Reflection

At the end of it all, I found our show "Inner Space" to be highly successful. With the amount of visitors that attended, it was widely well received. I was excited to see so many different concentrations and themes in the show. I feel that some pieces stood out more than others, but the general layout of the show was positive. I however was not too happy with my location, but I am happy with the show as a whole.

I believe that there are a few things the show could have improved. The room in the back with the forest and hanging sculptures could have been spread out throughout the gallery. I do not think having two large sculpture instillations crammed in a tiny room. The pieces complimented each other visually, but made it difficult for the audience to interact with the pieces in such a small space. I would like to have seen Byron's piece presented in a larger gallery space. With the right angle to view his instillation far away from his piece, it made it difficult for visitors to properly experience the piece without blocking some of the other pieces in the room. However, this can all be forgiven because of the large amount of students in the show.

Having a large amount of students really made the gallery space an enjoyable spectacle. I am proud to confess that everyone in our group created very interesting and stimulating pieces. I particularly enjoyed the post secret photography series, and Guarav's mobile piece. I was present with my friends spending a decent amount of time with every piece. Our show was highly conceptual, which made for a very enjoyable show.

I am contented with the result of my own piece. I was originally hoping for a larger wall for me to present my project. I was worried during install when my video was not playing properly. I was having issues with exporting my video to the proper codec. Because it was over an hour and a half long, it was very difficult for my computer to process the footage properly. Thankfully, a few days before the open, I was able to troubleshoot the issue and get my video to play. I was happy with the final result and feel that it was received well.

I had used an external speaker in anticipation of a large crowd to the show. I was right, the show was very crowded, but visitors had no trouble experiencing my piece. My original intention was to leave the video to loop and have visitors come and go as they please, and I believe that was achieved. My decision to include a painted self-portrait helped my concept greatly. I am very satisfied with the final result of my project.

With my final critique with the visiting artists, I was received well. The artist was interested in what I had to say and agreed that my point was being made. She complimented me on the video quality as I explained to her how I presented my project in HD. She suggested that I cut the video down to a short form and post it online for viewers to enjoy on their own. I took her advice into consideration and am planning on expanding on my project before creating a short form version. I plan on working on this piece over the summer and publishing a final version on my website, www.aymann.com

I am excited to see the success of my peers in this show. My only regret is not taking my time to congratulate my classmates on creating such incredible work. Although there may have been a few problems with the lack of space in the gallery, I feel the show was a huge success and I can not be more excited for graduation.

Thesis Proposal Change

After experiencing the worst start-of-a-semester in my college career, I decided its time to cut my losses and pursue a project a little less ambitious for Thesis. Rather than creating an interactive dual channel video instillation, I will be working on completing a documentary tracing the roots of my opinions and discovering the influences that shaped my personality. This will be a project I can not only use to have others learn about me, but a project I can use to learn more about myself.

I will treat this documentary the way I would an autobiography, by collecting my own thoughts on a broad range of topics, then use that array to categorize the people close to me based on things we agree on. I will be able to interview the people I choose on those topics, asking them questions about their own feelings towards the topic i choose. After collecting all of the soundbites needed, I will take the clips into post production with the intention of cutting the clips to formulate my own opinions to match the original array.

This process of making the film will work the same way it works in society. Those around you will express their opinions on certain topics, and your mind will extract and organize those thoughts to create an original opinion to call it's own. Through editing, I will select the opinions I agree with most and match the clips to form my own opinion that agrees with the original array of thoughts recorded at the start of the project.

The end result will be understood as a sub conscious map of my own opinions and will serve as a tool for introducing the audience to those who i consider to be close to me.