Final Project

-> Here ya go! <-

You may notice that the final version of this project is kinda different from the WIP one. Just kinda. Just a little bit. All that is missing is the music, and the animation. No big deal. :(

Actually, it's kind of sad. I would have loved to turn in an animation for the final project. But as I found out, an animation would probably take a quarter, not two weeks. So I had to take a different approach. Something that wouldn't take as long. I thought of doing flip book animation. But since I am absolutely no good at hand drawing, that probably would take as long as the Flash animation. So let's try something else. I don't even know what to call this. It's not exactly comic book. More like storyboarding I guess.

Now to the content. I got the idea when I was walking to Math class. Math's been hard on me this quarter. After the first midterm, I thought that maybe I should drop the class. Maybe even change major, because you need a lot of math in CSE. Lots of depressing thoughts pass my mind at the time. But I didn't drop the class. I bounced back, and got 96 in my second midterm. Now there's a chance that I might not fail the class after all. So I thought that was a cool story, fitting for the last project of the year.

The project took me nearly four hours. Never knew it took that long to draw stick figures. In the end I think it turned out okay. I can't tell if it is understandable to other people. Perhaps if I double the amount of pictures, it may be clearer. Still, I'd have like for it to be animated, though. Perhaps I will make that my summer project.

The one hard thing that I encounter while doing this is actually how to convey more emotions. While I was drawing this, I can feel it. But when I look at it afterward, I guess it seems a little bland. Or maybe that is just because I look at it too much. I don't know. We'll see how it goes it class.

Final WIP

Linky!!!

Micro-assignment 6

My action word is swirl.

intransitive verb
1. a : to move with an eddying or whirling motion ; b : to pass in whirling confusion
2. : to have a twist or convolution

The word swirl causes me to think of spinning things, like spinning pencils and Ferris wheel, as well as the spinning motion. My first thought was that I could stick some glow in the dark material to my pencil and spin it. But I didn't have any of the stuff, so that idea quickly went out the window. Then I remember something that I used to do when I was younger. Back then, my family went visit our relatives every year in a very rural area. At night, it was complete darkness, compared to the light polluted city where I lived. We would burn incense so that the tip glows orange, and then went out into the dark and swirl them around to see the streaks of light for a split second. It was fun at first, but all we got was very short light streaks that gets boring quickly.

So now I had a new idea. I would tie a piece of paper to the tips of a pencil, burn it, and take long exposure shots of me swirling it around. But then, my mom didn't want me to burn things inside the house, and I didn't think that the paper would burn long enough for me to take pictures of it, especiall when it is outdoor. However, after some research on light painting, I found out a better idea: use a flash light. It wouldn't be as exciting as fire, but it is a lot safer and easier to work with. Finally, the idea evolved from just simple swirls to swirly letters, to my name in swirly letters, to the word swirl in swirly letter.

An unlikely brush

The problem was that I had no clue how to do long exposure/light painting. Fortunately, I found the "advanced manual" for the camera, which shows that, apparently, my camera can do quite a bunch of stuff.

I also had to research light painting. The process was actually quite simple. Someone have hold down the shutter button while I draw in front of the camera, making sure that the flashlight is pointed toward, but not directly at the camera

Freddiew!

I didn't have a tripod, so I had to ask my sister to take the pictures for me. She was reluctant at first, but then she loved it when she see the pictures. Even my mom got involved. She did a whole bunch of L's, though none of them actually made it to the final composition. This really was the most fun project I did this quarter.

Here's my sister trying out the "magic."

After 77 shots and compositing in Photoshop, here's the final result:

Blog Entry 9

I have to wonder if being blind makes Robert a better listener. Perhaps the reason that the wife liked him so much is because he always listens to what she says. Maybe being blind, he has a whole new perspective on things that she would never think of. I think that is what happens in those tapes. She knows that he would listen, and that he would offer her something totally enlightening. I think that is how the husband feels at the end, too. He didn’t know much about blind people, so he felt uncomfortable around one. He didn’t know what to say, or how to act. Robert then offered him his company, which apparently people don’t usually do. They smoked together, watch TV together. Then they draw together. At first I thought that was the weird part, or the supposedly-inspirational part in these kinds of story. But it wasn’t weird at all. The husband, in the end, learned something from the blind man. I think he had learned a lot more about being blind that he would ever have without meeting this blind man.

