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.

wow

this really inspired me

http://thecreatorsproject.com/blog/projection-mapping-hits-london-and-new-york-in-4d

if i could figure out a way to create a similar illusion of space.... damn.

Thesis progress

I've decided that documentary style film making, ive got a pretty good handle on. So I'm pretty sure i want to take this opportunity to create something special.

Actually, I am not decided. But i am trying to figure out if i want to make something that will mean something special for other people, or something special for me.

I've spent a bit of time learning flash over my college years, and I think im ready to try something a bit crazy. I have this idea

of making a non-linear film where the user helps make important decisions for the character, which would ultimately change the plot. However, I want to play with the idea of destiny, so I need to figure out how to keep the plot dynamic but the ending static...

So ive got a nice little chart ready to start writing the script for my project.

It is no where near solid and everything is being debated in my head.

So this little diagram shows you what I had in mind about how decisions would take you to different scenes, but does not advance you in time. You can just as easily return to a scene close to the start, making it non-linear. The circles are locations where a decision would have to be made for the character, and the arrows are scenes that would take the character to that location.

I havent spent too much time thinking about the plot, so all of these arrows and scenes are probably going to change, but it just a start to help get myself organized and aware of some of the restrictions time and technology might give me.

I plan on getting A LOT of people involved, I want to get a crew to help me in production, and also cast for actors who are looking to add to their reel.

In terms of presentation, I was thinking of using a giant smart board with a projection so that any member of the audience can walk up to the film and make a choice for the character.

I am thinking I might just port it to different computers and make it more personal, but I still haven't worked those things out yet.

Feedback welcome!

Interview with Princess

This is the full interview conducted with my amazing partner Princess!

Video coming soon... very soon

Aymann: Why did you decide to start painting?

Princess: Painting, that’s something I started back in high school. I was a part of a visual performing arts magnet program, so towards our senior year I started painting, and I decided to continue on with it when I came to Mason Gross.

Aymann: What are you planning to do when you graduate?

Princess: When I graduate, I’m looking into Savana College of Art and Design so hopefully get masters in teaching, or possibly a masters in fine arts and possibly become an art teacher or a director administrator over a youth program.

Aymann: Did you have a lot of support when you first started applying for schools?

Princess: I had a lot of support. The only thing was that I did not apply to schools such as risdi or mika, and teachers that I had were kind of disappointed with that decision, but I knew that I wanted to come to a school where I can practice visual arts and also study other things besides art; such as social justice or women’s studies. Things like that and not just be so centered on art alone.

Aymann: So what do you have over here with your paintings?

Princess: This first one comes from a series that I did, 7 deadly sins, and this one right here is vanity. You see there is a reference to medicine and things like that because I do enjoy studying medicine and the human body. So I decided to take a look at vanity. One of things that have been a concentration, for me, was my nose. Usually for an African-American, you can tell that they are African-American based on features such as their nose or their lips or their eyes and stuff like that. So I focused on that in this painting. Just relating it to Vanity and how at this time everyone is trying to get plastic surgery and change how they look and change how they are, and all of this is just outward appearance. It can be taken as inwardly as well where if you want to just remove some things, but other than that it is just focused on your outward appearance.

Princess: This was my first painting that I did that was completely done with a pallet knife. It was basically practicing with the pallet knife and working with colors and putting colors together. So I just used the reference of a model that we had, and then transforming that into a story line and what that can be. So what you see over here is kind of like hes sitting down in a field and you see this red blood look to it, so it kind of as if he is sitting in his own blood. Kind of a representation of sin, so it is like he is sitting in his own sin, but he is doing nothing about it, just sitting there. Just using the pallet knife and working from there, it also has a texture on it, so it gives anyone a chance to feel it and almost become a part of it at the same time.

Princess: So after doing this here I moved on to working larger with the pallet knife and surprisingly it saves paint. This one right here comes from a series that I did on some photos that I took with a friend of mine. It is called “What She Holds,” and it is basically pregnancy and conceiving and withholding something within you and you are ready to give birth to it in a sense. It could be spiritually, or naturally, it could be like a gift or talent that you might have and you are ready to give birth to it. This right here is a pregnant woman, and it is zoomed in on her belly and you are getting a look inside of her womb and to the fetus. Well not a fetus because the baby is still growing but you can see the umbilical cord and the baby wrapped in the blood and everything in here is like nasty and just looks disgusting. But once she gives birth to it, it is cleaned up and it looks good and will grow into something great. What I love about this is the texture. Someone once told me that it looks like a bear or a monster or something like that, it looks beastly. A reading that I did not too long ago was about a philosopher who believed women to be beastly like animals. But at the same time his mother was a woman who gave birth to him. So this beastly thing had enough power to bring him into this world. So just noticing how the female body has this strength and this power to withhold life, and just the same with us , we have the power and ability to hold something and let it grow and give birth to it. You can see that with the talent and ability to paint and draw is what you are capable of giving birth to. You can neuture it and feed it the right things, you can give birth to something really great.

Aymann: I’m going to say that my favorite is the birth… Does it have a title?

Princess: I believe I gave it the title “What She Holds.” It may change, but right now it is “What She Holds.”

Aymann: The texture looks amazing and how you can get in all of those details with just a pallet knife is really incredible. It is very impressive. The Plastic Surgery painting, I can really relate to. I feel that people say “Hey your Egyptian!” before I even get to say anything. I have a very Egyptian nose. I am proud of it, but at the same time, its like ‘hey, I have a name…’

Princess: Yea, that goes into, in general, how people can judge you based on your outward appearance and how they only look at just the skin color, the nose, and facial features, and maybe just the first couple of words that might come out of your mouth, but that is not completely who you are. In a blog that I am creating, one of the things that I say in the blog is even in the few things that I list about myself, you wont really know who I really am until you ask me the right questions. So even with words that people say because that’s only just the surface. So we are basically tapping beyond the surface. So even in this painting over here, even though we can see through and look at the baby, we still don’t know who the baby is until the baby is born, and that is when you get a sense of the characteristics and what that baby will be like.

Princess: Some other things that I am hoping to work on is identity, facial features, and ethnicity. So one of the things that I look foreward to working on will be the study of the body and the African American body and hair, especially African-American women’s hair and things like that. I look foreward to getting started on that project and seeing how it goes and hopefully it will be successful.

Just set up my blog. I was pretty upset someone had already set up one for aymann.blogspot.com, just so they can have a header of "sexyy" and an about me saying "horney." damnit other aymann!

I have a few ideas of what i want to do for thesis, nothing solid, but ive got a few ideas. Ill post them once i explore them a little bit more, but they are definitely on my mind...