-17-

This week in STAC was a mixed one. However, it ended well.

At the beginning of the week, it was a little tense from events that happened Friday, but I think that since the problem was addressed, that it'll get better. I was sick on tuesday, but I heard that there wasn't any talking in class. At all. That must have been an interesting day...
The shoshtatreetree is very unusual. I wasn't expecting that at all when I went in on Wednesday.

On thursday the shoshtagigi (is that the spelling?) celebration was really fun! I didn't expect that Megan was my secret santa (or should that be secret shoshta?) ! I had a lot of fun, and am glad that I didn't miss my first shoshtagigi celebration!
---
In other news, the Prisoner seems to be appearing in the most unexpected places...including my aunt's house!
I've always thought that the bicycle on the wall was interesting, but nothing that out of the ordinary. Today when I was over there for Christmas, I noticed, well I'll let you all see for yourselves....

Look familiar?

-16-

I really enjoyed the tripyesterday!
When I was little, I went to the Neue, but I was too young to go in. On Friday, I was curious again to what the upstairs would be like, and now I know.
I liked most of the art that I saw in both of the museums. I found myself spending more time at the more abstract pieces, than the more traditional art.

The show we went to, A Brief Encounter, had neat effects. I found it fascinating when an actor went behind the screen, then "appeared" on the screen. However, I didn't find the ending impressive. It felt like it was the intermission, that it left parts of the plot hanging. I read the program, and I think the ending was supposed to stop there, since the audience was supposed to understand that even though the doctor and the woman were separated, they were glad they had met each other for that short period of time. However, I didn't feel that way when it ended. It was more along the lines of "Oh what? It's the end?"
---
Today my dad and I went to the Moma since my dad had managed to get two free tickets! The matisse exhibit that was there when STAC visited wasn't there anymore, but another one (called On Line) was there instead. It looked interesting, so my dad and I took a look around.

The exhibit was all about lines and the different ways artist used them. I enjoyed looking at that exhibit. This one piece (which I forgot to write down who the artist was) reminded me a little of what we did in earlier in STAC. It showed a few pictures of a person (a dancer, I believe) and then the artist simplified the person's figure down to a few lines.

A funny thing was, that the art there was so abstract, that I saw an emergency exit sign and I was wondering if it was supposed to be part of the exhibit!

-15-

Copying other artist's styles is all right....isn't it?

The thought popped into my head because, I go on this site and draw things, and other artists do also ('s called an oekaki). So, there's a few artists that have styles that I really like, so sometimes when they draw a picture, I try drawing something of my own, but in their style, just for fun.
Well, today I did that, and the artist I copied asked me to stop, so that just got me wondering if copying other people was all right.

In the end, I suppose it is, but I just won't show those drawings publicly, since I don't want to make the artist that inspired me mad or anything...

-14-

Commercials...commercials. The past two weeks have been full of working on them.
During the process of making commercials, I gained more experience in working with people older than me, and with more experience. I also have learned that it's a pretty good idea to storyboard everything you're going to do.

STAC art, I was working on a holiday card....for my dentist. Yes, it seems strange, but I learned that during the holidays, if you design a card for her, she pays you! The sad thing is, I'm a little late on making the card, for she sent one out already....I guess there's always next year. I like how my card is coming out, regardless if I could have sent it out or not.

Also, I looked at a recent post on Julie's daily practice and I was reminded of this:

I found the rover at the Air and Space museum during thanksgiving!

I poked it and it didn't eat me!

-13-

I'm excited about the commercial's we're making. I already have some ideas for the collage commercial...all I need to do now is to see which one is best for the 30 seconds the commercial has to be.

Also, daily practice has been up. I put it on the link side-bar in that -> direction, but I'll link it here, just in case.
daily practice
---
While I was on holiday, I went to Washington DC. At the gift shop of one of the art museums there, I saw this:


I was amazed. It was a book for a daily practice! I was tempted to buy it, but my parents wanted to go to another museum. I planned on returning, but I couldn't get back in time...