Micro-assignment 5

As shown in the image, my super power is invisibility, and I can use it to escape from doing icebreakers. Honestly, by October last year, I had gotten pretty sick of icebreakers. We did at orientation, did it at the beginning of a program that I was in last summer, did it when a speakers comes talk to us, did it at the beginning of my Scholars program, etc. I don't like speaking in front of a large group, especially when I have to answer the question, "What would your name be if you were a pirate?" Now with my invisibility power, I can just disappear until they're done.

When brainstorming, I wrote down all possible superpowers that I can think of. Then I look up Wikipedia, where there is actually a whole list of superpowers divided into categories. Then I pick a few that I like the most, and wrote down what I could do with them. After choosing "invisibility to escape from awkward situation", I needed to find ways to depict an awkward situation. I was thinking of doing fairly generic scene, using facial expression to convey the awkwardness. This turns out to be very hard, because there really isn't any universal expression that can show that the person is in an awkward situaion. So I need something more specific, which is why I turns to Socially Awkward Penguin for help. There are a few interesting ones, but they are harder to depict. Icebreakers is one of the few that is feasible.

I wish I had brought my camera with me last Wednesday. That is one of the thing that I'd change. The webcam has a fairly low resolution and is of lower quality, which make it a little inflexible when it comes to editing the image. Also when taking the pictures, I was smiling, which is inappropriate for the situation. I use liquify to pull the corners of my mouth down. It turned out to be a little bit exaggerated, but since I was invisible anyway, it is not too noticeable. I think the concept could be improved, too. I'd have like to have a larger group of people sitting in a circle at the Oval, but that would not be quite feasible. I think I like the humorous note using the speech bubble. It really pull the pictures to the cartoon/comic territory. I also think the picture is understandable, which is always a good thing.

Blog Entry 8

I talked to my mom when I was younger about how an adult life seems terribly boring. Wake up, go to work, go home, and go to bed. If seems a lot more boring than a kid’s life, because we got to play different things and stuff. So she told me, “Well, there are other things that you have to think about that really make it not boring at all.”

He said that the real value of education is to teach people to control how they think about things. Which is true, I guess. A lot of general education courses are meant to show us different perspectives, so that we know how to think from other people’s standpoint. For example, I took a political science class last quarter. They literally taught us about “perspectives,” such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism. It really shows that different people with different perspective will think differently, thus act different and result in different outcomes. It is entirely not about how I think or feel. To other people, how I think and feel, in fact, holds no importance at all. But by paying attention to others, I can see that life is way more than just waking up, do stuff, and go to bed. There are other, well, stuff in life that may make it worth living.

So I probably should start paying attention from now on. Probably should make sure that I make good use of the real value of education.

Micro-assignment 4

I was hoping this wouldn’t be a wasted effort.

And so it was not entirely wasted. It didn’t turn out so badly that I would have to resort to my backup plan. I also learned some new things about Blender 3D. Yet it did not turn out quite good enough to justify the amount of time that I spent on it. Oh well...

The place that I pick was the Numbers Garden behind Dreese Laboratory. This is really one of my favorite places on campus. I remember walking by it on my very first day at Ohio State. “This is so cool,” I thought, quickly followed by “Where the hell am I?” It’s unfortunate that when I went to take my pictures, there were a group of kids, who seems to be visiting, playing around the numbers. This limits the spots and angles that I can choose from, since I didn’t want to be that creep who walk around taking pictures of little children. So I had to pick the lonely number 6 that no one seems to want to play with. Which is kind of strange, because in retrospect, I was often closer to people who are more isolated and lonely. Could it be because I am an isolated and lonely person myself?

