Thesis Update

Moving forward into next semester....

For moving forward in my project; I want to work with contemporary controversial discussions addressing the varied topics we all know and discuss everyday with visual solutions. In modern day living there are over 7.3 billion human beings whom all have different opinions and views on morals, topics, and decisions for people. Why is this? Why do people have opposing views? Simply not one singular person has a similar experience being brought up in this world due to many reasons such as location, status, the individual, and family. These differences give each individual person their own sense of life, experience, and opinions about specific issues that are discussed about constantly in the hands of the common person and those who are in positions of power. Not everyone will always have the same view on a topic at hand or will agree with the another person; even if it is a family member or a close friend.

The way I envision this working is by stating a middle ground position to address both sides of a topic. Through doing so I feel that this will help to spark conversation amongst people of all differences to allow both sides to be exposed to the reasoning behind the opinion that goes against their stance. Today we have topics such as public health, education, politics, sex & gender, and other worldly topics that all have more than one stance.

One of the portions to this project that I have been heavily thinking over is how can I create work that people can see in large scale. On of our largest platforms of communication is the web & social media. There is so much information for anyone to access through these platforms; and many spend countless hours of each day looking at youtube videos, or instagram posts about interests the individual has, or they have quick access to the news and other outlets that have controversial topics discussed out there through methods of video or eye catching imagery.

My end goal is that I want to make posters, short videos, and possibly a social media account that allows for me to utilize this project further into a larger scale for people to witness and experience so that there is a place for people to place an opinion, but to also see the other side of their said stance on any particular topic.

Connections

Using some script from my recordings I am looking for connections, disconnections, and God knows what else.

Sample of Scripts:

KITTY: Okay so the dream I remember is that I’m in this very stereotypical, like dark damp gross dungeon bars are all rusty and everything, I’m in like a, like a cell. And this big ass guy with a leather mask on comes in, like medieval style leather mask, And he...there’s a chopping block in the cell that im in he just like pushes me down onto the block and holds my head down and steps on my back, like, here And then he brings out this like giant axe like executioners axe And brings it down And then i woke up I don’t have a lot of nightmares.

JEREMY: I guess uh a dream that was recurring for me, uh, it’s very simple, wel it’s not simple, i- i- it’s I was rotting. It started with the teeth, which is always fun because you’re looking at your hands like what the fuck And um Hands to arms to body you know recognizing that you are falling apart In an instant I probably was doing something mundane because that’s usually how it is Usually I’m like casually in my house just sitting down and then like This one little thing happens and I just like pluck a tooth out This is happening Yeah I’ve had dreams like that That one happened more than once Yeah I remember waking up holding my teeth like, are you still here Its always a weird sensation of seeing yourself like deconstruct There’s no sound it’s happening You're dealing with it now Thats one reoccuring dream

HARRISON: In the beginning of my dream I wake up in my bedroom from when I was five and its pitch black. And I hear muffled screaming from down stairs . So I walk downstairs and as i walk downstairs this room is like this strange like purpley yellow color and i look into my living room and i see giant wolf like creature walking ever so slowly like towards me Like...just...erie movements..like slow, kind of glitching And I see my parents in the corner of the room just like shaking in fear and i was like No! I will destroy you demon and I kicked him...and that was the end of my dream. ----------Questions promted------------ HARRISON: I woke up scared because I thought I died because there was no resolution to the dream. Yes, the room felt really surreal like the colors melded into each other and just a really weird combination of colors

How do things become associated? How can we trust those associations? Like stars making constellations, sometimes things line up and connect to make a distinct picture and sometimes it just a random mess.

Thesis Update

Short Summary

A book of stories that come from the interaction with people and their makeup collections along with drawn and photographed visuals.


Full Description

Throughout experimenting with my project ideas about makeup, my favorite part was exploring other people's makeup collections and talking about them. Much interesting conversation comes from interacting with others' collections and I want to record my findings and assemble them into a book. I want to pair the stories with photographed and illustrated visuals.

conjoined forms

A series of studies of overlapping forms,

separated from the patterns. 

Illustration sample

In my previous post I mentioned that I'd like to make some illustrations to go along the stories as visuals. Here's an example illustration I did of a few items of makeup.

Thesis Statement Revised

Thesis statement - Film, sound, design

Recently I have been filming and animating; experimenting in the realm of visual media. I've come to realize that my interests in this project is still a large work in progress, and my ending point is undecided. I am not sure what I want to create visually and conceptually for my project yet, but I am thinking about two potential options. 1. Creating visuals that are coded through means of processing. 2. focusing on a controversial topic(s) to create work generated from said idea. As for now I will still explore and experiment to see if anything sparks a newer idea.

