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For my final project I decided on the make it break it prompt. I wanted to continue on with the theme of creation and destruction and I felt like my project carried it well. I drew a version of the hands portrayed in The Creation of Adam pained by Michelangelo, a piece that speaks a lot to me. The existence of Adam in the painting is a hot take considering that he was able to attend his own creation, but regardless, the painting implies that Adam was already in existence before his creation. I’ll keep my story sweet and simple, I didn’t always believe in God, I struggled with depression and the related, then found God in the midst of my lowest moment. Before I found God, obviously I existed, but I didn’t feel like I was anything, like I meant anything, like I had any purpose. When I found God I felt like I was created, but in order for that to happen I had to be destroyed. So, the idea that Adam existed before his own creation, though the theology might not be iffy, is a comforting idea to me. I decided to let my brother burn the drawing in a kind of symbolic, phoenix-out-of-the-ashes type of way to express my own story and feelings. 

The song is called Devil Eyes by Hippie Sabotage

I know, I know. I am super late to post this. I had a difficult time trying to find the inspiration to put behind this project. A few nights ago I watched a documentary called Out of Shadows, you can watch it for free at outofshadows.org or on their youtube channel. I decided to make my music video based off of the ideas presented in this documentary. Out of Shadows talks about the government’s impact on Hollywood, and Hollywood’s influence on the unknowing population. I liked it because it reminded me slightly of Ai Wei Wei. This project didn’t turn out as successful as I was hoping and it proved to be very difficult to record video indoors with such little equipment and people available. I ended up using a website called pexels (https://www.pexels.com/) that provides royalty free photos and videos, so I used what clips I could find from them. I also tried to use an 8D audio but it got compressed when I was trying to export it so that didn’t work out well either. I ended up making some stylistic decisions to help enhance the idea I was going for but I feel like in the end it just made it look a little bit sloppy. I tried to use dull colors at the beginning and the end of the video to represent real life and the ideas we’ve been fed and more colorful and enhanced images in the middle to represent realizing finding clarity on the world around us. I also put blank, black, transitions at points in the video so people can literally reflect upon themselves and how they perceive the media they consume, even just as simple as a poorly built music video made by a college student. 

I have realized through this quarantine that our society and culture does not allow us to breathe. We are so used to be constantly in motion that we have a hard time figuring out what to do with ourselves when we have time to do nothing. For my project I decided to record myself just breathing. So many people I know are impatiently waiting for our quarantine to be lifted and daydreaming about getting back to the flow of things. I believe that our solitude is a blessing in disguise. We have time to think, to reflect, to create, to figure out who we are, to find out what we value more than anything else, and to just breathe. While doing this project I filmed myself without a timer and allow myself to guess when a minute had gone by. I stayed there for nearly five minutes. This was a lesson for me as well about the value of of how we spend our time, because in the end it is fleeting.

I was surprised to find that performance art had such a long history. Going into this assignment I imagined something more modern. Before this I had very little knowledge of what performance art was and I thought of people like Benjamin Bennett sitting and smiling at a camera for hours straight, even in the midst of being robbed. Through this course I’ve come to the realization that art doesn’t only include painting, drawing, sculpting, or the works. Art is a form of self expression, no matter how it comes out. Goldberg said it herself in her essay, “art is primarily a matter of ideas and actions”. After reading this essay I have become even more firmly rooted in the belief that art is manifested in human nature, in the thoughts and feelings that drive us to act no matter if it is a form of creation or destruction. Art’s ability to make people think is an immense amount of power. It is a force that can spark revolution and completely destroy society, yet that same spark is a force that create whole societies as well. I think that performance art in comparison to more fine arts, is an easier way to amplify ideas. 

For my gif project I decided to use videos I took while at the cemetery to try to capture the beauty in both creation and destruction. The gifs are simple, but my goal was to make people think more about that relationship, the one of creation and destruction, the one of life and death, and maybe, hopefully, let people realize that without one we would not have the other.

creation//destruction.gifs

A gif I made of one of my favorite places... 

I love how this is really the only way to capture some aspects of humanity. 

I like how, even though it says it was made in 2019, it still has vintage vibes. 

I think that the use of perspective in this gif makes it very interesting. 

I love how the colors are constant, yet the subject changes. 

I love how moments are captured in gifs compared to just photography. 

I like how such an unnatural piece of media can be used to capture something so natural. 

I really like mixing things that don’t really match, like tv static and eyeballs. 

I love how much detail is put into this, as well as the loop.