The object that I pick is a computer. (Not really mine, though, because my computer would be way beyond my 3D modeling ability.) The reason for this object is that, as stated in the previous project, the computer is very important to me. My life would suck without it. ‘Cause we belong together now, yeah…

Anyway, this computer is small, standing among the larger numbers. This is a symbolization of my humbling experience at OSU. Meeting a lot of people, many of which are very smart and talented, make me feel a lot smaller than in high school. It’s like standing among the giants and trying to be something more significant, more than just another college kid. And maybe someday, I would actually be able to do something that would make a difference, something that would make me more than just another person in the sea of people, like the computer that is not just another computer, but one that gets to stand in the Number Garden.

I would make my sculpture out of steel. It is usually cold on the outside, but when a computer is running, it is very warm inside. (My CPU generally is at 36-40°C when idling, which is pretty close to the temperature of a normal person. Just thought it’s kind of interesting.) This is how I feel other people may perceive me. I think I often seem unfriendly, but if people get to know me, maybe I’m not that cold.

Speaking of getting to know me, the audience can remove the side cover of the sculpture. It’s already removed in the picture. To know how a computer works, you need to pull off the cover and take a look inside. It’s the same way with me. I don’t generally open up to people, but if they pull off the cover, they would get to know me. This turns out to be not so good in terms of making friends, because really, who would want to put an effort in a person they don't know?

Blog Entry 7

I think Kaprow’s point was that lifelike art need to be both ordinary and special at the same time for it to really be considered art. It needs to be special by having some sort of larger metaphorical meaning. This would also make many other things that are not generally considered art an art because almost anything, like tooth brushing, can be “charged with metaphorical power.” I guess it is true that art needs to have meaning, that it probably should be exploring our existence and doing things like that. However, I think it is more important for art works to communicate emotions. For example, while still life paintings can show how beautiful life is, tooth brushing elicits no such emotional response from most people. That is why people usually don’t consider it an art. The emotion may be there, but it is the job of the artist to expose it, to make it an art.

This article reminds me of something I heard on the BBC (which may be related to this article here). They were talking about an artist, who I now assume to be Damien Hirst according to the article that I found, and how he was such an overrated artist. Well, not all of them, but one person, now assumed to be Julian Spalding. He was attacking this artist, saying how his art is worthless and how he did not contribute anything to the art world. He said something along the line of “You cannot just put a shark in a tank and call it art. Art needs to be an investigation…,” which makes me think, what else do you call it? People are willing to spent millions of dollars on it because they think it is good art. Is that not good enough? Isn’t art just what we define them to be? I guess if we define that art’s purpose is to elicit an emotional response from the audience then, as a consequent, an art work may not be art to everyone. Some people criticized Julian Spading for criticizing Damien Hirst. “What’s worse than an overhyped celebrity artist who makes bad conceptual art? Someone who doesn’t understand conceptual art at all and is proud of it.” Clearly, there are many different views of an art work, because different people respond emotionally differently to almost everything.

Micro-assignment 3

• My wallet: This is the most important thing that I carry around. It contains my driver license and my university ID. Without it, I can neither drive nor eat on campus. More importantly, both of the IDs are also personally identifiable. So in case something happens to me, there may be a way for people to know who I am. — Identity
• My jacket: I wore this jacket almost everyday of this winter. It kind of becomes part of me. Now when it gets warmer and I don't have to wear the jacket anymore, I feel naked and insecure. — Skin
• Harry Potter books: I am a fan. I grow up reading Harry Potter. There are lots of memory associated with it. It started because my mom used to buy me a certain brand of milk, and as part of a promotion, they offer a free copy of a small book containing one or two chapter (that's how they used to sell it in Vietnma). I can still remember how devastated I was when Dumbledore died and how much I hated Snape for killing him. — Childhood
• My glasses: In the pictures, the upper one is the old one, and the lower one is the new one. I wear them all day, from when I wake up until I go to bed. It's part of my appearance that people are used to. I'm completely blind without them. My old one I used for four years. It never, ever break, despite being sit on, step on, dropped, etc. The new one is not as good, with the lenses fell out after just 3 days. It wasn't a good day, walking around with everything blurred. — Eyes
• My computer: Forget everything else. All I really need is the computer. I will not live without one. My desktop computer is one that I put together myself. I spent months pondering which component to put in. Once I have all of the components, I spent another day of anxiety while I assemble them, because this is the first time I build a computer. I remember holding the tiny CPU, knowing that I could break it in half if I'm not careful, more than $300 of awesome computing power. In the end, I have computer that is completely mine. — Life

Blog 6

I am glad that the brother lived. But it has got to be the most painful experience for the family. They must have felt completely helpless and miserable during the three days that he was in a coma. I still cannot see why the nurse made that remarks that the brother is not going to be better tomorrow. I can’t imagine that she thought that that would help them feel better.

