For my Second Life endeavors I struggled mostly with creating outfits and being able to switch back and forth between them easily. I believe I was saving things wrong or not accessing them the correct way, but I am now more comfortable with it after playing with it during the final. I struggled to get the blending of my neck and chest done well so I eventually put my avatar in a turtle neck to cover the lines. For my imaginary person I was going to create a black and white version of me, which you can see the beginning of in the first photo, but I struggled to make the skin white and black and look good. So I eventually went with making myself a lion. I made my booty very luscious, and played with the physics to make it jiggle every time I moved. I didn't quite realize how tall I made myself until we met in the group and I was standing next to the rest of the people. I wish I would have photoshop'ed my eyes better onto my grid so that I didn't have a double-eye creepy feature going on. I was very frustrated with this project at first, but once we met as a class I found it to be very fun and an enjoyable way to interact with art and classmates, and also a fun way to end the semester! 

The Capacitators

The Capacitators digital media student art exhibit was varied and dynamic for a student show. There were different art pieces vasting the full spectrum of the digital media field of study, exhibiting works in photography, animation, Second Life audio/visual interaction, interactive video receptors and short film collaborations.
I first interacted with Galashton, a World of Warcraft animation character brought into the world of Second Life, brought into the real world in this gallery to interact and chat with the gallery visitors. Galashton was projected on to the wall large enough to make it feel like he was truly right there in front of you. Viewers could speak into a microphone and have a casual conversation with Galashton, the speaking animation, who had witty and intelligent remarks to whatever questions or comments thrown his way. I enjoyed this piece, the ability to carry on a conversation with a projection onto a wall is a remarkable feat, and I must admit, I enjoyed attempting to make Galashton blush by telling him how handsome I thought he looked.
"Videos for Small Viewing" was a collaborative piece of connected short film clips from the Digital Media 345 class. The footage reel ran to a soundtrack of audio that was created by the students from handmade objects. This project reminded me of the project we did earlier this semester in our class, with the animation collaboration to audio, it was very similar except they used video clips and we used animation.
"Displace" was a projection performance, a receptive piece reacting to how people are effected by their location. A girl, dressed in all white, stood in front of a projector with a large projection being shown on the wall behind her of different settings: an aisle in a grocery store, the library, and a gym in the midst of a basketball game. Depending on the movement of the girl, the projection in the background would change. If she was moving in bigger motions, such as stretching, or moving her arms around above her head, the background would change to the gym scene. If she was still and had her head slightly downward, the library setting would come up and it would look like she was reading a book. If she would walk back and forth towards the projector, she would be in the grocery store isle. I thought this project had a really strong idea, but it could have been taken farther. It didn't quite connect all the way for me, but I understood the artist's intention after speaking with him about it, I just think it would have been more successful if there were more scenes, or if the project was more interactive and everyone could participate, and not just the one girl.
"Star Tear: The Gift of the Dream Dragon" was an animation piece created by a student who used an iPad to do majority of his artwork. I found that fascinating when he told me that all but one of the drawings in his video animation was done on the iPad... like Joe said "make it all the way to college just to learn how to finger paint"... but on an iPad. This artist had a nicely published book aside his project to explain his processing and detail behind the project, which was really helpful for the viewer and just interesting to read to see how he went about creating this project.
"Legends of Broadcast" was another interactive projection piece, but this piece reacted to light displayed in certain areas. With a flashlight, you would aim the light beam to photos hung up on the wall, and with a webcam aimed at the wall which was hooked up to a program on a laptop, the pictures on the wall would cause a reaction by the amount of light on the picture. The more light on the photo, the faster the video reel would go of a talk show host talking politics. The less light on the photo, the slower the video would go. I found this the most fascinating of the projects. I had a difficult time trying to follow how it all worked together because I was unfamiliar with the computer program he was using, and how it worked, but I think it was very successful and entertaining as an interactive piece.
In the back of the Holland Project there was a photography piece regarding the issues of "pixels". The meaning and objective behind this piece was that social media sites and outlets have made relationships less meaningful and the usage of the over exaggerated pixel in these enlarged photos of faces were to emphasize the way our generation interacts with one another. I thought it was an interesting piece because the social medias have changed the way people react with one another, and the relationships we understand now are different, and photos are a huge part of that. The pixels are the tiny objects that create the bigger picture of ourselves and that is how we choose to represent ourselves these days. It is a fascinating way to look at this cultural critique.

Lastly, there was our classes "Then Me, Now Me" which was just wonderful. Some people in our class were really successful in their recreations, and others seemed as if they just took two photos of themselves that looked similar and didn't even try. Even on a personal level, I wish I could have recreated mine even more than I had tried to. It was a nice feeling to see our classes work posted in a gallery like that, I just think we all could have put some more effort into perfecting our recreations more than we had.

Overall, The Capacitators was a very successful exhibit and I was surprised at the works I saw. It's inspirational to see students in our program doing such innovative work, I look forward to doing more and one day have a project in an exhibit similar to this.

