Remembrance of semester past

This semester will be one to never be forgotten. It is mostly because I had this Seeing Sideways class. Never in my years of going to college have I encountered a class that has challenged my creativity, and has been fun along the way. Upon first entering the classroom in early August, nobody really knew how to describe this class. I don't see why they couldn't. I guess they weren't creatively thinking! I can sum up this class as being a course in inner creativity. It lets you be yourself and challenges you to think creatively as you do assignments along the way.  The best part is you can express your creativity through your assignments and let others see as well, which will spark up a conversation among the class describing what they just saw or heard you say.

The first take away from this class is be yourself. Upon entering the class at first, it was really quiet and nobody really wanted to talk because it was the first day, and those can be tough on introverts. Halfway through the class, the teacher challenged us to leave the room without leaving our chairs, which had wheels on them. Hilarity ensued when everyone struggled to get out of the class in their chair, rolling it over a hump in the door entrance. I, on the other hand, was the only one who though outside the box and, without leaving my chair, managed to walk out of the classroom. Yeah I looked like an idiot probably, but this was the first creative challenge that managed to separate me from the others.

The second take away from this class is don't be afraid to show your work. Since high school, the only people i have shown my work to are close friends, for fear of judgement or being told my work was shitty quality (and back then it was). But now, as I enter my second semester, I have still been nervous about showing my work, until this class came along. I am unfortunately horrible with speaking and my choice of words is always weird and strange, but I feel like I wanted to express my thoughts in other ways. Making videos was a good solution for me because I could create a video that would express my thoughts for me, without me making a fool of myself. After making some videos and showing them, people actually like them, and that came as a surprise to me because I didn't think people would understand them or even like them. I felt shaky once after showing my video and getting such good feedback. That feeling made me feel really proud of what I was doing, and will never forget that.

The last thing I took away from this class was don't be afraid to be the creative person you really are. I have enjoyed expressing my creativity through my work in this class because not many other classes allow you to do that. Most other classes are made for you perfecting your skill and making sure it is up to par with certain standards, but this class is more flexible. She give us an assignment and allows us to do whatever we want with it as long as we put some creative thought behind it. I had no problem with this because my creativity has always been running wild with nowhere to be expressed, and after showing my work in this class, people really seemed to enjoy my style. I think my creative style is somewhat rare because nobody really shows what people don't want to see, but some people need to know that just because they don't see it doesn't mean its not there. I want my work to open peoples eyes and to stop ignoring certain subjects because the real world is not as the media portrays it, and its about time someone started showing it as it really is.

Judgement Day

A person who's project of fear i resonated with happiness to be this girl who I will call Olive. She had a fear which I can really understand, the fear of judgement. People nowadays are really judgmental. You can't walk down the street without at least someone giving you some kind of look or just knowing when you speak that you are secretly being judged by others. I hate that. I can't ever shake the feeling that someone is always watching and judging, so I try my best to be the best I can be. Most of the time when in class or a public setting, I will not say much because I fear that what I say will be bad or not worth saying, so I say nothing. I need to learn to let this fear go. I am 23 years old and I have had a lot of life experience, and the best I have had has been when I didn't care what people thought about me. I was just having fun not giving a care or thinking about what other people thought. I feel if I can overcome this, then I will be able to show myself to the world and find people who will like me for me. I feel I am close to that point, but i need to start getting out of my comfort zone more so I can get used to it. Let the weirdness begin!

Altered Book of the Self

After watching the video of the woman who combined technology to her body, I was astounded. This lady managed to break the rules of art and began using herself as the piece. I am astounded by what comes from when people break the rules. I thought it was amazing, so well thought out and innovative, it just made me look around my life and see everything as a potential piece of art just waiting to be made. Combining a media arts and science project with my own body would be amazing. If it could be something that could be used by anyone, then I would have done it right. If I do something, I want it to be able to be used by all because art to me is something that has many interpretations, not just one sided.  Like the identity of the self in the digital world, people only see what you are on there by what you display about yourself. I try to only do positive things on my digital profile because people who haven't even met you may judge you only by what you have displayed, so why let it be negative about you? Positivity will bring good things your way. Creative endeavors will catch their attention, so make sure to do things that come from within. There are many interpretations to anything you create.

For my book, I chose to do it on this history class I had a while back.  Its not that I didn't like the book but the teacher that taught the class was really old and boring, so that is why I chose this book. I saw it as an old boring this I wanted nothing to do with. After careful consideration, I decided to start making changes to it. I didn't really think much about it, just went for it. The finished product is a perfect interpretation of myself. I am innovative with my creativity, meaning I can use whatever is around me to create something out of nothing. I started with something from a past assignment, a broken videotape, and bound the front and back cover of the book. After doing that, I decided to cut the some holes in the book so i could place the video reels in it, to represent my life. The left reel has less because it indicates that my life has just started, the right right has more because that is the rest of the adventures life has waiting for me. I used sand and glue to write the words on the front because for a doodling assignment we had, I used a giant poster board, sand and glue to doodle, and i thought it would be a good idea.

The inside cover is about me and that I am dedicating this book to my teacher, who taught me to see sideways and to stay creative throughout this lifetime.

This is just the intro page along with the table of contents

These pages were for the Egg and the eye assignment.

The Bliss Assignment

The Flavor of Creativity, which I used the sound of taste instead, including a musical card that plays a song when you open the page.

The 50 What ifs....

Rules were made to be broken

The Doodling Assignment

The Fear assignment

And the last one, Who am I and Why am I here?