I like how the author thought that Worth’s brain was trying to reassemble itself. In a lot of movies that I saw, the doctor would tell the family that the patient has lost the will to live, and so they won’t. I wonder if Worth was actually conscious of the fact that he really was going to die, and he did not want to and tried to fight back. He met Huck on the anniversary of Mark Twain’s death, which make me wonder if he actually realize that when he was alive. I don’t think a lot of people pay attention to that. If he didn’t know that it was the anniversary, and yet he met Huck in his vision, then I think that is quite amazing.

Micro-assignment 2

On my first day of class, I drive and park as usual. When I reached the Stadium, for some unknown reason, I decided to go counter clockwise from the main entrance. You probably can tell it's a pretty long walk. I did not pay any attention to anything around me. My only thought was that there is a mere possiblity that I might not be able to find the class... again (I actually did not make it to my first class last quarter). I was utterly relieved to find those helpful "go this way to Arteduc 252" signs, though I was pretty sure I was supposed to be in 116, not 117.

Even though I know my way to class, during the subsequent "journey" to this class, I still didn't pay attention to things happening around me. That is until last Wednesday, when I had to, for this assigment. The following is from my perspective as I make my way to class on Wednesday, April 11, 2012.

I began in the garage, started my car, and turned on NPR, as always.

I've never noticed this many school buses during the previous days. There was three in front of me and another one behind me. I'm not entirely sure if it was just a coincidence that I see this many buses, or I really was that unattentive.

I also noticed some trash on the highway. It made me wonder if people actually throw trash out of their cars. That seems terribly rude.

After tuning out NPR for the most part to focus on noticing stuff, it finally caught my ear that the government of Uzbekistan is sterilizting women without their knowledge or consent. It made me think about how we here in the U.S. fight about who should be paying for contraceptive, but the Uzbekistan government just go, "We'll pay for it, and we don't give a hoot what you say."

That bike just ran the red light. Two things crossed my mind. If we were supposed to share the road with bikers, shouldn't they too be following traffic laws? The second things was that whether or not I'd save some time biking to class. I quickly rejected the latter though.

At this point, someone on the radio mention that software engineer was one of the best jobs regarding job prospect and satisfaction. That made me rather hopeful for my future. The worst job was lumberjacking, if you were wondering.

I saw these two guys wearing simple t-shirt and short, contrasting with some other people who was wearing jacket and pull their hoods up. Which season, exactly, is this???

This has taken me by surprise the most. I've never actually notice that there is some sort of a park at the corner of Lane and Fyffe. I learned later that this was Chadwick Arbotretum and Learning Gardens.

This was the most annoying part in this trip. I thought I was going to be on time to class, and this happened. A super long line of cars, even though this street is usually pretty deserted.

Almost there...

I finally made it to the parking lot. I took a whiff and decided the air smell the same as always.

Destination! I forgot to turn the flash off, so everybody noticed me coming in. Making such an entrance was actually never part of the plan, which usually include sneaking in.

I had some realizations at this point. Being in the car wasn't a great way to expose my senses to the environment. All I heard is the radio; all I smelled was the air freshener; all I touch was the steering wheel. The other realization was that I could have self incriminating evidence if I run over someone. Maybe I should find some other way to document the trip and pay more attention to driving.

With that part done, here comes my map.