Also in DC there was the National (or was it international?) Spy Museum. I was strongly reminded of the spying we did at the beginning of the year, so I popped in for a moment. The first thing I saw was a big screen. The text on it said something along the lines of  "A director of the m16 liked to stab a knife into his fake leg while talking to introductees to see how they would react." That would have been an interesting sight, although frightening.
---

Oh, man. That episode of Ultraman was hilarious! I've heard of the show before, but I've never seen it until then. I found it amusing that the Ultraman, character the show was named after, had less than...maybe a fourth of the episode's total time.

I'm trying to find the monster dance on youtube....but no success yet. Oh, the monster's called a "Ragon". Very original name.

Also, while searching for the episode, I found this cool song:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/664834

-12-

6 messing around with 2's mind is was painful, yet funny, to watch in the episode of The Prisoner this week. It was ironic since 2 said that he'd find 6's breaking point while in the end 6 broke 2's breaking point.

Also, when looking for references for my daily practice (which I've been trying to send in an e-mail to all of you...but my e-mail isn't working...!) I found this site: link. If you scroll down to the black and white picture of a woman putting on make-up (there's a huge flower on the back of the mirror, so it won't be hard to pass). Guess what show she's from? The Prisoner! After reading the description, I'm looking forward to this upcoming episode.

-11-

I just got back from seeing The Laramie Project, and I just wanted to make a short comment on that.
The style of using the same people to play different characters was interesting because I imagine it makes a person stretch themselves to switch between multiple different personalities. However, it also was confusing at times about who was who.

My favorite scene was when they dragged all of the TV's on stage and then the person was talking over all of those reporters. It was chaotic with all of the background noise, but you could clearly hear the main speaker.
I also liked how the play doesn't really put any bias. It just gives you the reactions, and lets you decide your opinion about what happened.

---
The prisoner episode this week was neat. Double crossing and whatnot. A random observation is, I think that the person who was referred to as "Rook" never was seen/mentioned with a number...

--adding on---
I find talking about the book is easier than reading the book. There were good points in the book, but sometimes it was a bit difficult to read. However, talking about it offers different opinions from everyone and then you can see meanings in parts of the book that you thought were a bit dull, or confusing.

-10-

The plot was really confusing in the prisoner episode this week. However, I really liked the way they filmed some scenes in the episode. One that really stood out to me was when 6 was kneeling on the beach and the rover was right by him. Some of the filming also reminded me of security film footage. They showed the whole room instead of other times where the camera seems to be following him on foot.

I started working on the portfolio this week. I'm working on the first three projects, and I'm thinking about what to do for the fourth. So far I have the idea of taking a sheet of paper with me wherever I go and draw something (a color, a shape) whenever my mood changes, and write down the place where my mood changed. I'd do that for either a day or for a couple days and then at the end, I'd (hopefully) have a paper with all sorts of things on it!

On another note, I'm looking forward to finishing how to make the books next week!

-9-

I just wanted to quickly comment on the books we are making.
Making books is a really good experience. It's nice to know how to make things by yourself because you never know when the knowledge will be useful. And also, it's a fun thing to do with friends/ be able to say you've done.



---Earlier this week---
The ending of "Tell No One" was intense, even if it was in a sunny garden. There were so many plot twists in the movie that you had to watch it till the end.
Since I've been watching many mystery-type movies/shows lately, I sort-of guessed that the wife killed the horse racer. When the dad "confessed" I was thrown off thinking I was wrong, but then the real answer came later.

The movie itself was shot well and I liked all of the montages. They were all used to move along the story, and my favorite might have been the one showing the past and present/ wedding and death of the couple's relationship.
Watching the subs was a little hard though, since they were in white and the movie had some brighter-color scenes that made them hard to see.

Oh, and today in a store I was in, music started playing from the movie (I think it was that song by U2...?). I thought it was pretty cool, because I wouldn't have paid much attention to it if I was in the store before I saw the movie...

