Overview

Combine every spec of experience and creativity that I have accumulated over the two years at Freestyle, and the product is this explorations website. There are three crucial sections of content filled with projects from English, Design, and WebAudio. The first tab will reveal the unusual and extensively imaginable Blink unit. In this unit, we studied the human behavior of snap decisions, followed by automatic writings and finished off with a humor analysis. Design was an interpretation of our English writings through an amplified piece and also a comical art piece that went with the humor unit.

 

My Expereince

Combine every spec of experience and creativity that I have accumulated over the two years at Freestyle, and the product is this explorations website. There are three crucial sections of content filled with projects from English, Design, and WebAudio. The first tab will reveal the unusual and extensively imaginable Blink unit. In this unit, we studied the human behavior of snap decisions, followed by automatic writings and finished off with a humor analysis. Design was an interpretation of our English writings through an amplified piece and also a comical art piece that went with the humor unit.

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Blink Unit

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell was a very interesting book. It is a self-help style of reading that deals with the topic of subconscious thinking in the human brain. Also Gladwell goes in depth about scenarios involving the human behavior of snap decisions and “thin-slicing,” the act of instantly deciding based off previous experience. During class, we tried to replicate our subconscious thoughts through automatic writing in which we would be allotted a certain time frame to free write about a topic.

There were four topics: thought, standing on the edge of a cliff, isolation and solitude, and anticipation. We were asked to choose a one of the Blink writes we did and create an amplified version. This amplified writing piece is shown below. After every Blink write, free art drawing and painting followed, using different art utensils each time. In Design, we chose one of the art pieces and combining it with a new photo and other additions, we formed a final amplified piece. This is shown below along with an artist statement to explain the connection of the art, additions incorporated, and the process of creating it. I really enjoyed the unaware and freely express art that formed from the process. The Blink book was a phenomenal experience that truly allowed me to explore a different side of how I think.

 

— Click for Amplified Writing

 

 

CLICK FOR FULL IMAGE

CLICK FOR ARTIST STATEMENT

 

Humor

The Humor unit was extremely entertaining and exciting. It began with analyzing various types and displays of humor. Everyone was required to mimic a certain type of humor such as satire, caricature or stand-up comedy. Groups or individual performance was allowed. I chose to do a caricature with a friend that expressed the expectations of Persian culture.

My friend and I worked on a script that would engage the audience. We went back and forth on specific dialogue and tried to make sure the scene made sense. My role was the serious, Americanized teenager while my friend was acting as my more culturized Persian mother. I had a blast performing up on stage and exaggerating a scenario of Persian families. Our purpose was to communicate a message to the audience and make them laugh and I think we did an exceptional job of doing so. I wont forget the experience of performing humor in front of everyone.

 

 

Mini-Project

To demonstrate the new skills and techniques I have learned using Reason, I designed my mini-project around creating an electronic dubstep song. My challenge was creating electronic music with progression and build-ups using only Reason software itself. Reason is a powerful tool that simulates sounds and samples like a real expensive chunk of hardware would do. This was the basic principle of the mini-project. We were to chose either to use Pro Tools, Reason, utilize new ways of javascript, or describe another exploring experience.

My mini-project goal was essentially to explore Reason and see what I could create. The final product is a song, down below, and shows the kinds of sounds I experimented with. I chose this route because I wanted to see how much potential Reason has and how much of it I could use and manipulate to create a dubstep song. Also, I have aspired to create a dubstep song myself. My song, however, did not completely fulfil the my goals to create a dubstep song. I ran into limitations in what I knew and I could only learn so much in the short time given for this project. But, I did learn quite a lot from this project. I messed around with many slider effects and software instruments to achieve the sound I wanted. I began to understand the progression of sound using pitch was important for instrumental suspense. Using different add-ons like, “scream-4,” “aggregator,” echo effects and reverb. Dr. Octo Rex was another useful Reason device that allowed me to create interesting combinations of beats. Keeping the timing on beat and making sense of the song construction proved to be the hardest part. Nevertheless I loved the process and experience of creating the song and I will look towards improving my knowledge of Reason and possibly mastering its components.

 

 

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