DO RE MI MI MI | A Musical Relational Art Exploration

As a musician, I'm almost always thinking in sounds, pitches, music notes, rhythms, etc.  So usually this translates into turning almost any pitch I hear in normal, everyday life into a song or pitch in my head. Seriously, it can get annoying and overbearing, especially when trying to sleep.  Remember that part in Shrek when Fiona outsings the bird and it explodes? That’s what it feels like sometimes, especially at bedtime, but you learn to cope and deal with it and move on with life.

This project is an attempt at explaining what it's like to be inside of my brain.  I'm kind of obsessed with how other people think, especially when their train of thought isn't focused on anything specific and it's just jumbling around.  To get into someone else's brain and have a lasting encounter (page 19) on it is extremely fascinating to me.  Consequently, my video is also attempting to prompt the audience to think like me, in song and pitch.  The conductor is a guide, much like a real musical situation, for the audience to sing the pitch either in their head or out loud.  I'd actually prefer the latter, especially if it was an unexpected reaction and gut instinct to sing aloud.  Due to my musical pursuits for the majority of my life, I don't know how to sit still still whenever a conductor gives a cue. It's a problem.

Ideally, this would be projected onto a much larger screen in a darker room, much like that of Christian Marclay's  The Clock, to isolate the audience from their own thoughts and ease them into mine.  This would also be much longer with more pitches and everyday sounds from my life, but I chose to only include the three sounds I hear most often for the purpose of saving class time. 

I hope you enjoy! You can view the video here on my YouTube account if the embedded video doesn't work.

YouTube Beauty Gurus of Babel

My goal with our final project was to collect various YouTube beauty videos from all over the world and string them together to form a new makeup tutorial in hopes of shedding light on the global beauty village that we are all a part of as a reference to the idea of the global village in Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage."

Although I sat through about 12 hours of YouTube makeup tutorials in over 20 languages (Google translate was my best friend), this project was a refreshing reminder that there exists a world of beauty outside of the United States.  It was so interesting to see all of the different nuances that certain countries play up with regards to makeup application.

For example, in South Korea they really value a light application of makeup.  Anything beyond that resulting in a "cakey" or heavily made up face is regarded as undesirable and unnatural looking.  South Koreans would not fare well in India where they apply layer after layer of makeup and really spackle it on.

What's most interesting and refreshing to me is that there are so many different definitions of what beauty is depending on your place of origin, where you reside now, your parent's definition of beauty, etc., and how they're all 100% valid.  Who am I to say that your faintly filled in brow is not as beautiful as someone else's heavily drawn on brow?

If you'd like to browse through all of the videos I looked at for the project, you can view the playlist right here.  You can view my final video on YouTube by clicking this link.

Thank you for a wonderful class, everyone!!

Smoking Causes Film Ideas: An Experimental Film

When presented with the prompt for the experimental film project, I was initially worried because of my inexperience with this type of media.  Or any kind of media project for that matter.

"We thought it was one of those new fancy candle warmers! Oops!"

However, I was not ready to give up solely based on my inexperience with Final Cut Pro!  Armed with a Sony Nex-5 camera and our somewhat trusty friend Google, of course, Zain and I set out to explore the space created when smokers need their separation from the anxieties of the 21^st century life.  What is the 21^st century life like, you ask? Just watch and listen to this.  If you’re not convinced, it’s sung by a cute Australian guy, Sam Sparro.

Mr. Sam Sparro

The song shares some of the sentiments expressed in “The Medium is the Massage.”  Sparro sings about having “21,000 things [he] has to do today,” which I believe can be related to the constant buzzing of iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, etc., that many first world country citizens can relate to.  McLuhan suggests that we have been deceived by this constant technological buzz into believing that we’re somehow being soothed and satisfied by the connection between our thumbs and the Internet, when in reality, we’ve merely been conditioned to be anxious for the latest status update or CNN headline.  “Smoking Creates Film Ideas” examines the zone of silence and solitude that smokers enter when they flick the lighter, exhale, and allow their minds to wander without a screen in front of their face.  Even in sub-zero temperatures. 

We hope you enjoy our experimental short film. :)