-8-

Fun things in STAC this week. First, an episode of the prisoner, then making books from (almost) scratch and then ending the week with a movie/dance party!

The episode of the prisoner was very good. It seemed a little weird at first when the village was empty, and I knew something wasn't going to end well since they kept showing a black cat creeping around... I didn't get that 6 escaping back to England was the village's way of a birthday present until it was pointed out at the end. Also, there is another (?) woman as number 2...

The movie we started watching on Friday (I think it's called "Tell No One"...or did I hear that wrong?) has a confusing plot, but after time passed I sort-of got what was going on. The man's wife apparently is murdered and the police suspect him or murdering her...but then the guy receives info. that she may still be alive somewhere...? And in the meantime, other people are trying to find where the man's "dead" wife may be.
I really liked the part when it shows the man thinking and it compares the wedding celebrations to the funeral mourning and the couple as young kids and then as adults (the past and the present). A scene that sticks in my head is the one where the wife is about to be cremated. The scene is creepy. The way the scene was filmed made you feel dark and claustrophobic...
I'm looking forward to the end of the movie that we'll be seeing tomorrow!

-7.5-

Phew, after all of that writing about the field trip, I realized that I didn't even mention what we did this week!

We had STAC art, in which I managed to finish part 1 of the Busby Berkley project. I didn't like part of it, but when I hung it up, it looked cooler from afar. I'm looking forward to work on the colored version of my project.

On Wednesday Michael Costigan, a producer of Welcome to the Rileys (I found out the movie's name via. wikipedia) came in to talk with us about producing movies. I never really knew what a producer did, so I found out a bit about their job. It seems like they do whatever it takes to keep the movie-making process run along smoothly.
He showed us a script, and the movie counter-part to a couple short scenes in the movie. It was interesting to see how the movie changed from the original script. It was nothing major, just some dialouge left out to make the characters better, but I still found it interesting. We learned/ had it emphasized that movie-making takes a long time. Michael Costigan said that on some days, it took a few hours to film five minutes of the movie. Everyone working on films, must have a lot of patience to be able to do that...

Also related, this weekend, I re-watched Iron Man 2 and I found it interesting that not only are scripts changed in the final product, but animation/story boards are also.

-7- Field Trip #2

-Warning: lots of writing ahead-

No prisoner episode this week, but instead, we got to go into the city! There is a lot to write about the trip, since there was a lot of things that happened.

First we photographed in Alphabet City with a professional photographer that used to work for Luke (I need to get his name because I forgot it...) Then we wandered around the city and got to do whatever we wanted to as long as we hit certain spots. Finally, we went to see a version of Swan Lake by Matthew Bourne.
We split into groups again, but this time we were mostly with different people than last time. I sort-of got to know people more and my group did a lot of walking which was nice. We ran into a lot of other groups while walking around, which surprised me since we had the whole city to ourselves so I thought we wouldn't see anyone.

My favorite part was when we were doing the photography because some people in my group held another person up so they could take a picture over a wall. When the guy went to work with us, he gave lots of good photo-taking tips including, "If you think you're close, get closer" "Don't be afraid to take pictures of people" and of course "Use the rule of thirds".

Another neat part of the trip was when my group met up with Luke and another group and we all got to go into a condemned building. There was all sorts of religious paraphernalia and it was really dark. We got kicked out by someone else in another room though, so we had to leave.

After taking photos for a few hours, my group went off towards St. Marks place. We stopped to eat at a cafe/resturant and had a meal (the service was slow though, so we had to wait an hour just for the food).
Then at St. Marks place, we walked around for a little (I wish we stayed longer) and stopped in at Trash and Vaudeville. Then we went to Washington Square Park. There was this guy with a lot of birds and squirrels around him. I wonder if he stayed there all year round since I saw him the last time I was at that park.