A New Idea That's been There the Whole Time

I've been thinking a lot about the "conversation" aspect that my project has had an on and off relationship with. I was never 100% sold on any of my other ideas, but this one feels more like me and moving forward with it gets me excited. I have been doing makeup for people lately and a lot of conversation comes out of exploring someone else's collection of makeup and their relationship to their products and the story of each one. Laying out a collection and picking up someone's products innately starts a conversation about it and I find I do the same thing if someone else is looking through my own.

Here are some things I remember from the last couple of weeks of doing this:

"That mascara burns my eyes, but I still use it anyway"

"I wear this red lipstick so my boyfriend won't want to kiss me"

"I only use this eyebrow pencil; the other three I never use"

"I never use my Kylie lipsticks because they dry out my lips"

"All the eyeshadow I have is really bad"

"I have an Anastasia contour palette and I don't know how to use it please help me"

"I've had this one brush for 7 years, it was definitely worth the $36"

I guess the things that I remember about these conversations are the funnier parts.

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I'd really like to document people's collections (photos, illustrations) and write about the conversations and stories that come up while interacting with them. (Assembled into a book? I had always wanted the end result to be one)

Makeup is becoming more and more collectible and women and men are amassing huge collections nytimes.com

Experimenting with Backgrounds

Spent this week incorporating the idea of using busy patterns behind the alien heads, to see how they hold up. So I took some of my previous designs and placed them over a variety of background patterns like camouflage and foliage, or brightly colored line-work, and I think they held up pretty well. I think if I have the chance to get a shirt with a similarly busy design on it, I'd like the chance to try printing one of the designs on that to see how it interacts in that form as well. Also printed a few of these on shirts with iron-on transfer paper over Thanksgiving break, to get a quick mock-up of how these would look on solid colored t-shirts, and I'll bring those to class to be looked at.

Also did a few more quick alien head variations.

Hieroglyphs

Based on my panel review I wanted to continue with making more variations of the vectorized scars. Giving a feeling of an alphabet, while still retaining the aspects of the memorial.
 

GIF Experiments

I have created 3 GIFs that are exploratory in line art animation. I used two Gustav Klimt paintings as examples for this exploration, and I also used one of my own drawings. I also wrote some new music pieces to combine with the imagery that is contrasting in terms of mood. This is different from my previous film styled videos, and I feel that this could help lead into more opportunities for other visual content. I chose Gustav's work to play with, because he is one of my favorite artists; and when looking at his pieces I see varied stories in his work. Also this was a newer process for me to work in, so I feel that I gained a new understanding of how to create visuals without strictly relying on film. I can incorporate both in newer experiments. 

Gustav Klimt - The Kiss

this is the full song

Here is another sketch I had as an idea for this one..a butterfly progression

The second Gustav GIF is Mother and Child

Gustav Klimt - Mother and Child

full song for mother and child

My last GIF is from one of my drawings

Like You Mean It

full song for like you mean it

stamped patterns

Patterns created from taking multiples of best chosen vectors of various stamps, combining them, and adding these layers of collaborating colors.
 

a hand in nature

installation view, Gabrielle Burgess, A Hand in Nature
28 November 2017

Kairos
senior thesis exhibition for Maegan Shilkey, Bryant Skopek, Jameel Radcliffe, Victoria Lopez, Gabrielle Burgess, and Jessica Criscuolo

Reception Wednesday 29 November, 5-8pm
 

App Flow Progress

Last week I began using the Adobe XD program and started mapping out the bare pages and flow of the app. I felt like I couldn't go further without knowing exactly the flow from initial question to each end result, so I wrote out a flow chart on paper, which I can mimic with the XD flow lines to travel from page to page within the app.

XD flows

I am thinking about how I will display these end results and I'm considering simple illustrations that could be instructional as well.

I am also deciding if a working XD prototype will be sufficient or if I should treat it as just a prototype and use coding later.

students at Hardie, 2014, 1924

Class of 2018 (August 2014)
from Montserrat Facebook
(color to grayscale)

Hardie School, 1st to 6th grades
Sunday Herald, January 20, 1924
source

it is the marks left by these and others, in the building, that we are recording. honoring. fragments. building a sentence with those fragments. a new building.

Two thousand years have passed, my father used to tell me, and now every Jewish soul is built around the house that burned in that fire, so fast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again, said Weisz, or rather a memory of the House so perfect that it would be, in essence, the original itself.
— Nicole Kraus, Great House (2010) : 279
 

Mind and Media

Currently Mind and Media is focused on how the internet reflects the American mindset in today's society. The internet has become a personal archive for anyone who has access, allowing one small image to go viral countrywide. Using a mix of key search word results and original work to provide an 'Internet Regurgitation Video' to serve as visuals. They will coexist with the audio through a vaguely developed system of selection.