I managed to change this book from an old boring history book to a fun book about my experience through the creative endeavors i have encountered. I have cut this book up, glued pages, and inserted objects to make it more interesting. After spending a couple of months working on it, it has changed my perspective on my own creativity. I used to think my creativity was slowly dwindling away because of all the mandatory classes I had to take to finally get to the classes i wanted to take. I am finally there and this book proves that my creativity is still alive and well. I am glad to see it survived after years of math, psychology, english, and other basic classes that can suck the life right out of you if you let it. This book inspired me to be my weird creative self, and I will never forget that. :)

I, Me , My-self Control

Something that really stood out to me this last class was this girl who I can't stand's presentation. She is this bitch that will just drone on about her life after everyone presents and most of the time just uses that time to talk about herself. Her presentation was that she is afraid of not having control over her life. What a control freak. You have some control of your life, but sometimes, things happen that will take that control out of your hands, and it's ok. This girl was just sitting up there rambling about I don't really care, but I managed to tally every time she used the words "I, Me, Myself" , I was gonna count "we" because it includes her, but I gave her a break. After her entire presentation, I tallied the marks and the B*tch had said those words over 100 times, 120 to be precise. I was astounded, never in my life have i seen such a self absorbed person, and to make matters worse, she can't even see how much of an annoying person she is! To make matters worse, she said she hated hanging out with people because she isn't in control of the situations they get into, WELCOME TO LIFE. I hate people too, but how are you going to find any friends in this world if you won't even make the effort?

Boundaries of freedom

The only thing I can remember from class tonight, as I hurry to write this before it is due in less than an hour, is when we talked about exploring the boundaries of video games. I was one of those people that would love to explore the video game world and see what kind of hidden treats the creators left to find. Video games encourage people to explore around their world, but in our world, there are consequences. A couple of months ago, me and a friend were wandering around outside because the weather was amazing. We lived near an abandoned building that didn't have any signs around it and it was in a somewhat open spot. We wanted to watch the sunset but couldn't because there were so many trees in the way, so I thought we could go on top of the building just until the sun set. We managed to get on top of the building and watched as the sun set. Clouds were starting to gather and were going to rain on us so we started to head back, that is when we saw police officers surrounding us. They ordered us to come down and asked what we were doing up there. They automatically suspected that we were trying to deface the building or vandalize it. We had no such intentions, but they kept insisting that no person would go up there to look at the sunset because of the shitty weather. Of course i wouldn't expect a cop to understand because the academy beat all the creativity out of them, but i was just appalled by such accusations. I ended up getting arrested even though after the trial, my lawyer told me that since the building had no signs or anything that the cop didn't have the right to arrest me. I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong, but apparently there are boundaries set by authority, which i will not allow to disrupt my free thinking mind.

I'm not the only one

Something I took away from this class was a Classmate's fear assignment presentation. She drew a picture using pen that was really astounding and said exactly how I felt. It was a picture of a person with a black hole coming in the middle. She described it so well that I was captivated. It was the feeling I get when I have to present to a large group or am put on the spot. I don't know why It happens either. I spend so much time trying to get rid of the feeling beforehand, but I can't stop it from randomly returning. I have her in my video class and she sat two computers over. I remember in the beginning of the semester, I was put in a group with her and some other and went to shoot outside b-roll for a video class. She barely said much, but she had this aura of friendliness when she did, she she didn't she seemed really introverted, which was kind of like holding up a mirror to myself. I know exactly how she felt. I have this weird introvertism that only goes away when I talk to people mostly one on one, but when it's more people, I just loose my shit and word vomit. I don't know if I will ever overcome it, but I'm doing my best to get put in situations where I have to. I hope she can too because I see a lot of potential in that girl. I'm just glad I'm not the only one that feels this way.

The inevitable

For this assignment, we had to choose something that makes us fearful, and classify it as either a fear, phobia, anxiety, or worry. After thinking long and hard, I came up with death. It is the inevitable that no one really thinks about but is always there and can happen to anyone at any time. I decided to classify my fear as a worry because i have taken mental attempts to avoid any anticipating threat, and its weird that I am starting to realize that i have been doing it inconspicuously for a while now. It is not a phobia because i do not go to extremes to avoid it, because most of the time, you cannot see it. It is not an anxiety because whenever I think about death, i am not accompanied by nervous behavior. It is not a fear because fear is caused by living entities, and my life hasn't ever really been threatened by someone or something living.

I never really knew how much Death surrounds me every day. If you really pay attention, you can start to scare yourself. Most of the time when I get up to go to school, I'm the only one in the house. I usually shower every day, and sometimes, the shower floor is really slippery, If i don't take precautions, i could slip and something unfortunate could happen, hit my head on the corner on the way down, fall the wrong way, anything. The Drive to school is the worst because apparently, any idiot can get a license nowadays. i can't count how many times some asshole has almost gotten into an accident with me because their dumb ass doesn't know how to use a turn signal. Since I drive for my job, I always take the extra precautions to make sure I am at least being the safe one. I always drive by Crown Hill Cemetery on my way to school, which means I am passing thousands of bodies which death has claimed, and he claims more each day that passes.

The fear of death keeps me from experiencing some really exiting moments in life. I used to not really care about living when I was younger and would do alot of destructive stuff to my body. Im pretty sure taking all those "triple c's" in high school is what caused me to have a weird speech problem. I remember taking them almost everyday during my sophomore year , and that is fucking crazy considering this one person took them only once and died because every body is different, so how was I not worried that the first time it took them would probably be my last? I also used to drink and drive alot, some times, I would just wake up in bed the next day and not even remember driving home, which is scary, considering my drunk ass could have injured not only myself but others during those periods of binge drinking. Nowadays, I have thought about it more and am more cautious about doing all of that. I no longer take drugs because I don't even know what will happen to me or how much more my body can take. I sometimes won't even leave the house to enjoy social gatherings because I don't want to drink and drive even if it is just a little bit. I guess you could say, the worry death keeps me from experiencing life.