I don't quite know how to make a map that doesn't look like a map, so I just went with making a map that look like a map. I drew from memory the road that took me to class and went from there. A map need to give some information about the route, and my annoyance at the traffic situation was still fresh in my mind, so I decided to create an annoyance map. I debated over whether or not to include the meter. I think art should be open to interpretation. People can decide for themselves what the colors on the map mean. But then I decided that, since this is my map, and I'm trying to tell them something, I probably should explain things to them. But a road and a legend is looking really boring, so I'd need a background. I thought about the context of this map. This is not a physical map; it's just drawn from how I remember it. My annoyance level is also not of anyone's interest but mine. I concluded that this map sits in my mind, hence the background. I wanted that background to feel spacious and otherworldy. It turns out to be this colorful thing that reminds me of space and feel quite dream-like. As you look carefully at the background, you'd see my trip to class, barely noticeable. I think in the end, this map documents quite well how I usually go to class. I space out, focusing on what's on my mind, while barely noticing what actually goes on around me.

Here's is how I acually make the map in Photoshop. I draw the road on grid, then transform both of them to add some perspective (which didn't turn out quite what I had in mind). The gradients are just layer effects. The background is a lot more involved. I had a blue background originally that I planned to use for a futursitic look. As I abandon that plan, I simply paint a lot of random colors and then blend them with tbe blue background. I also had a noise layer that I was trying to make into a star field and failed miserably. Its job now is to give a cool cloudy star dust effects. Blending the photographs in is also rather simple. I just turn the opacity down, change the mode to soft light, and erase the edge with a large soft brush. The photograph with the tall building was originally in the lower right corner, but the shape of the building turns out to be too distracting, so I had to move it up. The star icons are drawn with the Custom Shape tool and the text with the Text tool.

Wexner Center

Going to the Wexner Center on my own was an interesting experience. The last time I was there, it was with a group and we had a guide that tried to explain the artworks, most of which were abstract. This time, being on my own, I felt rather self-conscious at first, but then quickly forgot about the people in suit that stand around the place.

I spent most of the time in David Smith’s Cubes and Anarchy exhibition. My first thought was that this is kind of strange. He used a lot of straight lines, sharp angles, and circles, and basically the sculptures did not look like anything on Earth. But after seeing other sculptures, I started to see a theme going on. A lot of the sculptures looked somewhat similar. They often had rectangles stacked on top of each other; circles that sat precariously on the edge; weird shapes that should not be standing. As I walked around, everything felt very delicate, as if they could break at any moment. I think he was using geometric shapes to explore the idea of instability and the delicateness in anarchy.

I also spent some time in the film installation of Sarah Morris’s “Points on A Line.” I did not quite get it. It seems to show ordinary people walking around and eating, so it did not quite capture my attention as Cubes and Anarchy did. If I had spent some more time in there, perhaps I might be able to see her ideas.

Micro-assignment 1

Asymmetrical image

Symmetrical image

Radial image

Person and her surrounding space

Person up close

Image from POV of an ant

Image from POV of a bird

Stable image

Unstable image

My name on campus

If across from High St. is not considered "on campus," here's another one:

The two experiences are quite similar in that I took pictures, mostly in my room, and upload it to the Internet. The big difference, though, is that this time, the pictures I took has clear purposes. I went looking for objects that are symmetrical, radial, etc. and took pictures of them. In contrast, when I was taking pictures the last time, I shot whatever I think that might look nice.

The first process was actually more enjoyable for me. Instead of finding objects that fit my criteria, I find objects that I like and use it however I want. I’d imagine that is the process for most artists. I also think that is more fun because it is unpredictable. In the second time taking pictures, I know that I will get pictures with certain quality, in contrast with the first time, when I don’t know what’s going to happen.

My favorite picture is the one of the flower in the first set of pictures. This was also the group’s favorite. I think they like it partly because it is the most aesthetically pleasing of all the pictures, partly because I told them that I just suddenly notice it one day in my yard, and no one in my family planted it. That is also the reason that I like it. I know when I set out that I have to take a picture of that flower. My favorite in the second set is the Mark Pi one. It actually surprised me when I saw that on my first day at OSU. My second favorite is the unstable image. I took it by dropping the camera as I press the shutter button. It took a few tries to get a usable image, but I think the effect in the end was kind of cool.

