brainstorm for my final project

In this class, we’ve done several projects around the topic of identity. During the process of re-discovering myself, I found many interesting aspects about myself and unfamiliar personalities that I never thought of. So, I think this final project should be a good opportunity to summarize what kind of person I really am, and I will expand the narrow opinion from myself to include what others think of me. But do I really know what others think of me? Not necessarily. So ultimately the last images that I expect what others portrait me are still the reflections of me discovering and exploring myself.

I want to do it in an easy and progressive way. It’s going to be like I tell a story about myself, but only from other people’s mouths. But still, as I said, those sayings from others’ opinions about me will always represent what I recognize myself to be. I think talking from an irrelative person’s point of view will wipe off some of my stereotypes to a certain level.

The first identity I will describe myself is a business student. Many freshmen are registering classes for next quarter recently and the options of classes triggered us many conversations and exchanges of opinions about what we really want to do and what we should do. I listened and made my stance; I thought I had a clear mind of my choice that studying business is what I want and what I’m obligated to do, but their confusion inevitably influences my prospects for myself. So in the first image, I want to show what others think of business student and what I think of myself as a business major student.

The second identity, though many try to avoid talking about, is an international student, a Chinese international student surviving in an American college. I feel really uncomfortable talking about it as many of my Chinese friends because we’ve heard or personally experienced the slight discrimination or stereotypes. There’s a famous joke about the Asian student: an A- for an Asian student means an F. As an Asian, I know that’s not true and we didn’t mean it to happen. But these stereotypes immensely impact our emotions, so sometimes we even believe that it is the truth—if we don’t get an A, that means hell. But deep in my heart, I know that’s not true and it’s not fair. As a matter of studying, there shouldn’t be two evaluation criteria against different races. So, in my second picture, I want to show what others hold opinions about Asian students and what myself think of Asian students.

In my last picture, I only want to picture myself from my own and intuitive opinion---what I was like, what I want myself to become and contrasting them with where I am at present. And the last picture should be able to show my progress as I grow up, and where I go from to the outlook I set for myself. It is not an end of recognizing myself as the class ends, but It should be the start of everything.

response to the 'cathedral' article

This is a very interesting story. There are contrasts and comparisons everywhere, and the change of the man’s attitudes towards Robert at first and after they engaged in a little ‘serious’ talk is the main stream of the story. The blind man Robert is quite admirable, in my opinion, because of his spirit of keeping a strong curiosity and diligence, which is very rare even in the general crowd of the healthy people. He’s always kept a good and polite manner to the host; he has a color TV to follow the trend; he has much more wisdom than the sighted which is indicated by his slight sarcasm that workers spent most of life working on the great cathedral but never had a chance to see its completion, which is no difference from the rest of others, including the blind and the sighted. At the end of the story, the man finally understands how one can truly describe the cathedral: it’s not observed through your eyes, but your hearts, even though you close your eyes, you can still see it in your minds. It is very encouraging. The blind man has taught me not only to be courageous and be keep trying, but also to appreciate beauty and life with my passion and my heart.

micro project 5---identity at play

This picture shows my opinion of the relationship between money and universal love. My assigned action is to curve something that we use every day but never make too much thoughts on it. That’s why I choose money, or more specifically paper bills as the objects to curve. I live in an international residency. On my floor, there are varieties of nationalities but we’ve lived harmoniously and happily in the same space for almost a year. I really love these people and they make me realize that no matter how many differences we have from each other, including the skin colors, the original languages and living habits, we live in the same universe, we all speak English here and we share the same thing—love. Yes, that’s right. Because of love, we understand each other and try to make our living environment a better place. That’s why I never understand there are so many wars and conflicts happening in the world every day. I believe the most significant reason is money. So in this picture, I curve all varieties of paper bills from our residents living on my floor and put it in a S shape, which is symmetrical and perfectly curved.

I collected eight different currencies: Singaporean dollars, Rupees, RMBs, Korean Wons, pounds, US dollars, Malaysian dollars, and Yens. Then I curved each paper bill into a circle with the help of paper clips. Next, I organized them in a S shape. I took photos of each step and used the last photo to combine into a photoshop JPEG. The background of the final image is the universe. Within the two circles in the big S shaped by curved paper bills, I put a money earth and a heart shape earth. Through this picture, I want to express my wishes, which is also my true feeling, that no matter how important money is to people, love outweighs everything.