The worry of death is useful in my life. It has kept me alive and has changed my life. After getting into an accident while intoxicated, I have not been the same. It feels like a part of my brain has woken up and has taken over trying to keep me safe. I no longer get blackout drunk anymore, no matter how drunk I get, a little part of my brain is always conscious of what is going on around me and will not let me black out no more. I have also changed my lifestyle completely. I used to not have anything worth living for, or so I thought. Now that I am getting my life together, I have so much to live for, that I can't just let it end. I have overcome so many deadly obstacles that life has thrown at me and I have managed to survive all of them, If death has a plan for us all, then he wants me alive until the time is right for him to come and reap my soul.

Death has really affected my creativity. After experiencing close encounters to it, my mind has really opened up to thinking about the afterlife and what is to come after the end. It helps me be more creative and to think way outside the box because you never know who else could be thinking of these ideas. If you are the only one who is thinking of a certain idea then you die, that idea dies with you, for no one else to know. I feel like since I came close to death, my mind has changed in the way I think. I feel like I am not a normal person, which I am happy with because I don't think many people would ever be able to think of all the thoughts i have thought in my lifetime, which has changed me and the way I view the world. I would love to be a videographer who is known to be brave because of the lengths he will go to obtain rare footage that most wouldn't even dare to obtain. In risky places or situations, death can motivate me to be alert and on my feet.

Death takes form for me as corpses. When you die, you leave behind a shell of yourself. It is really weird to see someone who you used to know become lifeless and not moving. You say goodbye to them and then they get buried in a hole in the ground. They remain there until they begin to rot, that is when decomposition takes place. It is so frighting to imagine how someone rots in the ground, maggots eating their flesh and leaving behind a pile of bones.We don't get to see many people decomposing because we bury them, but just seeing anything decomposing is freaking scary.

Fear of Death from Osvaldo Ayala on Vimeo.

After doing this project, I feel like I can use death as a motivation. Since this lifetime could be taken away in an instant, then why not do whatever you can to enjoy it? You only get one life and spending it afraid to do anything because you are afraid of death is no way to live. I wanna take some risk, I wanna have fun, I want to enjoy my life because if what follows is eternal darkness, then I hope I still have the memories to relive. Once we die, we rot and go into the ground, but we go back into the earth to make way for new life. I want to enjoy my life up here doing what I love, and knowing that it can all be taken away so suddenly is motivation enough to live for today.

Procrasti-Nation: Another day

I would love to say that I have been procrastinating on my fear project, but I have been having technical difficulties with this stupid computer at school. After spending hours on a video assignment, I was almost done, but a critical error wouldn't allow me to continue working on my assignment when I got back from lunch with a friend. I was gonna export the video and work on my fear assignment while I waited, but what should have taken 2 hours ended up taking 6, and I had to go hunt down an IT guy myself and even then I was only able to recover my project with some scenes missing. After being at school all day, I wasn't even able to turn it in the  same day. I was so frustrated I almost gave up , but a phone call to my friend allowed me to hang in there. I plan on working on my fear assignment today once I get homework that is due tomorrow.  I gotta say the fears I have been thinking about are deeper than I had anticipated. Hopefully I still have time to do a nice project to share with my class on Monday.

Altered Book Progress: I am sad to say I haven't really done much to my altered book. The only thing i have done is wrapped the outside binding in video tape from a past project and cutting out some circles through the pages so I can fit the video reels inside there. After doing that which has taken longer than expected, i am going to tape some pages together and form sections to insert content from class, each page with a part of each assignment we had. At the back I plan on putting either a broken mirror in pieces or broken CD and a reflection page. That is all I have in mind so far, Hope I get it done in time!!!!!

Small Minds Afraid To Think

We didn't get to do a lot in class on Monday because our teacher was sick and wanted us not to catch whatever she had. We went around the room and each said something about our "Who are you and Why are you here" project. Some people had some difficulty doing the project and I heard a lot of good philosophical answers as well, mine being a weird story about where I am in life. If you read my previous blog, you will know. I didn't actually get to say it in class because I think it was way to personal to tell to these people, well most of them. I love my teacher because she is a free spirit, and has told me wisdom that I haven't heard from any other professor I have ever met. I wish I could talk more classes with her, I'm going to miss her when she leaves, but she has given me wisdom and things to think about for life. I am kind of pissed off that some people, mainly a few specific guys, don't really take this class seriously. Its not supposed to be serious, but it feels like they aren't even trying. This one idiot after we went around was trying to be funny as he always is, and said that its stupid to think about who you are right now and why we are here because its to vast to ponder. Well unlike his dumb ass, some people have wondered. Just because he is to afraid to really delve deep inside his own tiny mind he thinks he can make us feel dumb for trying to ponder some of life's biggest questions? I love to think about that personally because it gives me time to examine myself and see if I am on the right path to who I want to be. I really wanted to punch him in the face, I don't know why, but its idiots like him that get my blood pumping. Either way, I will have forgotten that by next class (hopefully). That is what I took away on that day.

What is my purpose in Life?

