Category: 23 November

The last class was spent presenting our videos on various sculptures of New York. Each video had something specific that I admired. For example, I really enjoyed watching Cece’s presentation because it taught me facts about something I’ve seen more times than I could count. The 9/11 memorial in St. George is something I’ve visited countless times (my father was a fireman, so I had to) but I had no clue that the plaques that showed outlines of the faces of the victims were 9×11 inches. Tim’s group did an amazing job talking about someone who I had no clue even existed. In all my years of taking the subway, I’ve never noticed the statues that were right under my nose. I could almost see why the artist used some of his daughter’s inheritance money to fund his project. There’s just something interesting about art that is incorporated into so many people’s everyday life. For instance, there are countless people every day who pass by the sculpture of the two men holding the saw, but I’m sure that most of the people who pass by hardly notice it. Not to mention, the majority of those people aren’t thinking about the story it tells about America. As a narrator, I learned some things that I will absolutely take with me the next time I complete a project similar to this. If I learned one thing from this project, it’s that pronunciation and articulation are key.

In class last Wednesday, we watched many different videos about different statues in New York City.  I found this project to be both fun and engaging because we were able to bring the statues to our classroom and explain both their purpose and their creator.  I found this project to be particularly educational because generally when people see a statue they just appreciate the art and don’t do the research on who made the statue or why the statue is there in the first place.  I never knew how many equestrian statues were in Manhattan until I took the time to look it up and see them all.  I think that my favorite project was the one on female statues in manhattan because I did not realize that it was both rare and only recently added.  Again, that is something I would have never known had it not been for this project.

Last week, we watched all our classmates and our own handwork be put on display by means of our sculpture videos. Most of us expected a pretty boring few hours, but it actually turned out to be a quite enjoyable class. The videos, as oppose to someone talking, were more interesting and exciting, and therefore were able to keep our attention better. I liked how, although everyone was given the same assignment, we ended up watching five very different, and all very well put together, videos. I liked the variance that the videos had. Some people chose to go very in depth in a few pieces, while some groups chose to add more sculptures and keep the information fairly simple. This definitely made the videos more enjoyable to sit through and broke the monotony of watching these long films. I think the project was beneficial because it forced us to notice things that we would often walk right past and not pay much thought to.

I enjoyed watching the completed sculpture projects.  I found it very interesting to see the different styles of photography.  The group that discussed the statures that featured historical male figures discussed and showed the same Christopher Columbus statue as my group, but had a different style of photography.  That group’s photographer photographed a full image of the Columbus statue from “head to toe.”  I took a close-up of Christopher Columbus to show the features of his face.  The different styles of photography interested me because I think of a camera as the “eyes” of the photographer, and an image is what the photographer sees.  When the photographer in the historical male figures group took their photos of Columbus, he or she looked at the statue as a whole and shared that image with the class.  When I took photos of Columbus, I focused on his face and body details.  I also enjoyed the videos of the equestrian statues because the style of cinematography was unique compared to the other projects.  I liked the theme of the statues of historical women because it was very empowering to see historical women’s legacies become immortalized.  The most unique theme was Life Underground, the statues featured at the 14th street station.  I have been to the station many times, but never noticed the little statues.  I liked the meanings behind the statues because they were both criticisms of people and the government in a low-key way.  Overall, I really liked this project.

 

Last Wednesday, my classmates and I presented our videos on sculptures in New York City. I found this project very informative because if we knew about a particular sculpture we learned things we never knew before. On the other hand, if you never heard about a particular sculpture the videos would give you the information you needed. Our video contained information about The Statue of Liberty, Postcards, The Statue of Christoper Columbus, and The Statue of William Tecumseh Sherman. I believe we did a great job in our video, but what we could have done better was show some more photos of the statues from different angles. We also could have shown more photos corresponding to what we were talking about in the video. For example. we talked about a statue in Hoboken, yet we didn’t show it in the video. My favorite video was the one about the statues in the train station. I loved how these little statues encompassed something bigger. They all had a theme that really spoke to me, about economic inequality. I also loved that I have been to this station many times and never thought twice about the statues. I thought thus video was definitely the best one.

Last class we each presented our sculpture projects to the other groups. My group, as well as the 4 others, had to each come up with a 20 minute video that had a themed topic which related each piece that was in our video. When I first heard of the assignment I worried about finding something to talk about for 20 minutes; and then I thought of having to sit through 100 minutes of these videos in total. I imagined just wanting to sleep through it all, due to repetition and boredom. But I am glad to say it actually wasn’t like that at all.

When it came time for class I was interested right from the beginning. I think that’s what kept me most engaged. The fact that I have been to Manhattan so many times, but never saw, for the most part, any of these statues. So it was kind of like learning a whole new city that I had never seen before. And because of this I was happy to learn more and more about these new pieces. To hear of the history behind it, or learn of the reason as to why they are what they are fascinates me. Even in a situation such as hearing another group work on the same statue as my group did, it was interesting to hear there research on it and compare to my own.