During the process, I also found some interesting facts about these currencies:
1. Apparently US dollars have the least creative among the eight currencies: there are 5 face values in US dollars—1,5,10,20,100—but they are of the same size and same color!
2. Only the 50000 Korean Won has a female face on the front.
3. Unlike most currencies we see, the picture on the back of 10 Singaporean dollar is a group of people doing all kinds of sports instead of places of interest in that country.

final image

micro project4-- altered identity

This composed picture shows my understanding of the image of American super hero, and my dream of being able to see the world with my own eyes and understanding of what superpower is. I believe greater responsibility comes with greater power, so I’d rather wish I didn’t have supernatural abilities. But, I do believe using humor and a slight of banter wouldn’t hurt my or the superhero’s image. Well, first of all, I believe the number one responsibility of superhero is the mission to save the world and make sure peace actions take place on earth. That’s why in this picture, me, as the revised superwoman is trying to hold up the bridge from falling off and destroy the huge ‘monster’ (which is obviously only a construction machine, but through my angle, it turns out to be the huge freak to break the gorgeous rainbow bridge of RPAC) with the pink laser coming out from my eyes and a CHOCOLATE (Reese) bomb to hit the monster.

I chose superman because it is the first western, especially American impression for me. I watched the superman TV show when I was 6 years old and I was so impressed by the different looks of westerners and all kinds of advanced technology and interesting plots. The ‘wonderful’ first impression of western world just embedded in a 6-year-old girl. After I grew up, I began to see more American superhero animations and movies, I realized superman may not be my favorite hero, which is spider man, but anyway, superman means more than just a handsome westerner with enormous super powers, it is my initial dream of going out of my space and seeing the world with my eye, not through TV. That’s why I envy his ability of flying so much. I’d love to see the world in my own eyes. So if I could fly, that would save me from a lot of trouble and dollars….

I put the chocolate under my left hand looking like a bomb to create a sense of humor. I know the priority job of superhero is to save the world from evil destructions and I shouldn’t use bomb to contribute more destruction, so I chose the eco-friendly and people’s favorite snack—chocolate to punish the vicious.

The inspiration of the background originated from my preference of RPAC. I personally think the architecture of RPAC itself is really amazing, especially the rainbow bridge. I was astonished the first time I walked past it. But the other day, when I walked past it, I noticed the construction totally destroyed the aesthetic appeal of the overall scene. I was kind of pissed off. And the noise from the construction place annoys me all the time. So I purposely use the construction as the representative of evil side. I want to have the laser eye power because I’ve been wearing my glasses since forth grade, I would be super happy if I could just take off the glasses and have the perfectly sharp eyes just like Clark whenever he has to save the world.

I know superman don’t exist and whatever supernatural abilities human create for their hero is because humans are so terrified of losing and they realize the limitations of their abilities. I have the same feelings. I have great expectations for myself but I’m afraid I don’t have enough power to realize them. So with a little sense of humor and a little imagination, here I am flying and saving the world!!

micro project3-identity and place

I pick this place because RPAC is definitely my favorite place on campus. I work out and see other people work out here everyday, and this keeps reminding me how short life is and how people utilize the limited time they have and produce higher energies from themselves. Sports sparkle lives. So, I decided to look for my spot in this area, also to search for my inspiration of life. I came downstairs and noticed the huge transparent glasses on the ground. I looked into it, there is no reflections at all. Since I’m so fascinated about French right now, I decided to use my French textbook as my sculpture to show my passion about my life and my great outlook for my future. I picked a spot, which is close to other people but more isolated on my own. I saw people walking by on the outside, then I was intrigued thinking that I knew people looking at the inside, what exactly do they see. I remembered my previous experience that whenever I looked inside, I only noticed what people were doing. But I never noticed if I can see myself or they will also pay attention to me. When I’m inside the building, I think I’m invisible and people outside are exposed. But when I’m outside, I think people inside cannot see me at all. I wondered what this little peeking and spying psychological thoughts would be shown on my camera. So I stepped outside and took this picture with my reflection, with my sculpture and another back image of a boy inside. So if the sculpture represents me, then this picture shows I see myself through a glass and people inside look like they are outside with me and observe myself with me, but the real me is actually only a reflection…… so am I invisible or not? Then I use the photoshop to enlarge my sculpture so I hope I could be noticed if I’m larger than I should be; then I shrinked my sculpture hoping the lady outside wouldn’t see me, but she still caught me anyway.

I’m more intrigued than confused, but I know inside my heart I’m trapped in a paradox. To be honest, although I want my life to be as fabulous as it could be, I still want some peaceful moments only for myself; being caught or being noticed sometimes makes me feel really annoying.

So this spot I pick and the sculpture I use to represent myself shows my identity as a person looking for the best solution to being noticed and anonymous at the same time.