Photo Series
For my photo series, I chose to use onions and garlic to explore the concept of “pareidoila” in food. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, pareidoila is the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern. In my case, I am exploring the possibilities of seeing patterns that people could interpret as human-like features in the food.
The reason I’m exploring pareidoila is to explore how creative our minds can be considering we are able to put together a meaning from seeing a random pattern.
While experimenting with how to style the photo set ups, I realized that the phenomenon can occur naturally or, with manipulating the subjects. The image with the garlic peels that form a face with a smile, and the image with the onion skins that form a face with a frown are both examples of pareidoila forming due to the manipulation of the photo subjects. As for the image with the unpeeled garlic, that happened naturally in the course of me separating some cloves to experiment with.
Also, I used a white chopping board for the background for 2 images because I felt it would provide better contrast and effect for the onion skins and, unpeeled garlic. For the peeled garlic image, I chose the green translucent bag as the backdrop because I liked how the texture of the bag complimented the textures of the garlic.
Performance/Recipe video
For my performance video, I chose to continue experimenting with pareidolia by seeing how many faces I could make on my chopping board with the ingredients that I had. As I was not able to record my roommate explaining the recipe, I asked her to make a written version of the recipe and then I added those to my video at points I deemed appropriate.
For the recipe video itself, I wanted to see if I could make jollof rice without using water where she specified. I knew this version would not be edible considering the rice is still uncooked but I was trying to see if I could get the end result of the experiment to at least look like actual jollof rice. I feel the experiment was successful as the end result had the visual landmarks (e.g. how orange the rice is, the mix of vegetables etc) of the actual dish.
Surveillance Assignment: Sonder
The Subway is commonly used for commuting by those living or working in metropolitan environments. Many use it because they found it to be the cheapest and quickest form of transport within their cities.
During my commutes, I often wonder who my fellow passengers are and where they are coming from; often imagining what kind of life they’ve lived up till the very moment I saw them.
I found out that this feeling has been termed “sonder”. It is more strictly defined as a ‘realization that each person you meet has a life as complex as your own’.
My video is a compilation of recordings of people taking the subway in various countries such as the USA, Japan, Australia etc. I chose this theme as I find it rather fascinating how easily we can get wrapped up in our own lives, so much so that it can make it hard for us to be understanding and be considerate of other people. In a setting like the subway, I feel people are forced to confront others in a way that reminds them that in that very moment, they share the need for transportation with others. I feel like acknowledging that shared need could lead to acknowledging that we’re more similar than we think we are, and that we are pieces of a larger whole. By experiencing the feeling of sonder, I feel we would find it easier to foster communal bonds as realizing that we are all living complex lives should help establish common ground, possibly leading to a higher chance of good relationships being formed.
Anti-Archival Art: Gummy Community
For my project, I chose to look into community and how important support is in the community. My materials consist of gummy bears, a lighter and a sheet of paper rolled into a tube that provides the “structure” the gummy bears can lean on.
Because of how individualized we have become, I think it has gotten harder for people to go through life as they feel they can only depend on themselves. That type of thinking is quite detrimental when one feels they’ve lost control or, lost the structure that they’re used to. My project shows that when the “structure” is gone, if one feels connected to their community, they’re still able to stand in comparison to being alone and falling straight to the ground. I’m trying to emphasize how important community is when all seems lost and how your fellow members are there to support you in times of trouble and instability.
I chose gummy bears as my main material for the Stick aspect as I felt the design of the candy was anthropomorphic. Also with how fragile the stickiness between each bear is, and how quickly out of shape the sculpture can get if one gummy bear is out of place, I think it’s a great metaphor for how an entire community is affected if one member is afflicted.
As for the process of creation, I heated up the sides of each gummy bear in order to create the stickiness that bonds them and then I built the round shape from the bottom row upwards. I had quite a bit of trouble maintaining the round frame as the gummy bears tended to move quite a bit during assembly. My initial aim was to make a dome but I ended up with only 3 rows because I found that adding more gummy bears would cause the sculpture to collapse.
If I was to redo the project, I think I’ll make a dome-like frame first before adding the gummy bears as it would add more stability.
The following is small photo series of my process:
The final product:
The following is a short demonstration of how the Gummy Community behaves when the “structure” is removed:
Animation Project
For the experimental animation assignment, I chose to explore different objects floating in a body of water. My aim was to make an indirect comment on the large amounts of garbage we have floating around in our oceans due to them not being biodegradable. For the objects, I scanned multiple items that I usually get when I go grocery shopping. These items include the grocery bags themselves, some liquid detergent containers, malt beverage bottles, insecticide and a few more household items. As for the body of water, I was able to find a free model online from a 3D asset website called Free3D (the link for this ocean model – https://free3d.com/3d-model/ocan-2-2619.html)
In regards to my audio, it is made up of multiple clips of me questioning what is happening in the scene. They were altered to have an echo, and to play over each other in order to create a dream-like auditory experience. I edited those clips in a way that still allowed a viewer to hear what was said in the respective clips despite them overlapping each other.
As for the background noises, I manipulated an audio clip of me mimicking the sound of wind to have a more other-worldly, slightly haunting feel. I also added a clip of me playing around with a bowl of water to mimic the sound of flowing water. This was done to further enhance the dreamy, unorthodox experience I was trying to produce.