For this assignment, we had someone in class draw us without looking at their paper and without them lifting their pencil. After that, we traded the drawings of each other and had to write based on that drawing "who are you and what are you doing here? My drawing was horrible, the girl who drew me drew a way better picture. At least my head was the right shape, she also drew some hair on me and my ears with my gauges. Then she drew what appear to be teeth. After reflecting on my drawing, I started to think, Is that how people perceive me? They just notice my altered facial features, which include pierced lips and 5/8th plugs in my ears along with my signature hair style which used to be amazing but is now looking like my hair caught on fire and it burned for a while before I could put it out. I don't really mind that, I always get up earlier than i need to so I can shower and get ready for the day. I always try to look my best because you never know who you will meet. Unfortunately, I am really introverted and have trouble speaking to people sometime, even though sometime I want to, I just can't. I really don't like that about myself. To answer the first part of the question of "Who are you", I am Osvaldo Ayala. I am an abnormal human being with social skills issues that I'm desperately trying to overcome. I have weird though process and word formation because (I'm assuming) I used to do these drugs in the past that were over the counter. I knew that they were harming my body, I just didnt really know what they would end up doing to me as I grew older. They have not affected the way I think. I have always had abstract and weird thoughts since I can remember, but now trying to explain them out loud with words is a big struggle. But I hope to one day make things that speak for themselves so you won't have to hear me struggle to explain them.

As for "Why Am I here?" Well i don't really know how to tackle this one, but I'm just going to write my thoughts. I know I am here in college to get a degree, most every profession that is out there requires you to have some proof that you have been in college. I didn't really plan on going to college but after living life after high school for a couple of years and seeing as I was doing nothing with my life, I decided to go to school so I could get a piece of paper so I could show others that I was doing something with my life. I still have about maybe 2 years max to go, but If I wasn't In school, I don't know where I would be right now. Now for the bigger picture. Why am I here in Life? I don't know if we were supposed to think this big, but its the first thought that came to me when the teacher asked the question. I feel that we all have a purpose in life. At some point in time in your life, you existence will affect someone or something in a big way, which is why you are kept alive until a certain point. I don't know who made the rules of fate, but I feel like something has kept me alive for some reason. When I was little, I went face first into a deep sink, I wold have never grown to write this had one of my aunts been there to rescue me, and the weird part is that she had something wrong with her hands and she still managed to save me. Throughout my teenage years, I did so many things to myself through the abuse of pills and alcohol. I didn't really care back then because I was just "living in the moment". That moment almost didn't last because one day, a couple of people I thought were my friends got me super drunk and then allowed me to drive home. Had it not been for my best friend since freshman year Nina Brown who randomly showed up and struggled to deal with my drunk ass, i probably wouldn't of survived that Car crash I got into. My car slid off the road and flew over a fence somehow and smashed into a tree. She called her mom at 3am and they both struggled for hours in the snow to help get me home safe. Had It not been for her, I would still probably be dealing with the repercussions of a DUI or be in Jail or worse, I could have wandered thorughout the night and passed out and Frozen. Even after falling in the snow and landing on my back on a sharp tree stump that dislocated a disc on my lower back, I managed to make it through my high school graduation, even though i was pumped full of drugs to get me through the excruciating pain that i was feeling that day. My parents aren't that wealthy, but they used a large amount of their money to allow me to get a surgery to fix that, If it weren't for them, I probably wouldn't have my left leg. After these and many other incidents, I have managed to make it through all of them and am now on a better path than i was earlier in life. To answer the question "why am I here"? I don't know, but then again, I don't think anyone does. Everyone was put on this earth for a reason, You spend your life trying to find out what that reason is, I guess all you can really do is enjoy the ride and hope that you are on the right path that will lead you to that spot in life where you were meant to be. I'm still on that path, It's a bumpy one, but I just know its the right one.

off the map

I struggle to write this today because no less than 12 hours ago, my car got broken into and my school bag was stolen, which had my laptop and other school supplies. That laptop had everything i needed for school, and just like that it's gone, right as the school semester end nears, i have just lost everything i had worked on and had been working  on. The flash drives that cost me nearly $250 are gone, along with my $1000 Mac book Pro. Its my fault for leaving my book bag in such plain sight for any thief to steal. Now I'm just left in a state of disbelief. Just as I was getting my school stuff together, this happens. I'm not sure how I am going to make it through the rest of the semester without all my stuff, but it will be a struggle and I won't go down without giving it my all. After all of this, i realized that most of what was my identity and who I am was on that laptop. Memories of places I had traveled and people I have seen were on there, All my video projects and videos were on there, everything that was me was on there, and just like that, its gone. I no longer have a library of photos to look at to reminisce about the past, I no longer have a library of video projects that I can work on. I basically have nothing. I just hate how you put so much of yourself into something and just like that it can be taken away. Its gone now, off the map. Its been only a few hours but I feel so empty without it, how could I let this happen? I guess its time to start a new chapter in my life and get another laptop to put my identity in. I just hope mine comes up sometime in the near future, until then, time to start allllllllllll over again.....

In between Identities

While sitting in class today, I was kind of upset because my sister was leaving to California. I was happy for her because she is following her dreams and they are taking her to where she wants to be, but sad because I was gonna miss having her around. After saying goodbye to her, I rushed back to class and came in late, which was the first time for me. I was kind of zoned out at first thinking about my sister and the midterm I think I didn't do my best on, but I decided to focus in class to distract my mind. From what I took away today was when we were talking about Identities. What does it mean? Many people around the classrom said what was on their minds, but it wasn't what I was thinking of at all. This one girl named Taylor then said exactly what I was thinking and I completely agreed. Its about who you are, and what makes you, you. After thinking about it, I began to wonder who I am. I went from being osvaldo to ozzy, which i feel created an alternate persona of me. That is who I have been for the past few years. I usually hate telling people my real name because ever since I was young, no one could pronounce it right and it embarassed the shit out of me. One of my friends made up the nickname ozzy because she didn't know how to pronounce it and it stuck. Nowadays, it doesnt even feel right to call myself that. I don't know who I am, but who I want to be is Osvaldo Ayala, maybe change it to Ozvaldo so people can call still call me Oz or ozzy for short and it would make sense. Either way, I need to stop being the illusion I am and start being the person I want to become.

