car does a much better job at capturing the beauty of this car, and can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTgoj6SNfVc.

Finally, I ended my collage with my favorite form of car racing – drift. For a split-second, you can see another shot of my favorite car to match the choppy nature of the music. This is followed by various drift racing clips. The majority of the clips here have been taken from Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which featured cinema-grade racing.  The collage is resolved with a drifter sliding through a parking garage ramp onto its roof where his peers cheer him on, and the bright lights from the Tokyo advertisements illuminate the setting.