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confession: I totally lied to my advisor when he asked me how this term went. I told him I thought everything was fine and the work load was easy and problem free.
I didn't want to tell him the truth because I was afraid he'd say I was stupid and should of never come here.
here's my groups movie for our comm lab project that required a 3 mintue film, you can tell I worked in a group because
a) it lacks any morbidness (is that a word?)
b) its so tacky its almost funny
we had a good time and I learned a ton about editing and shooting thanks to mike d.
Survived my dad coming and going for the holiday. Not having my mom with him was really weird. I'm nervous about going home.
Thanksgiving was ok, nothing dramatic nor nothing uber exciting, just nice to spend some time with my dad. Did the usual NYC stuff: parade, eating out, window shopping and museums. wahoo.
I survived my presentation for Red's project with my group last week, I spoke in front of about 120 people about ad hoc communcation and thanks to copious amonts of xanax, enough to probably kill a small horse, I wasn't the slightest bit nervous.
My closest friend has basically told me in the indirect way people who have eating disorders tell you they have them that she has (a bad) one. She's vomiting a few times a day, doing the multiple gym trips and the good old diet thing. I know its not healthy for me to be around her, she has full blown bulimia/anorexia but is in complete denial about it, she thinks jesus will get her out of this, praying lots and running, fasting even more. I'll be seeing her in a few weeks and she'll be pretending nothing is wrong, as will I, even though she's probably lost 40 lbs in the last 3 months.
Its weird, I'm probably the heaviest I've ever been and everyone around me is quickly and drastically loosing weight, when usually its always been the opposite. Now I'm the healthy one. I never thought I'd say that.
Lots of things in my life are changing quickly, a lot about me is changing, not just my size but things I'm not even sure I have completely realized just yet, the invisible stuff is shifting, its happening even if I can't explain to myself just how, I can feel it.
Maybe being in nyc for a bit will turn out to be good for me, at the very least its really making me a lot more . . . . durable?
a girl having a conversation with her dad at the MoMa Design store in midtown today:
20-something girl: Dad, isn't this bracelet cute?! It was made just for you, look it says Dada on it.
Dad: silent
20-something girl: I mean, we have to get one for you, they totally made these for Dads!
Dad: Um, Dada was the name of a surrealist movement.
20-something girl: oh, that they like, named after dads?
1) blackness
2) alarm show 7am
3)alone in bed
4) look in mirror is thin but sees fat (might cut this part out)
5) phone machine says 0 messages
6) red bird is in cage
7) lets birds out of window
8) shows closet and only red dress is there
9) puts on red dress
10) pull back shot
11) show gun (might cut this shot)
12) shoots self in head and blood turns into birds which fly away
haven't figured out what song to use, needs to be able a minute long section, Ive been considering the following, suggestions?:
Perfect Day- Lou Reed
What a Wonderful World- Louise Armstrong
something johnny cash or elliot smith perhaps
"I chose to go to ITP rather than buy a condo, because I saw it as an investment in my future. ITP helped me develop my critical thinking, taught me to work collaboratively and introduced me to incredibly talented people.”
This is a joke, right? why not just say, "I decided instead of buying a new BMW to go to school because thats what people without trust funds do."
seriously, our website needs to be redone.
between going to a private school and public school is that at a public school they don't care if you are there or not (my undergraduate school never once took attendance the whole 4 years). You have to passionately want it. What little equipment you have you must cherish because if you only have one and it breaks there is no money to replace it. You all work 2-3 jobs because you have to, and no one even thinks about buying the newest powerbook or ipod because we just could never afford that. And drugs? TNOs? Forget about it, You can barely afford to eat let alone buy a drink.
How embarassing is it to say to someone, "Sorry I can't go out, I can barely afford food. drinking or a cover charge? no." I spent a lot of Friday nights at my friends apartments swapping books or giving eachother 'makeovers' because there wasn't money to do anything else, and yet we had the time of our lives.
Private schools are different in unspoken ways, you have an abundance of equipment, almost everyone has the newest 'stuff' and you are catered too, because if you don't show up, they don't get paid. I'm finding at private schools 'job' is a four letter word. No one understand why you need a job, when I reply "to eat" they look at me like I should have a trust fund or a rich uncle for that. Sorry I don't, (ok, so I do have a really rich uncle but I'm not going to see one cent of that).
No one speaks about money or ask about money or how we are all paying for this (4 loans and counting for me) because well, that would just make things too uncomfortable? I'm not sure, I wish I understood why we omit a huge part of this reality and ignore it.
The passion of the students is similar; but the passion here is different in a way I can't put my finger on. Perhaps the motivation to succeed is very different? When I was at public school the motivation to succeed meant we got to eat or rent a movie and here the motivation to succeed is a ski trip to Europe or a new pair of designer jeans.