Next, my group went to a place that all of us had to hit: an exhibit at the Pratt gallery on psychogeography of NYC. There were a lot of different psychogeographies including the city made of jello, a CD made out of tapes found on random streets, and, arguably one of the most strangest parts of the exhibit, jars of sweat which powered a map based on the anxiety levels of people in areas in and around the city.
We happened to meet up with 2 out of the 4 groups there and then saw the last group coming just as we left the gallery (more like kicked out since a lady there thought we were just hanging out and up to no good).

We hit Eataly after the Pratt gallery. It was filled with Italian goods. We didn't stop to eat there, but some people got gelato (mine was hazelnut). We ran into all of the groups, yet again, and two of the people in our groups split off to go with others.
And then there were four...

The remainder of our group wandered around the city. We took the subway up to 57th and 6th (I think it was 6th). We wanted to eat dinner, but after that gelato, everyone wasn't that hungry, so we hung out at central park and rested our legs for a while. After that, we ended up meeting with another group and getting dinner at a diner near the theater where Swan Lake was.

Swan Lake...It was very different than what I thought it was going to be. It wasn't just the original ballet, but with male swans instead of female swans. The performance had more to it. I wasn't expecting the prince to go to a bar, or the part when the cell phone went off during the "ballet". There were funny parts, but there were also serious scenes to balance the ballet out.

It was a little hard to get at first, but then I understood the first act after it was over. The prince was unhappy with his life, especially the fact that his mother doesn't show any love to him, so tries to kill himself. He is saved by swans and falls in love with one of them.

The second act got very confusing though. The prince and his mother were at this ball and this mysterious stranger appeared and started dancing with all of the women. I didn't understand if this stranger was the swan, or another guy. It got even more confusing when the prince was going to shoot his mother but another person got shot (after the part was over, I realized that the person was his previous girlfriend). After that scene, it was hard to tell what the prince was dreaming, and not dreaming. Was there really a swan in his bedroom...? I also thought that there should have been more scenes with the prince and the swan. It seemed as though the swan didn't like the prince at first, but then loved him back.

The dancing was excellent. The choreography of the swans gave off the sense of power but also grace that male swans have. During the ballet, I noticed that all of the dancers were sweating, which reminded me that ballet takes a lot of effort to do. I was impressed that they could do all of this dancing night after night!

After the ballet, I was super-tired so I tried to sleep on the train. This didn't work however and I had to wait till I got home to drop off. Spending 12+ hours in NYC was a great experience, but exhausting, yet, the next day I wanted to go back right away!

-6- !

I'm finally at number 6!

Speaking of number 6, this prisoner episode was a good one, yet confusing. So many events were going on, so it was hard to keep track of them all. I really liked the part at the end when 6 fed in "why?" to the computer and the computer just broke down like that...I think he said something after that..."Man vs. Machine" I believe it was?

I suppose man won this time.

-The hand coming up and grabbing the passes was odd. It reminded me of that hand from the Addams Family
-There was a good soundtrack to this episode. It fit all of the scenes and what was going on whenever they played music.

Making the Be Kind Rewind film was fun. I enjoyed working with my group and got to know more people in the class. I also learned some tips on how to film movies (I've filmed skit-like films with my friends before but they were just playing around).
It was fun watching all of the other's films also. They were all funny and had interesting plots to them. I hope we'll be able to film again soon.

I'm looking forward to the next trip also. I've been around St. Marks place, but I've never heard of the restaurant "Eataly" or of the men's version of Swan Lake before now and I'm interested in how they will be!

-5-

All right, I'm going to be covering quite a bit of items in this post....

---First Up---
You are number 6 12 number are you

Does that sound confusing? Well, that pretty much sums up the episode of the prisoner we watched this week.
Number 6 gets a mustache overnight, is told by 2 that he's number 12, and that he has to confuse the "real" number 6 into giving up information. The two 6/12's running around in this episode made things quite confusing...but I had a feeling that the 6 in the dark blue jacket was the real 6. It also didn't help that we had a cliffhanger, so we couldn't find out who was who until the next day....oh, the suspense!