Photos

NippleJesus

What I like about this short story is that is that it was fairly interesting and it kept me engaged. When the guard started his job, he did not like it much. He just did it for his wife. Then when he was assigned to guard Nipple Jesus, he thought it was offensive at first, after realizing that it was made up of images of breasts. However, after meeting with the artist and spending all day staring at the artwork, pondering about what it means and how people react to it, he began to think that it was not offensive, and in fact, quite beautiful because it can be perceived differently from different distances and angles. This shows that, by spending more time with an artwork, we may be able to appreciate its beauty and meaning.

Martha’s intention is a little murky to me. I supposed that Martha did not tell the gallery that she wanted people to tear NippleJesus down. Otherwise they would not have posted the biggest guard they had in front of the artwork. Or maybe she wanted the artworks to stay up longer, so that more people would have seen it and become offended, and she would get more reactions.

Blog Entry 2

Big Ideas and Artmaking

This is a very interesting article about big ideas of professional artists. I like how the author says that big ideas are what make art more than just pretty paintings or sculptures. Big ideas are important because it gives art meaning and importance that go beyond aesthetic artistic skills.

However the article seems to imply that each artist has exactly one big idea that are present throughout all of their works. I don’t think this is true, or if it is, it feels to me like a terrible constraint. I would think that graphic design artists that do marketing and branding would be conveying big ideas of their clients, which are different from client to client.

Cut and Paste

This article helps me to understand the difference between denotation and connotation in artworks. It also shows how people of all ages can identify denotation and connotation. Even little children who do not understand those two words can readily apply them.

I think the biggest difficulty in identifying connotation is that it depends on the culture. For example, the article mentions how the preschool children compare their teddy bears to what they know about bears in real life to show connotation. If they did not anything about real life bear, they might not be able to see those connotations. So without understanding the culture, the meaning of the artwork may not be clear.

Blog Entry 1

The Cheese Monkey

It took me a while to realize that the author is talking about some important design principles. I completely agree with him. People read from left to right, top to bottom, so generally the most important element should be placed on the top left part. About In Front Of and In Back Of, I think the element that is in focus will be what the viewers focus their attention upon.  If everything is in focus, then the one in front probably carries more weight.

There is just one small point that I don’t agree with. I think we are also in the fourth dimension, because we do measure time and feel it pass by. Though of course there may be somebody somewhere in the fifth dimension laughing at us for not knowing about it.

The Heresy of Zone Defense 

I think the author raised a very good point about rules. They should be not be used to govern, but to liberate. They should evolve, because a great many things change over time. Rules need to be changed to accommodate new developments, so that they are no longer limiting.

Though I think a lot of rules are extremely important, because they in some way limit. The U.S. Constitution, for example, is more than 200 years old, and it has only been changed twenty seven times. Its importance is that it limits what the government and other people can do to us. One may also argue that it liberates us from government oppression and the like, so I guess it is a fine line between liberation and governance.

Uncanny Valley

This was a very interesting article. It shows the difficulty and the progress of making a fully realistic digital character. The difficulties lie not only in rendering realistic skin and hair, and also in animating realistic facial expression. A lot of progress has been made, including new rendering techniques and facial capture technique, and yet we still have a long way to go before we are capable of creating a completely believable realistic human character.

The problem I see is that, at least in commercial projects, the artists must make sure that their characters do not fall into the Uncanny Valley. Yet the only way to a 100% human character is to cross the valley. So, in effect, the artists must pursue that difficult goal, and yet hold back at the same time.

Introduction

Hi! My name is Mark Nguyen. I am 18 years old and I am a first year Computer Science and Engineering student. I moved here from Vietnam almost five years ago, and now I'm currently living in and commute from Columbus. After I graduate, I would like to go to graduate school. I do enjoy computer graphics, which is part of the reason why I choose this class. Right now I think I prefer web development to software development, so learning about computer graphics would be a big help.

My favorite TV shows are the Colbert Report, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Mentalist, the Big Bang Theory, and the Office. I like the Colbert Report and the Daily Show because they use comedy to show us the problems of our political system without being boring. The Office used to be my favorite, but since Steve Carell left, it’s not as good anymore.

I am looking forward to learning a lot in this class.