The purpose of this Conceptual Unit was to experiment with creation. In our English and Design classes here at Freestyle Academy, our work revolved around a single statement. We were to select two words at random, one being an emotion and the other being an experience. I picked "anguish" and "religion" out of the hat and thus my English and Design work would be based off of the statement "I am exploring the feeling of anguish through the experience of religion." In English, I created four poems. A Haiku, a 10 Line Poem, a 25 Line Poem, and an Open Choice Poem. Only the first three are based around my statement. In Design, I created a single, multi-media piece of art which would represent my statement. And lastly, in Web Audio, I created this website to showcase my work.
During this Conceptual Unit, I learned how to put myself in someone else's shoes. My statment, "I am exploring the feeling of anguish through the experience of religion," was difficult for me to work with initially. Personally, I am not very religious. I actually have very little knowledge concerning religion. So throughout this unit, I focused on the anguish side of my statement and made religion just a smaller part of it. After a while, I noticed my works seemed too dark and depressing for my own taste so I decided to make this website as colorful as possible!
Poetry
During this conceptual unit in English, I created four poems, three of which revolve around my statement. "The Arrow," a spoken word poem, is an Open Choice Poem assignment where I was free to write any type of poem about any topic of my choosing. The other three are a Haiku, a 10 Line Poem, and a 25 Line Poem. Click on the images to view the poems.
"Proverbs"
"Dying Light"
"Redemption"
"The Arrow"
All of these poems, but "The Arrow," reflect on the idea of feeling anguish through religion. I chose to write about the super hero, the Arrow, because I am intrigued by the character. I recently saw the season finale of the tv series "Arrow" and it gave me inspiration to write my poem. This poem revolves around the people we care about and who have our backs.
Photo Haiku
This video is an audio slideshow for my Haiku "Proverbs." After creating this poem in my English class, I then stylized it by creating a background for the Haiku which connects to my statement in a metaphorical way. After completing the image, I used Adobe Flash to create a slideshow including music, a title page, and a voice over of myself reading the poem over the image.
Art
"I am exploring the feeling of anguish through the experience of religion."
I created my Photo Haiku, on the left, in English, and my Conceptual Art, on the right, in Design. Both of these projects revolve around the statement above. The Photo Haiku project was simply to make a stylized image for the Haiku. However, the background had to relate to the poem metaphorically. We were aiming to create something betweem literal and abstract representation. I used a picture of my own converse as well as Adobe Photoshop to make this. My conceptual art piece, "Anguish through Religion," is a multi-media artwork that is supposed to represent my statement. I used charcoal, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop to create this piece. I started off using charcoal to draw out dark angel wings with a few feathers falling out showing that the wings are falling apart. Then I used my fingers to smudge the charcoal outward creating a dark glow effect. Then I moved to Adobe Illustrator to create the rough silhouette of a suit. Then I put everything into Adobe Photoshop to add a few final effects and to clean up a few areas.
Conceptual: "Anguish Through Religion"
Click above to see ImagePhoto Haiku: "Proverbs"
Click above to see Image
Animated Poetry
I used Adobe Flash to animate my 1o Line Poem, "Dying Light." I chose to animate this poem because my 10 Line Poem is one of my favorites. It's simple but still creates interesting images within my own mind that I wanted to share through an animation.
Music
Reason Interface:
Click above to see Image
The purpose of the Conceptual Music Assignment was to create whatever music we wanted to. We were allowed to use protools and reason to create our own music with no limits. I didn't have any specific inspiration for my minute long piece but I did attempt to make something close to rock. When creating the music, I mostly used Reason's instrument tracks to select the preset sounds and instruments for my song. I selected an electric guitar, electric bass, and a basic drum kit. Then using the keyboard keys, I was able to play out each sound as I wanted. I was also able to input pre-recorded drum patterns/loops.