When watching the end, my thoughts were confirmed that 6 was actually the one in the blue. The ending was good, but it was too bad that 6 got sent back to The Village...and just as he was about to escape.
I'm pretty sure that 2 was as confused as I was throughout this episode, until the very end that is.
On a side note, we find out that Rovers can kill people as well as knock them out in this episode.
---

---Second Up---
The field trip was amazing! I've been to MoMa a few times before, but knowing a bit of the background about the exhibit we were going to, I ended up looking for scratches on the painting, or other influences...something I wouldn't have known to look for if we didn't do the intro. In the Matisse exhibit, I really liked his line drawings. There were not many lines, yet you could tell the person's expression. I tried doing this when I came home, and came up with this:

It turns out that drawing in that style is harder than it looks....

I really enjoyed being able to wander around NY without supervision (well, we were in groups so we could look out for each other). It turned out that a lot of people in my group had similar interests... so we ended up going to Nintendo world, then to this japanese bookstore (I suggested going to the latter).
La Cage Aux Folle was interesting also. I admit that I got caught up in the characters and the story, so I didn't really focus on how the actors acting jobs were, or what other people said in the discussion we had in class...I suppose I'll have to be more observant next time we go to see a performance.

I also liked getting to know everyone a little more since we spent a lot of time together.

---

--Third Up---

First, simplify how we draw before doing the details. I agree  with this statement because you can do drawings more accurate and faster this way (this is an opinion though).

I tried drawing a box around a person free hand, but I had a hard time. I find it easier drawing with free hand or different guidelines (1 or 2):

but I also think it's good to learn a lot of other ways of drawing people/objects. I'm still learning, so I tried drawing a picture at home by using boxes also:

Sketch/WIP/ boxes yay

Finished....?

By the way...I'm sure most of you have noticed that I mostly draw anime style.

---

Well, that's all for now. I think this is my longest entry yet...! So much going on in STAC and I have a feeling the year will just get more exciting as it goes on!

If you're still reading this, I also put up two links. They are both for some art accounts I have on some sites (DA, or Deviantart) and a art blog I put up (non-stac as the link says). Both links are mainly digital art, and anime related.... but still, if you're curious, feel free to take a look!

(Ah, and help! In this entry, if you click on the pictures, it links to full-size, but I don't know how to manually do that! If anyone has tips, please comment!)

-4-

Here are some tidbits of thoughts:

     Wow...The episode of the prisoner this week was probably the most confusing out of all of them we've watched so far! The scenes kept on going so fast, it was hard to catch up to what exactly was going on, but from what I got of it, 6 decides to run for an election against 2 to be the new #2. At first, 6 thought he could use the election as a chance to escape from "The Village" but somehow he got mind-controlled or drugged so he started acting like he wanted to be in "The Village" (I'm not sure if that was the effects of the mind-control/drugs or if he was just acting that way though to fool whoever would be watching him.) He wins the election in the end and as soon as he becomes the new 2, it seems that he snapped out of being controlled and started to go beserk, telling everyone in "The Village" that they were free to go. The foreign lady with him turns out to actually be the real 2/ there were 2 2's in this episode/ the old 2 switched off with this lady who's supposed to be the actual new 2. 6 tries to escape but as usual, you can't escape "The Village" *dun dun dun....End of Episode*

I thought it was funny when the men in glasses were staring at the egg...rover....well, whatever it was, while 6 was fighting with two other guys.

Today, when we were introduced to artists who inspired Matisse, I found it interesting how you could see bits and pieces of all of their styles in just one painting. It reminded me of what someone said, that artists always copy off of eachother....even famous ones.

The art we did after the introduction (I suppose is the word for it) was fun. I was happy with how my people turned out.

Most of all, I'm looking forward to the trip on Friday! I hope I won't fall asleep because I'm not used to staying in the city until the late hours.

Liminalography

        As I did this assignment it took me a while to decide where, and how, I would take pictures showing the definition of the word 'liminal'. Finally, I realized when I was at my congregation/church that I wanted to take the pictures there. The building, which is liminal in its own way since it represents where the spiritual meets with the physical, is surrounded by woods. 