Hours of Bliss

Taking 3 hours to have fun before working on something is a marvel idea. It lets you have fun and enjoy what you like to do while thinking of what you need to as well. With the Idea of working on my altered book of the self, I had 3 hours of fun while thinking about that in the back of my head. I came up with these obsticles that stand between me and my Ideal altered book of the self.

1. I can't make it interesting.

• What if I tried to incorporate something meaningful that is universal to everyone?
• What if I wrapped the covers in video tape as an ode to a past assignment?
• What if I made it like a scrap book kind of?

2. I won't have time to do what I need to do to it.

• What if I take an hour of each day to work on this book?
• What if  I work on one page at a time?
• What if I put everything im going to put in the book in a pile so i had everything i needed when i went to work on it?

3. I can't damage the book.

• What if i managed to mangle the book?
• What if i cut up some parts of the book?
• What if i insert object into the book by cutting stuff out?

4. I can't make it interactive.

• What if I tried to put in some interactive objects into the book?
• What if the book interacted with me?
• What if i found a way to digitize a part of the book?

5. It will just look like any other book.

• What if I try to change it's outer appearance?
• What if i glue some pages together to make it different?
• What if I just put certain words on each page to express what I did that day in class?

After doing this assignment, I learned that more ideas and creativity come to you when you have had time to enjoy yourself and think.  The saying "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is true for most of the zombie employees who work for boring companies that allow them to not have fun during work. If everyone had this rule executed in their workplace, we would all live in a better world.

Clouds n' Tunnel

For this take away, I could do whatever I want, so here is a short music video done to the song I Wanna Go by Summer Heart on the album About A Feeling. Hope you enjoy the scenery I shot that ranges from California To Indiana.

 

Sounds of Seitan

Our next assignment consisted of trying something new foodwise and somehow expressing how it made us feel using a non-dominant sense. I couldn't use taste because that was the dominant one in the situation. Being vegetarian, I dediced to try something at 3 Carrots in the City Market. I went with a friend and decided to try the seitan gyro. Seitan is made by rising away the starch in wheat and leaving a high protein gluten blend behind. Also called "wheat meat", "wheat gluten" or simply "gluten" Seitan become surprisingly similar to the look and texture of meat when cooked. Miaking it a popular meat substitute. Seitan is also high protein, making it a popular protein source for vegetarians. Upon taking my first bite, i started to center in on all my senses. My friend was talking to me, but I wasn't paying attention for some time as my mind zoned out as my senses zoned in. It felt like the outer world was replaced by static and my thought were the only ones barely audible throught it. I felt really odd because I had never done this before, plus the seitan was a weird texture. Maybe if it would have been crispier it would have been better. I did like the taste of it, but the texture was kind of rubbery, making it feel like I was eating an eraser. I finished the whole thing though. It was quite an experience. The video I made is supposed to give off an eerie vibe because it gives you the essense of being in my mind when I started thinking about how I was feeling. The Sound puts you in my mind as you experience how I felt when I ate the Seitan. Do you feel as Weird as I did?

Feel the Colors

Today in class we were asked to go outside and assign a color to an emotion we were feeling when we felt it with one of these 4 senses (touch, smell, hear, and see). This was really odd because I had never really thought about really feeling what it was like to be outside and to assign a color to what I felt. As we went outside, we all huddled near the trash cans out back as some guys called the people that didn't take the freight elevator idiots. I am kind of introverted so I didn't have much to say, so instead I started to try and figure out how I was feeling and looking through my box of 32 colored pencils trying to figure out what I was going to do. Feeling the air upon me which was being blown by the huge gray cloud that hovered over us, I began to feel cold, but the sky was still showing a bit and it was really blue. It was quite a sight. I decided to assign the color blue for my sense of sight and the emotion I felt was wonderlustful. I felt like I needed to travel and see more place. Then I snapped back into reality and continued on with the journey. After Hearing the wind blow through the trees, I decided to assign the color gray to it because of the clouds and they were the ones causing the wind. The emotion I felt was joyous because hearing the wind blow through the trees and plants made me really happy to be alive and enjoying the all the sounds nature has to offer. It made me want to explore various naturistic landscapes to get lost in their natural beauty. As everyone continued on the sidewalk, I stepped off and cut throught he grass and felt some nearby plants and flowers. They felt so soft and looked amazing. I felt like jumping in and rolling around in them because I'm crazy like that. That is why I assigned the emotion happy to it and after walking through the grass, decide to assing the color green to it. The last sense I had to use was smell, and after taking in a couple of whiffs of air, couldn't really smell anything because my sense of smell has been off a bit ever since an incident a while back. What I could only really smell was the dirt. I felt like it was right underneath my nose. I decided to apply the color brown because of that. The emotion I assigned to it was thoughtful because It made me think why I could only really smell somewhat pungent odors. Or was there something really wrong with me?

More and More and More and More

For this assignment, we had to do something using the word "more" that the teacher bible dipped from a book. An extra challenge was to use mirrors in some way. I had many ideas, but the hard part was being able to do them. At first, I thought about laying the mirrors down on the grass facing the sky, then putting the camera above the person so it could be a weird mix of the sky and grass. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that because I didn't have enough time to do that. Instead, I just decided to use mirrors to reflect the sunglight off of them while being in a nice fall background. After only having enough time to shoot a little, I ended up having only a bit of footage, but that didn't stop me from putting a creative touch to it. The following is the a mesh of effects and layers that I made, I made it to a song that has the word more in it and inserted pictures of money throughout. The message of the video is that money is something we can't get enough of, we spend our lives earning more and more so we can use it to buy things we need and want. Are we brainwashed by the green?