Proposal Update: Elan Vital (a.k.a. the beastly Wheel of Fortune)

elan vital: the creative force within an organism that is responsible for growth, change, and necessary or desirable adaptations.

Currently I am working on a physical tool that can be used by creatives to bring to light unimagined beasts. In the creative world we're seeing a lot of recycled ideas, but I'm hoping that this tool can bring about animals, aliens, etc. that the user would not have imagined, but it fully satisfied with. This could be used as a supplement to illustrations, comics, creative writing, or even rpg gaming (Dungeons and Dragon, Pathfinder, etc.) to come up with something new and exciting.

The format is a wheel, beginning in the center with the base elements and branching out further into specifics. The point of the wheel is to give let the user see every option at once so their possibilities are no inhibited. The goal is not to go as far to the edge as you can, but rather to highlight points on the wheel that you would like to use. Maybe staying vague will allow the user to put their own spin on an idea, or maybe they would rather get right to specifics and chase a line down to the very edge so they know exactly what they want.

The goal of this tool is to allow for practically infinite possibilities.

reviews this week

Monday 27 November
6:30   Morgan O'Connor
7:00   Coral Acevedo
7:30   Jeremy Rodas
8:00   Jade Ruscio

reviewers : John Colan, John McVey, Justin Gagne

Tuesday 28 November
6:30   Liam St. Laurent
7:00   Harrison Turner
7:30   Courtney Ryan
8:00   Gabrielle Burgess

reviewers : John Colan, John McVey, Chelsea Sams

Reviewers :
Most recent thesis statements via full names at upper right. Click on first names (second list) to see all posts by that student.

Seminarians :
Be sure your thesis proposal is current — accurately reflects your work as you understand it at this time — and that your project has a title.
 

Working...

Currently plugging away at this tree. The end goal is to be able to organize all of this information on a wheel, but first I want to expand as much as possible to create hundreds of possibilities for idea generation.

Love, pt. 2

This week I have explored more ideas of love by means of combing some of my pieces from last week into one video, as well as creating some newer content. I have been thinking a lot about what this word love means and why people say it to others. In my first video I included an audio clip from a voicemail I received last year with a friend saying "I love you" to me, and incorporated it with a song that is opposite in meaning to the words "I love you". My second video of the combined pieces from last week are purely based off from suggestions from last class to see how it would work. There is not an audio for this, and the videos that are combined are despair, regret, and wonder. 

Love_2

Combination

suspected wall space layouts

Adobe XD for interactive prototypes

I've been learning and building as I go with the new Adobe XD program, which makes interactive prototypes, and I've really been liking the program so far. I've been taking my time to go through all the instructional tutorials and the more I learn that it can do the more I think it will work well with my project. Here's some of the bare layout I've been working on and what the program looks like.

More Alien Studies

Not a huge update this week, just more alien head variations - this time incorporating a few elements of color in several of the designs for more variety. I played with incorporating the "ə" on several of them - not sure how I feel about it as it currently stands - I think I'll have to play more with this to arrange it in a way that makes sense to me. I like some of these more than the ones I created last week, I think because the facial features themselves are more simplified, which just appeals to me more. I'm open to experimenting with both still, but wouldn't mind opinions on which ones come across more appealing/are more effective designs. For next week I may try to have a few patterns or something for these to lay over as we discussed last week as well, to see how they hold up against busy backgrounds and how the two elements will interact.

Thesis update

A remembrance of those who passed through Hardie. Scars that have formed throughout the years in the Hardie Building will act as the memories to build off of becoming a monument to those of the past, present, and future.
 

Ideas

After careful thought and research on Maya Lin and Christian Boltanski I started to think about how these structures would be oriented in a three dimensional form, what substance they would be made from and if I should focus on one of the of the six structures to become the monument itself. Which would best represent the sentiment of those that have passed through the halls of hardie or does that not necessarily matter to the design of the monument because of what they’re made from (pulled charcoal rubbing of damages on the walls). I don’t know how large I would make these structures and if they won't fit in the gallery I wouldn’t know where to place them. Or am I thinking too far ahead with some of my thoughts and concerns.

As an afterthought to all my other ones, can this project progress any further in a two dimensional format in any way, would I get more abstract I remember some ideas that were suggested but they don't feel like the right path even though they were great ideas.
 

layout screenshots with dimensions

possible cover from dictionary in process

Kitty

Using GIFs from Tumblr to make an 'into' and a looping throughout the rest of the audio. I had put a variety so there were no repeats of any individual GIF but it felt too cheesy to steal multiple things and just paste them.