Overall, I am glad that we got to do this project. It allowed me to go into the city and see pieces that I have never seen before. At the same time, I was able to learn some history about my own hometown city that I never knew of, or would have never guessed about it.

Last week, we watched the sculpture videos that we were assigned to make a few weeks ago. The first video to be presented was my group. We did the statues of Christopher Columbus, William Tecumseh Sherman, the Statue of Liberty, and the Postcards Memorial. My favorite two videos were the ones about the equestrian sculptures and the one that focused on sculptures in the subway station of 14th Street-Eighth Avenue Station. The equestrian one was interesting because I learned what the different amount of hooves up meant. It was something I would’ve never known about and never would’ve learned if it wasn’t for the sculpture video they did. The 14th Street-Eighth Avenue Station sculptures were really cute. I loved the look of them and the meanings that each of them held. Although, I have passed by this station a few times before, I never noticed these sculptures. Next time I go to this station, I will definitely make sure to pay attention to them.

Last week in class, my group, along with four other groups, presented our 20 minute long sculpture videos to the class. After each group would present, Professor Kahan would ask if we had any question, which would then lead into    the next video. The first group to present was Cece’s group, whose main focus was on the Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 memorial near the St.George ferry terminal. They presented interesting facts about the Statue of Liberty sculptor and how it was originally built. They also spoke about Christopher Columbus and how his influences carried over to the United States. Another group that stood out was Eva’s, as they did statues such as Benjamin Franklin. This was a different subject as he did not serve in a war, nor did he serve in major political office. My group spoke about the various equestrian statues in Central Park and how they represented different military leaders throughout the Americas. Overall I enjoyed the presentations but I felt that sitting through each video felt repetitive, and sometimes boring.

During this class, we watched five videos about different sculptures in New York. I thought that I was going to get bored really easily, but because all the videos were made well, I was not as bored as I thought it would be. The statue that stood out to me the most from the first video was the Postcards Monument. It was the most modern statue out of all the statues we saw and I have never seen it in person myself. After hearing all the details about what the statue is like, I really want to go to see it. The second video was my group’s video. We chose to include statues of historic women and the video turned out better than I thought it would before we started the project. What amazed me the most about the third video was that the group was able to show seven statues because my group was having trouble getting all the information for five statues in twenty minutes. The next group did a very good job describing the statues that were included in the video, however, no close up shots of the statue were shown. On the other hand, the time lapse videos that were taken of the statues were very cool and I enjoyed watching the video. The theme of the last video was my favorite. Tom Otterness created a collection of statues called Life Underground for the 14^th st station in New York City and just by looking at the ones shown in the video, you can tell that all the statues are very cute. I remember seeing the sewer alligator once, but I never knew that it was part of a collection of statues until Wednesday.

I learned that there are many statues in New York that I have never seen even though they have always been there. When I went around the city to take pictures of the statues, I felt like a tourist because I was analyzing the statues and people were staring at me from their cars. I did not mind it though. I personally think that every New Yorker can be considered a tourist when traveling to places they have never been to in the city and seeing things they have never seen before.

These presentations were unique because of each of their themes, which included the sculptures of famous women, the hidden sculptures in the subways, and the sculptures of famous people on horses. I never gave one thought about what many sculptures in NYC represented, nor did I even notice many of them. The theme of my sculpture presentation was historical figures and my group and I searched the city for these sculptures. I’ve passed by some of the places that these sculptures reside and to be honest I never noticed them. For example, I’ve never looked up in Columbus Circle to see that there is a statue of Columbus. Now that I have noticed these statues, I feel they’re important to at least check out, give some attention to, and read their plaques. I actually feel there should be more information on the sculpture’s pedestal. This would provide a history lesson that relevant to the sculpture, and the place that it stands in, without having to use the internet for more information. For example, it would have been nice to know who Pablo Duarte was at the moment I saw the sculpture. The plaque did say he was the liberator of the Dominican Republic, but I would’ve liked to know more of who he was.

My favorite of the other presentations was the hidden sculptures in the subways. In regards to the way it was presented, I loved this one because it didn’t sound like the speaker was reading from a script. She sounded like she was communicating to us normally like a regular conversation, which made it more likable and entertaining. I also liked the background sound of the train. This made it feel like we were in the same setting of the sculptures. I only wish that there was more of it and it transitioned better. The sculptures themselves were amazing and different from the other above ground sculptures. According to the research of the group, the purpose of some of the sculptures are to show that people are more concerned with where they need to go and pay less attention to everything else. Which is very appropriate and relatable to me because I never gave any attention to these.