Don't get me wrong, I like this program a lot , but can I see myself living in New York for one minute passed graduation? Never.
I believe at my core that following money or a job title does not change your life for the better, I believe at my core following your heart does.
I don't think people in this city get my type of personality, and that's fine. I don't get theirs either and for the next 1.5 years we have to be ok with not understanding eachother, just keep walking by and smiling.
I saw the following written on the sidewalk as I was walking all about a mile or so apart:
"you wanted to know.."
"home sweet home?" [with a picture of the city]
"you are out of your element.'
Dear ITP,
I removed myself from the ITP list, I just can't keep up with everything in my life right now and some things have just got to go. And really, 98% of those email post have nothing to do with anything related to what I'm doing or me.
Sorry ITP, I have failed thee.
So I've been dealing a lot with death the last year; A LOT with the c word this semester (cancer). As a result, I've become interested in the theme of morality and the idea of temporal humanity.
Cancer often gives the patient a sort of countdown. Doctors tell you how long you have, and often as a result people change the way they think ("Since I have only two months to live, I want to travel the world or I want to tell him that I love him."), which if they had not been given this countdown would of possibly continued to live their lives in the same safe pattern they had before (ask a cancer survivor how their life changed when they 'knew' they were going to die).. with no shift in thought to encourage them to change or live for the feeling of living.. as a result, I am curious to know if a person/user is given this knowledge of temporality and it is brought to the front of their thoughts will their lifestyle shift? will they boldly follow their hearts or dreams or continue living the way they are living?
After talking with hatti about my idea of making some sort of life countdown clock we started to sort of unintentionally collaborate, and next thing we knew we had a rough idea of how to making a really fucking rad programming/installation project,
and thus our computational media final project has been born.
You: when did you become the one we tell our secrets to?
Me: I dream in monochromatic grays and I know how the bells echo in the tired winds of the Himalayas and what it feels like when you think you have taken your last breath as life whispers its goodbyes but I don’t think you would understand, you have to have seen what I have seen.
I cannot explain my life to anyone else but me.
You: Do you only learn by seeing?
Me: I learn by applying and seeing. I need to copy in order to seek originality. Words do not teach: time, experience, but mostly more then anything else, mistakes teach me. Without making the right decision, that later taught me it was the wrong decision, I would probably have not learned much of what I have learned at my age. People say I am old for my years but really its just that I’ve made a lot of mistakes and kept moving forward.
You: If time is immeasurable, how do you know when you are finished, how do you know you have reached the end?
Me: We are temporal; we never know when the end is the end is the end. Today, tomorrow or fifty years so we live knowing today maybe the day we finish last. Art has
often been viewed as artifact of an artist; it is often the pieces that surpass the person. We have museums as mortuaries of thought, collecting the remains of brilliance and genius (as measured by collectors and curators not the artist themselves) for an open casket viewing for decades or century or until their moment passes or the social definitions of brilliance shifts.
Genius often is not recognized in the moment but only when what we have is lost.
You: If humans are temporal and art is often not, yet technology is, then what do you leave behind?
Me: Nothing.
You: Then technology is not art?
Me: Technology is a media, just like paint is not art until the painter employs it onto the canvas or the sculpture molds the clay from idea to creation.
Technology is temporal in the sense that it is never constant and always changing and how we will store the artifacts of thought from today in twenty years is maybe yet to be discovered. Everything is changing at every moment, it always has. The world is not the same today as it was yesterday yet technology continues to adapt to the present. The concept of art is always changing.
You: What is art?
Me: What is the meaning on life? Why am I here? There is no concrete answer. Nothing and anything can be defined as art simply by who is viewing it. I find art in natural structures flowers, insects, geography, in trash dancing in the air of sewer vents and in the most famous paintings in the biggest museums in the world.
Perhaps computational media allows for depersonalization compared to the traditional definitions of art by taking out the connection of the artist to their art and much of the viewers response is not raped by distance but allows and encourages often interaction between the viewer and the piece.
You: So are you saying computational media in a sense is more interactive then traditional arts?
Me: It can be. Much of computational media has an interactive element that requires the viewer to be an active participant in the piece, rather then creating a forced space and distance as traditional art often has or museums have at the very least enforced.
Although all art can be reduced to the media, no matter how profound, computational media can often be broken down to code written by the designer and likewise, painting broken down to a canvas and oil, or a sculpture broken down to simply metal. Art like many things in our society has a very broad definition and is best defined by the viewer and the creator.
You: Then how will computational media be installed or shown when the code or technology becomes obsolete?
Me: Perhaps computational media and much of the work we create will be remembered for the idea behind the work, rather then a tangible object or physical piece as much of traditional art is in the form of a canvas or piece of paper, ‘arts’ definition may have to shift to the idea as the legacy rather then the physical work.