       I took a variety of photos but most of them ended up being nature-related and are liminal in a number of ways: ground meeting sky, water droplets in the process of becoming part of the pond, a reflection forming a whole new image, and so on. Also, most of these pictures turned out to be the type of pictures I most like taking - close ups of nature, which my dad pointed out to me are liminal in their own way since they are between abstract and realistic.

       

-3-

It's time for an update!

Well, this week we watched the prisoner episode three, A,B and C (I think it was the third episode we've watched). And this one was funny. Number six turning the tables on 14 and 2 was an awesome moment indeed.

Since the prisoner was made in the 60's and there were drugs around in that time, I'm wondering if this episode was influenced by that time period.

A few thoughts about this episode:

- Were there cameras near the lab? It seemed like 14 and 2 knew nothing about 6 tampering with the drugs...and wouldn't they have noticed if 6 went off-camera?

-Maybe number 1 is the viewers watching the show! (random thought, but, since most of us, the audience, are curious about why 6 resigned from spying...)

-1 seems to be like big brother since in this episode you get the sense that he's omnipresent because every time there is a scene with 2, there's a shot of the big phone also

---

Also, I've been sick the past two days but I asked what I missed and it sounds like going to the community center was fun!

I also looked up a few videos of dances Busby Berkely coordinated and it's really neat what he thought of! I liked all of the patterns and changing shapes that could be seen when the camera did a shot from overhead.

Psycogeography

Psychogeography!

From what we discussed in class, I got the idea that it's how the way things in the environment cause you to react to it. For example, maybe you enter a room and get a good feeling from it, but can't explain why. This good feeling might come because subliminally, your brain thinks that rectangular objects are good, and the room has a lot of books and rectangular chairs and tables. 

Anyways, we were supposed to take pictures of whatever interested us so here are my pictures (taken with the rule of thirds of course~)

The objects I chose to photograph are objects in my house that I absolutely must have in the same spot, otherwise I feel annoyed or like something isn't right. If I remember correctly, personal psychogeography is the way you arrange your environment so I thought these items were good example of personal psychogeography. 

The only exception is the fifth picture. It's of this ledge above the stairs leading out of my home. I took that picture because something about that ledge causes me to touch it every time I leave the house, so I thought that would be a good example of psychogeography.

-2-

Well, yesterday (Monday) the whole class saw episode 2 of The Prisoner *whooo*
This time we find out that 'the village' might be somewhere in Lithuania...But since it was someone who was working with the village who told #6 this, you can't be certain.
Also, it seemed that quite a number of people are in on this since that lady (sorry, I forgot her name) came from somewhere near Russia (forgot the country's name also) and another man who was in the village appeared to come from London. The man from London appeared to be able to come and go freely so maybe #6 can find a way out that way...
I thought it was interesting about how art seemed to have 5 circles (well, Luke drew 5 on the board): theme theme2 theme3 cultural context and your context.

I also think that this year might have an espionage theme...We're all introducing ourselves by 'spying', the prisoner has spy themes, and that watercolor project we did was with actors who played as spies..!

-1-

Well, hey! I made a blog for STAC! Well, this'll be one of the two blogs we have to keep (the other one I'll link to when it's made...it'll be the daily practice blog *ta-dah!*)

For this first entry....I'm pretty sure that we have to blog about the first episode of the show "The Prisoner" that we watched in class. Well, I thought it was pretty interesting...how they started the beginning with no sound and it took a while for the dialouge to begin. I also thought some of the themes went along with some of the books we read last year like "The Giver" about the perfect community and all. I also noticed that most of the music -in the village- was the happy marching type music except for a few parts where they switched to classical...I also thought what some people said after the episode ended were thoughtful (someone said something about having signs on the grass that said "walk on" instead of the usual "don't walk on" and someone else mentioned there were a lot of circles...round like the big bicycle and how when people went to leave they always -I think?- came back...usually by force)

*phew* well, I think that's all I have to say for my first blog