I also wanted to do something like this, but didn't have enought time so i chose to do the first video of course

Brain Fart

Working on the last assignment I uploaded, I wasn't sure I was doing it right. Today in class, we got to show what we did if we wanted to. A couple of people went up and showed their broken rule assignments, and they all thought they didn't do a good job, but it turns out they did a nice job. I was astounded at how creative people's ideas came to be once they shared them and the class gave their input. I was the last to go and I went up there feeling uneasy about what I was gonna show. I was afraid people were going to not like what I did because it looked kind of weird even from my perspective. I got up there and played the video. After about 2 minutes, it ended and I started to get very nervous waiting to see the reactions. I started getting a lot of good feedback, which made me start shaking a bit because I tend to get extremely nervous when I have to talk to a big group of people. I tried to talk back, but when i get nervous my brain farts so bad that I can't even get a sentence out without butchering it. I'm glad some students helped me out on some parts or else it would have gotten interesting, haha.The teacher really seemed to like it and other students game me comments that I very much appreciated. That gave my spirit the lift it needed to keep doing what I was doing. I returned to my seat, trying not to faint on the way. As I sat down, I couldn't help but smile. I am not going to try and follow the rules and be like everyone else. I see things differently, I see things sideways, and I want to help everyone try to see things in a new perspective. I am going to continue doing things my own creative way. I hope you enjoy it.

Broken Video Tape

For this assignment, we were supposed to think of a rule to break that would help us get more creative in our endeavors. I had the hardest time trying to think of one. At first, all i could think of was something that could get me in trouble, like sneaking into somewhere private and recording some sort of video. As much as I wanted to do that, I wasn't going to risk getting arrested. I really wanted to make a video on the highway, but that would be too dangerous, even though I like a little risk. Finally I just decided to break the rules of editing videos instead. All I had to do was come up with a short video idea that I could break the editing rules on. While scrounging around my room, I came upon a stack of old video tapes that I never used anymore, seeing as I don't have a VHS player anymore, I decided to them. I don't know how but I ended up taking some apart and thought of the idea to wrap myself in video tape. I really liked the Idea because I love films and this would kind of be a video about me wrapping myself in what I love, film, becoming it. I set up a checkered white and black background and a color changing light and began to film. I opened up the video and took the tape out. While wearing a blazer and tie only, I began to wrap myself in it. After the First one was done, I grabbed another and continued. After being covered in it, I then tried to break free from the web I had woven myself in. It was a bit of a struggle, but I managed to break free at the end. After being free, I stopped recording and started editing. I chose to break the rule of editing by removing every other frame of certain parts of the film and managed to create this weird clipping effect that I kind of liked for the beginning of the movie. Then i butchered some more parts and placed them in random order after  so it wasn't in chronological order. What I got was this nice trippy effect that goes well with a song that came to me while driving on the road. After minor edits here and there, I came up with a nice music video exert. I am glad chose to break that rule because trying new things can lead you to create magnificent ideas that you probably wouldn't of come up with by just following the rules like everyone else. In order to get creative, you got to try different things now and then, break a few rules so you can show other that there are various ways to do things in this world. Different ways to show your perspective. Hope you enjoy the video.

 

Wasted

Today in class, we talked about our 50 what-ifs assignment. I wasn't in school last week so I had no idea how the assignment was supposed to be done. From what I heard other people say though, made me feel better about myself. This guy said he got so frustrated that he listed tying the book up and dragging it behind his car. What was he on? I never thought of it like that, as you see in my previous post about my 50 what ifs.  After discussing that, we watched a film called Waste Land, a film about artist Vik Muniz and how he created masterful art pieces of art from recycled material picked by pickers in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. It was nice to meet all the people throughout the film and learn about their lives there. This one man named Valter hadn't have a proper education and had been there all his life. He enjoyed his job and said he would rather be poor than rich. A quote he said that I will remember forever is (talking about the importance of recycling) "people sometimes say, "But one single can? One single can is of great importance. Because 99 is not 100, and that one single can will make the difference" He died soon after the film was made, which broke my heart. I think he is a hero personally because I am for recycling 100%. I hate to see people throw recyclables away because I feel they don't really know what they are doing to the environment. If we could just do our part, we would have a cleaner environment to thrive in. Thank you, Valter for being a hero for the environment, you will never be forgotten. 

How to change History...

...the book, not actual history. I have this history book that I chose for an assignment in which we transform a book which you had negative feelings towards into a book that is positive. I chose the History book not because I hate history, but because my history class was taught by a senile old man who almost fell asleep during his own lecture. Personally, I don't seem to remember most of it now because there isn't anything too interesting that stuck in my mind about that class, other than history of course, so that's why I chose it. Here are some what if's on what I could do with the book to make it more positive to me.