Playing with Type, Creating Alien Faces

I spent this week playing with various typefaces and trying to figure out the best way to display the word "alienation", as well as the "I exist" phrase, which I think I will continue to use across multiple designs in the future. I did like the idea of how a schwa was not only the name for an alien head but also denoted the way to pronounce certain vowel sounds, and is coincidentally actually found in the word "alienation" (/ˌeɪl yəˈneɪ ʃən). So I feel pretty confident that I would like to flip the "e" in the logo, and have played with also replacing the "o" with another schwa to give it a more creative spelling. I have examples of both up - I'd love to know which people find to be more effective/legible.  This font used here is Josephin Slab.

I then played with the idea of displaying both texts at the same time, which led to this sort of crossword puzzle type design. I'm still playing with it, since I'm not sure it's the most effective way to combine the two, but I feel they are at least easy to read both as one image and independently. I haven't decided what to do with this design yet, but thought it was interesting to look at and discuss, to see if there's a better way to display the text, or if it's even necessary to have both ideas within the same design. The thin typeface is Josephin Slab once again, and the bold font is called Righteous.

Lastly, I began to work on some variations of alien heads. I made up some quick vectored shapes, both for the heads as well as the eyes and nostrils so that I could mix and match them as I went, giving me more freedom to arrange them at will. I kept them black and white for now while I compose them, so that they don't become too complicated. I'll be working on more of these over the weekend as well, and possibly designing some symbols with personal meaning to me to incorporate with the alien heads rather than compliment them with potentially symbolic imagery that has nothing to do with my work/the alienation theme as the design from last week did. 

How do I design my face every morning? The System.

I think mapping out how I plan the way I'm going to look at the start of my day is an important step in designing a kind of app that may do this thinking for someone. I've done this routine on auto for so many years that I can makes these decisions in really no time at all. I'm going to dig up what I'm thinking and feeling as I pickup my brushes.

1. The first thing I think of is how much time do I have or want to spend. Some days I don't have a lot of time and some days it feels a little like a chore that I just want to get over and done with. I have a few different looks that I'll do if I have around 10, 15, or 20+ minutes.

2. Another thing I consider, and it might be weird, is the season. Yes, I do my makeup differently from season to season. In warmer months, I use less products on my face and ones that are lighter taking sweat, heat, and comfort into consideration. I also like to use more natural looking colors in the summer as they last longer throughout the day. In colder months, I wear heavier foundation and darker colors. In colder months there's really no need to worry about anything melting away. Kind of like "fall colors" with clothes I do the same with my face.

3. Is there an occasion? I won't wear green eyeshadow or purple lipstick to work and I won't have an absence of anything if I'm going out with friends or on a date. There are lots of things to consider!

4. If I have about 10 minutes, I'll skip eyeshadow altogether. To me, you don't need eyeshadow to have a complete look. This can be compensated (if I feel like it) with a more boldly colored lipstick since it takes the same amount of time to do any color. I'll usually skip strip lashes if I'm in a time pinch too, which I usually do wear. Iffy finishing touch things are blush and highlighter. In this time frame I'll do kind of the "bare minimum", which may be like a lot to some people because I've gotten pretty fast: foundation, concealer, light cheekbone contour, eyeliner (always graphic and winged!), mascara top and bottom, eyebrow fill, setting powder, lipstick, and highlighter (usually).

If I have about 15 minutes, I'll do simple eyeshadow like a gold or pink lid and I usually add a dark brown in my crease and lower lash line. I'll definitely wear extra eyelashes on these days. With a mildly bold eye,  I will most likely wear a natural looking lip color. I will also lightly contour my whole face, sweeping a brownish color over all the more shadowy areas of the face like under the cheekbones, jawline, and sides of the forehead. Highlights are added to the tops of cheekbones, tip and bridge of the nose, inner corners of the eyes, and just under the eyebrows.

If I have 20+ minutes, let the creativity begin! This is when I pull out my more elaborately colored eyeshadow palette and experiment with more unconventional colors like green, blue, silver, red, etc.. I try to experiment with different blending techniques and shapes too. When I do this, it is always a natural lip color. I don't like to have both bold eyes and lips, it looks overdone to me, I like either the eyes or lips to make a statement, never both.

I don't really think it takes a lot of different products to make this happen. My makeup collection is actually pretty small compared to most. I can fit everything in a fairly small makeup bag with 2 larger eyeshadow palettes that can't fit (and two collector's items from an Andy Warhol collection I rarely use). In the bag I have 6 brushes, 1 foundation, 1 concealer, 1 face powder, 1 eyebrow tint, 1 mascara, 2 eyeliners, 3 lipsticks, 2 lash sets with a glue, 1 blush, and 1 highlighter.

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I have also been learning how to use the new program Adobe XD and I think this could be a good program for me to use as it is an interactive app/interface prototyping program.

transforming patterns