Explorations

 

INTRO TO BLINK

For this unit in Freestyle, we got reallll experimental. Welcome to the Explorations unit! In Web/Audio, we delved into the complicated world of Responsive Web Design. In this style of web design when you design a website, it adapts to whatever size monitor you are using to consume media. The concept is simple enough, but getting your code straightened out proved to be a real challenge for me. It is hard enough to get my design to show the way I want on an average desktop computer, let alone whatever size monitor is most convenient for you.

Anyway, I've learned a lot in my two years at Freestyle Academy. In my time here, I've worked with Photoshop, AfterEffects, InDesign, Illustrator, ProTools, Reason, Flash, and many other amazing programs. I've also had access to a studio equipt for filming, photoshoots, musical recording, and much more. I have created things I never thought I would be able to, and have learned about things I had always thought would be over my head. Freestyle has really shaped my California experience. I can't imagine life at Mountain View without it.

BLINK

For the Blink unit, my peers and I went on a journey through time and space. Everyday in the Blink unit, we were locked in a dark room for several minutes of silence during which we closed our eyes, layed on the floor and meditated. After that, we received a prompt and were given some time to write, stream of consciousness style. Next, we were given a specific set of art supplies with which we we directed to further react to our prompt/writing in silence. After repeating this routine four times, we examined our writing and art, and decided which we enjoyed the most. With our chosen pieces, we made a final Blink presentation which included a Blinkwrite which stemmed from our original writing and was influenced by a specific book of our choosing, and a Blink design piece which was made up of the original fine art illustration with some edits made in Photoshop, including at least one original photograph, one new filter, one new font, and one new Photoshop technique.

For the Blink unit, my class was given four prompts and a short amount of time to explore each one through writing and visuals. The first prompt we completed was “Thought,” which inspired my written piece, My Grandmother Lives Alone Part I, as well as my visual piece, My Grandmother Lives Alone Part II. My mood has an extreme effect on my quality of life. If I feel awful (for whatever reason,) colors fade, perky noise flattens to a monotone drone, and it’s hard to tell the days apart. When I feel nice it’s the opposite. When prompted to write about thought, this spectrum of feeling came to mind and I followed it through stream of consciousness writing and visual art.

I produced the fine art portion of My Grandmother Lives Alone Part II with colored pencil on Dura-Lar (which is kind of like thick wax paper, or translucent shrinky dink paper that doesn’t shrink.) I set my piece of Dura-Lar down on the table and loosely traced the wood grain. I drew only in shades of purple because my writing was about the lint trap of a dryer, the products of which I associate with the color purple. I scanned that with a drawing of a face I crafted and brought it into Photoshop where I layered it on top of a picture I took of the sunrise. I chose this picture because because with so much going on with my fine art components I knew I would need an abstract background which would be less distracting. I also thought the pastels went nicely with the purples and the pale face. After layering everything together I added some text and put select chunks through a filter.

HUMOR

For the Humor unit we were instructed to choose a comical topic, (or serious topic approached in a comical way) and produce a skit and illustration based on our respective topics. My humor piece is meant to speak out for women in a comical way. I am addressing the relationship between gender and power. Women are generally not seen as bosses, but bitches when they attempt to assert themselves in a professional or social environment. In my illustration, I have taken a photograph of my friend, Ray Uyeda (special thanks to that beautiful little turnip) and dressed her up in a man’s facial hair, and stacked her on layers of raw meat with the caption “100% PURE BEEF.” I have turned this portrait of a strong woman into a caricature of a man’s man. She is all beardy with meat being super manly in an effort to be taken seriously, even though the idea of a manly man BEARDY BEARD MEAT MUSCLES MEAT STEAK POTATOES MAN GUN SHOW BIG CAR MAN is such a joke.

I used Photoshop to create my piece. I started off with a nice, flattering portrait of the lovely Ray Uyeda and using Photoshop took little snips of her hair and pasted them all over her face to make a choppy looking cheesy beard and spiky hair. Next I made everything transparent but her and then placed her/him on a bed of uncooked beef and used the text tool to add my crafty little caption.

EXPERIMENTAL

For the experimental project in Web/Audio, we were given more freedom than ever before. We were instructed to pursue anything which suited our respective interests as long as it fell under the category Web/Audio and incorperated and pushed our understanding of the technologies available to us at Freestyle. The only other restriction was that we could not work in groups of more than two. For this project, I wanted to record a song in the studio with my good friends, Gilles Laurent, Mia Montanez, and Ryan Josh Rosh. Since we couldn't be a group of four to record one song, we decided instead to collaborate and produce two songs, one for each group's project. The result was "H.S.B.S.S.H." and "Mundell," two originals recorded right here at Freestyle.

  • Ryan Josh Rosh...Lead Guitar, Box of Coins, Co-Sound Engineer
  • Gilles Laurent...Bass, Drums, Co-Sound Engineer
  • Mia Montanez...Photographer, Publicist, Co-Sound Engineer
  • Chiara Neyman...Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Songrwriter, Co-Sound Engineer