1. What if I colored in the book to make it not so boring?
2. What if I made it into a pop-up book by using other pages within the book to make the pop-ups?
3. What if I burned some pages to represent how sometimes the past is burned in our memories?
4. What if I put post its over the actual text and replaced it with a simpler form so everyone could understand?
5. What if I made the book more fun by putting puzzles in it that went from page to page?
6. What if I transformed the book into a digital video and used only interesting parts of it?
7. What if I took the book with me everywhere and incorporated something memorable from that day on one page until I finished it?
8. What if I turned the book into a scrap book of photos of people that resemble people from that book?
9. What if I ripped out all the pages and re-organized them in a random order so I could literally change history and make it more interesting.
10. What if I took out all the pages, kept the binding, and made re-make the whole book using my perspective?
11. What if I wrote a good thought on each page until I filled it, then pass it on to someone?
12. What if I tore out all the pages and use them as wallpaper?
13. What if I made a collage of the pictures to help me remember the most important parts of history?
14. What if I took out important moments in history and hang them on a tree outside to make a Histree? (haha I'm an idiot! )
15. What if I put the book to use and shredded it to make confetti for a music video ?
16. What if I made origami projects with each page, and see how many I can make before it becomes too difficult?
17. What if I turned the book into a day-by-day calendar?
18. What if I hide random pages in public places and see if anyone notices?
19. What if I tore out all the pages and dropped them from a building onto the unsuspecting public to cause a scene?
20. What if I tore out the first 59 pages and placed them in a bag and used that to pick lottery numbers?
21. What if I used the pages to make a paper Mache bust of the teacher?
22. What If I used the good moments in the history book and laminate the pages and make a positive shower curtain?
23. What if I made a little boat from the book and put a message in it and sent it down the river to see if anyone gets it?
24. What if I made a kite out of the book?
25. What if I took interesting moments in history and made placemats out of them?
26. What if I made scribbled out some words of the text so I could make it reading it a different experience?
27. What if I made a comic strip that sums up the main point of some chapters of the book?
28. What if I inserted in curse words here and there when necessary to spice the book up and make reading it a laugh?
29. What if I recorded myself reading the book so when I forget about it in a few years i can hear myself read it to jog my memory?
30. What if I summerized the key aspects of each chapter and made my own shortened version of the book?
31. What if i used the pages as wrapping paper and make their presence a present?
32. What if I collected unique quotes from throughout the book and make a positive poster out of them?
33. What if I made the book more interactive and make it into a play which people can act out?
34. What if I took the book with me and went to go visit the historical sites in it?
35. What if I took the book with me and continued writing history from where the book left off?
36. What if I replaced the pictues in the book with my own version of them?
37. What if I i took out all the pages and arranged them so i made a nice flag out of them?
38. What if I made a giant timeline to chronically time the events of all the wars and when everything happened?
39. What if I replaced the people in the History book with people I know from real life?
40. What if I made a choose your own adventure book out of the book so you could jump between historical periods?
41. What if I could take the book with me to the past and alter the future?
42. What if I donated the book?
43. What if I made a costume out of the pages and was the book for halloween?
44. What if I talked to elders about what their life was like during certain points in history ?
45. What if I went to live temporarily at a location that allowed you to experience what life was like back then?
46. What if I made a interactive video game out of the history book?
47. What if I related past historical events from the book to modern day events to see if history is really repeating itself?
48. What if I made a song about histories greatest moments to a tune we could all remember?
49. What if I sold the book so I could use the funds for buying another?
50. What if I recycle the book so I can help it transform into something else?



What would you do to it?

Blind in the 3rd eye

For this class take away, I was unfortunately not in class, due to a spontaneous eye infection that has happened during the weekend. I Woke up this morning to have my eye swollen and red, which i was very upset about. I needed to go see a doctor to confirm what I had. Getting up at 7:30 in the morning and barely having any sleep to begin with wasn't helping the situation. I still got up and took a shower, but a voice in the back of my head was begging me to just go back to sleep. I hadn't missed a day of college at IUPUI since i started last semester. I was very anal about missing days because i know if I miss any day of class, I would have to deal with catching up on top of all the assignments I already have to do. This semester I am taking 5 classes, which is a first for me. I never expected to get sick enough that I would have to miss a day of school, but here I am, in bed, writing as my class is almost over. I went to the doctors around 3 when class began and I got diagnosed with an eye infection. I was panicking. The school week had just started and the doctor told me I had to stay away from school for a few days. I have never missed a day of school, let alone a couple in the same week. I began to foresee the future of me having to catch up with school work while trying to stay current with it as well and having to work on the weekend with no chance of catching up with it. I was about to force myself to go to school when I stopped and had a thought. This is something new to me that I have never done before, which I shouldn't be afraid of. Yes, I will be missing a couple days of school, but that doesn't mean that I have to fall behind and give up. I just have to keep up to date on assignments that we are doing and turn in everything that is due on time. I may have one eye that doesn't work but my third eye woke up because of that. It has been blinded by what my eyes can see, but now that one eye isn't working, the third one has kicked in to help me not stress out about the situation and to help me get through it. I must challenge myself to accept things I cannot change, and find other ways to keep succeeding because I'm pretty sure this isn't the last time this will happen. That is my take away, away from school.

Abstract sand art.

Perspective. It's a way of seeing things. Many people love art for that reason. You choose to see it one way and other see it another. For the next assignment we had to doodle for about 30 minutes and see what ideas came from that. I hadn't doodled in quite some time, so I was finding it rather difficult to get this started. Rather than using the traditional pen and paper method, I decided to try something different. I used a poster board for my paper and my pen was a bottle of glue. Unfortunately, both things were white, so I decided to sprinkle sand on top of the glue as it dried so it could be seen. I grabbed my poster board, glue, sand I had just gotten from a creek down the street, and music then headed outside. I thought it would help me be more alert if I was doodling in the fresh air and sunlight. I set a timer up for 30 minutes and then began. I first started by making random marks (spontaneity) in the center of the board. After making a few sets, I would coat the glue with sand, then shake the it off to see a nice line of sand was left behind. I then started making random spirals here and there, but it was still looking very odd. I then started to make the same shapes here and there and I started to see a pattern (serendipity). I made a circle that looked as if the ones that followed were getting bigger. It started to look like the planets for some reason (synchronicity). Then, I thought making a galactic background would be fun. I drizzled glue all over the place and then coated it with sand. After shaking it off, it kind of looked like it was looking like a galaxy, but the random doodles I began with made it seem like only half the page was that, and the rest were all scribbles. I then surrendered and started doing random shit here and there because I didn't know what else to do. I was stuck. I then thought of perspective. It didn't look like anything from the way I was looking at it. I then started turning and then I noticed something odd. It kind of looked like a weird person. Thats when I realized the synchronicity of everything had led me to create this weird abstract person with scribbles for a face that was holding a circle in one had that was connected to others that got smaller. It looked alien-esque. I decided to throw some grass into the picture to make it look like the grass was the type of clothing it wore. It had already been 30 minutes but I kept going. In the end, I had come up with this weird abstract person who looked like they came from beneath the earth. That is what I see at least, what do You see?

