Introduction

In this Conceptual Project, I attempted to express the feeling of value through experiencing nostalgia and reminiscence. In each of my classes, I had to explore these messages by incorporating them into projects assigned by our teachers. In English class, we had to write several different poems of different styles and in Digital Media we took the poems, paired them with an image, recorded a reading of it, and then placed it upon our websites. In Design, we took photos and chose then edited one photo that we thought best represented our conceptual statement. Throughout this unit, we wrote a few essays, recorded poems, made a video based on a haiku we wrote, edited images, and created our own pieces of music. While accomplishing these tasks, I learned about several design elements, writing techniques, and how to use different programs offered by Adobe. From this Conceptual Project, I especially enjoyed creating the conceptual music in Digital Media. In my expository essay, I described my passion for the exploration of imagined worlds, worlds that people can escape to and find refuge, worlds that can be shared to the world to convey specific messages, and worlds that can provide self reflection to oneself. The point of writing this essay was to try to express the significance of imagination that people possess. My inspiration was mainly from reading several books and watching several animations that both constructed their own fantastical worlds.

Poems

In English, we wrote several poems, consisting of a spoken word poem, a free verse poem, and an ekphrastic poem. My goals in the writing of each of these poems was to convey a specific message. In my spoken word poem, I expressed the feeling of value through nostalgia and reminiscence, in my free verse poem, I expressed desire through taking a risk, and for my ekphrastic poem, a poem that utilizes sensory details to a piece of art such as a sculpture, I attempted to describe Anselm Kiefer's message behind his sculpture Melancholia. After writing the poems, I paired them with images and then added them onto my website.

While writing these poems, I learned about different techniques for writing poems and utilized them to try to convey my messages. During the poem productions, I enjoyed finding the different images that to pair up with my poems.

Photo of Free Verse Poem
Free Verse Poem
Photo of Spoken Word Poem
Spoken Word Poem
Photo of Ekphrastic Poem
Ekphrastic Poem
Haiku

For our Haiku video assignment, we were each assigned a conceptual statement to describe through a Haiku. My conceptual statement was exploring the feeling of desire through taking a risk. The main idea that I came up with about this statement was the lottery, and other gambles that people take within life. Through this idea, I was able to set up a nice image that I thought would convey the statement satisfactorily. Here is a screenshot of the workspace I used.

During the production of this piece, I enjoyed thinking up of different scenarios I could use to take photos for that would represent my statement.

This is a screen shot of my workspace in Adobe Animate for the Photo Haiku
Art

I am exploring the feeling of value through memories and nostalgia

Photo of Conceptual Art
Conceptual Art

In my conceptual art assignment, I had to take a photo that I thought represented the statement that I chose for myself, which was in this case, the exploration of value through nostalgia or reminiscence. Through the photography, I learned that it was extremely difficult to achieve the perfect shot that one desires to take. I had to retake images several times and experiment with angles and positioning to even achieve an image that was satisfactory.

Whiling producing this piece, I enjoyed taking the photos the most because I got to experiment with several different types of ways to take images.

 

"All of these fragments, at any time, may perish. A vital and dear friend caught in an accident, Both of your relationships reaching annulment. So, for your lifetime; memories, you must cherish"

 

 The memories that everyone creates with others must all be treasured. If the memories one forges with others are disregarded in any manner, they may be lost forever, for people are fragile beings and with the loss of a person, comes the loss of one’s connection to them, including shared experiences. The flowers that were shot within my picture each represent an object that a person possesses connections and sentimental attachment with. This can be a person, an object that one is attached to, or even a food that is connected to various emotions. The water droplets that rest upon the petals of the flowers represent the different memories or links that one shares with the object or person. The image was shot from a bird’s eye view to convey how fragile each flower, each person and object that memories rest upon, is. Once one flower wilts and dies, all the droplets that rest upon it fall away as well. When a person or object of value disappears, so too will one’s ability to recall and create memories and recollections that were shared with them.

This is a screen shot of my workspace in Adobe Animate for the Photo Haiku
Music

In Digital Media, we experimented with the program Pro Tools 12 to create our own music. The inspiration for my music was based on the music that I enjoy and what I thought would pair well with my poems. The moods that I tried to create were ones of sadness, melancholy, and a bit of reluctance acceptance. To create my music, I mainly recorded myself playing the keyboard using different instruments and then looped them. I used the Mini Grand plugin to replicate the sound of a piano, the Boom plugin for drums, and Xpand2! to replicate other miscellaneous sounds such as wa ves, bass, and choir.

During the production of the music, I enjoyed when I experimented with chords and melodies on the keyboard. Here is a screenshot of the workspace I used to make my experimental music.