Color me confused

Something that stuck with me in class was the whole color book exercise we did. We had to begin coloring in our own books first. I had just ordered this coloring for adults coloring book online and I couldn't wait to start coloring it. It had many adult themes pages that were hilarious. As She told us to start coloring, my hands ripped open the color pencils that hadn't been touched since I bought them and plunged them towards the page and started coloring it vigorously. The First page was about coloring in different shades of adult colors, such as suspicious cold sore red, tanner stain orange, court-ordered urine sample yellow and bulimia green. That is the last one I got done coloring before she told us to stop. We then had to pass our coloring book over to the left and draw in their coloring book, but outside the lines. I got a picture from the Movie Up, which i love. It was a picture of the old man carrying the floating house with the little boy tied along with him. I decided to scribble different colors in a cloud on the balloons, making the look multicolored. This was a weird thing that I just randomly did and it turned out to be really neat. I then started making my own trees and scenery behind the picture when she said time was up. I can't believe some people were nervous about coloring in someone else's book, trying not to ruin their pictures, but what I thought of it as letting others see your creativity. I returned it and hoped that someone had done something creative in mine. I got it and found out they used a sharpie and I was upset because it bled through 2 pages, but I still liked the creative thought put into the picture. He had chosen a photo where you had to make a homeless man look rich by adding a top hat and tux and anything else to change his facade. He followed the rules, which is a no-no in creativity, but I liked that he changed his cup into a champagne glass. She then explained something that I will remember for the rest of my life. She basically summed up what college is. It's a place where you come so you can follow rules and become another cog in the machine that is society. I agreed with her, many people loose their creativity as they get older because they are just too busy to have time to be creative. I do not want to be one of those people. My creativity has survived this far into my life somehow and i want to finally let it free. I'm glad this class is helping me finally use it.

An Eggs-periment

For our first assignment we were given an egg, and we were supposed to do something creative with it, anything. At first my imagination took off like running like a track star, which overwhelmed me with ideas that i couldn't decide on. I weeded the bad ones out and thought about the remaining ones. I thought a video would be great because i could also use it in my portfolio. Since i had this song stuck in my head i just thought id make the video, musical. I would have made it longer but after shooting and editing, it came out to shorter than i expected. The song is originally 5-6 minutes long. The video is supposed to kind of be psychedelic because of the song. It just randomly came to me after struggling to think of which ideas would be good. To me it's art because my passion for making videos fueled this idea from becoming a thought to reality. Hope you Enjoy it.

Rolling (in chairs)

There was a nervous voice in the back of my head, nagging at me about the first day jitters i always get when i start a new semester in school. I had already taken a class earlier that day with Mr. Todd Shelton and was waiting around for my 3 o'clock class with Miss Lykins. Time vanished as i went to go eat lunch with a friend, only to realize i had 5 minutes to get to class before it started. I was so full, i felt like i had a food baby growing in my stomach, and it wanted to be let out. I waddled to class, trying to quicken my speed so i could find a seat. Upon arriving, i was greeted with a bunch of stares, as is everyone that walks into a class for the first day in the semester. I spotted a chair on the opposite end of the classroom. I sucked in my gut as i walked across the classroom, trying to avoid eye contact because I'm extremely shy, which i need to get over! I collapsed in my chair, surprised i didn't break it after eating a giant bowl of nachos i couldn't even finish. I felt like i was about to go into a food coma when class begun. After the introductions, came what resonated with me. Our silly Instructor had told us all to leave the classroom without getting out of our chairs. I looked around, dumbfounded because this was something i had never been told to do while in school. Thats when i knew i was going to like this class. This class will make me do things i wouldn't normally do in other classes, which was good because i need to get out of my comfort zone, and exercise my creativity. As soon as she said that, i noticed that everyone was taking their rolling chairs and charging towards the door as to get over the hump in the doorway. Since i was in the back of the classroom, i had to wait a while to get out, thats when the creative part of my brain kicked in. Everyone was using the wheels to wheel themselves out of the classroom, but getting over the hump by charging at it with a chair had some people bouncing back off it, which was funny, but it made me feel better around them now then earlier because we were all having a shared experience and were watching everyone struggle out the door. So when my turn came , i decided i wasn't gonna charge at the door like everyone else, i was gonna stand up, while still sitting in my chair somehow, and walk out the door. I don't know why no one else thought about it, but on my way out i heard someone say, "that's cheating". But i was still in the chair when i walked out, so technically it wasn't cheating because i never left my seat. That was the only rule, she never said we couldn't walk with our ass still on the seat. So i just felt really proud for thinking outside the box, which was something i hadn't done in a while. This is going to help me through my creative journey by always trying to challenge myself to think differently and that no abstract thought is bad, because i could have just rolled out of the door like everyone else, but getting lost in your own creative mind will lead to think where no man has thunk before, haha. I can't wait to see what other creative challenges she throws our way!