Artist Lecture- Wafaa Bilal

Wafaa Bilal pushes the limits of the expected as an artist. Many, if not all, of his projects come from a personal conflict, experience, or curiosity that has inflicted his life at some point or time. During his lecture at UNR he touched on some of the platforms in which he bases much of his artwork around. Conflict zone vs. Comfort Zone, Aesthetic pleasure vs. Aesthetic pain, Virtual platform vs. Physical platform, and the body has it's own language which leads to dynamic work. He spoke about how goes through the process of considering each of these "zones" and platforms and how he incorporates all of these in his decision making and thought processing to create dynamic work. In Wafaa's words, "dynamic work is a platform in which all possible end-states are known, this allows participant to narrate some of the work."
Wafaa includes himself in a physical way in many of his pieces. In his project "Dog or Iraqi" he polled people to see if they would rather 'waterboard' a dog or an Iraqi human being, if the results turned out that more people answered with an Iraqi, he would waterboard himself. Eventually PETA shut the project down, but as a result of his poll outcomes, he held to his word and chose to waterboard himself, putting himself in severe danger.

Wafaa's brother and father were both killed in the Iraqi war. Losing both his brother and his father inspired him to create artworks that will raise awareness of the amounts of deaths in the war and how it really effects both Iraqi and American people. In his project ...and Counting Wafaa examines the invisibility of Iraqi deaths and turned his own body into a canvas for a 24-hr live art performance. Each soldier (both American and Iraqi) casualty was represented by one dot on his back in geographical map with the dots placed where they died. The 5,000 dead American soldiers are represented by red dots and the 100,000 dead Iraqi soldiers are represented by white-UV ink. During the 24-hr tattoo performance period, people read off names of the dead aloud.
Wafaa's current project, 3rdi (third eye), involves a camera which has been surgically attached to the back of Wafaa's head. The camera snaps photos spontaneously, one per minute, to capture his daily life. The purpose is to objectively portray the past by use of random photos. By completely removing the necessity of his own choice or preference, ability to capture what he wants by his point of view and finger, these photos are out of his control. The camera is wired to a lightweight laptop which holds a 3G wireless connection so each photo is instantly updated to the 3rdi website.

Domestic Tension is the name of the project that seemed to get Wafaa the most notoriety. He locked himself in an art exhibit in a small enclosed area with a paintball gun, controlled by public's use of a web-game, aimed in his living space giving people the opportunity to shoot at him at all times of the day for a full month. This project was also inspired by the Iraqi war and loss of his brother and father. The objective of this project was to raise awareness of virtual war and privacy, and/or the lack thereof privacy and safety. This project took its toll on Wafaa and was much more difficult than he had assumed. His sense of vulnerability grew more with each shot. He learned that people are much more willing to shoot someone than he had expected, he got little to no sympathy. Wafaa live blogged by recording videos that he uploaded to the same site where the public would access to gain the ability to shoot at him in his gallery space. The paintball gun shot out yellow paint balls, and when a student asked why he chose yellow paint, he said that the yellow seemed like a good color because it was representational of the yellow "support troops" ribbon.

Wafaa is one of the bravest artist's I have come across. He puts himself in the center of his projects, no matter how dangerous they are, he is willing to prove what he believes in by physically making himself vulnerable. He is passionate about the war and troops safety and rights, and I think his work is very representational of his personality. Getting to hear him speak about his work made me realize what risks some people take to do what they love and stand up for what they believe in, and I found him truly inspirational as an artist and as a human being.

Carrie Mae Rose, Tahir Hemphill- Artist Representation

Expressing a message through recognizable objects and familiarity is a common way for artists to channel their message through their artwork. The two artists I chose to study and represent have both been fellows of the Eyebeam artist project within the past two years, and both execute this style of awareness expression through familiarity in their artworks. Carrie Mae Rose and Tahir Hemphill stood out to me for different reasons, they are varied and contrasting as artists, but within their works I was able to pull similarities from their intent in creating their pieces that connect the two artists in a way deeper than their final projects.

The first artist I chose to research and report on is vast and varied in her works. Carrie Mae Rose is a representational artist who likes to express the message of vulnerability throughout her different art pieces. Carrie Mae Rose creates artworks in all different styles and mediums. She is a creator of fine art, digital media pieces including videos and technology based drawing and creation, wearable art, interactive installations and Rose often portrays her work through the style of performance art. 

In her works of "Wearable Weapons", "Agave Armor", and interactive costuming, Rose uses materials and items that are familiar objects to the human eye-- such as scissors, seat belts, and zip-ties, LED lights, and zip-ties-- and uses them to create outfits and accessories in a way that when they are worn they could be harmful and dangerous, putting the person wearing them in a position of vulnerability. “I literally use materials that can create shock and deadly injure, to bring a heightened sense of caution and reverence.” (Rose states in her artist statement on her website www.carriemae.com) 

Using household items—such as scissors--in mass amounts strapped together to create a necklaces and bracelets is obscure and unusual for several reasons: most people do not consider scissors an accessory or art material, but more of a tool or utensil, and because of it's sharp blades it is considered dangerous and not something that would usually come in contact with the human body in this fashion. In Rose's artist statement about her work she says, "My wearable weapons, agave armor and interactive costumes awaken the power of vulnerability. Devastating beauty that could kill. These items push the boundary of fashion to the absolute limit."

            In a live interview from Break Thru Radio, Carrie Mae explains that years ago she had gone to a yard sale in Phoenix and she came across a box of recycled scissors and nail clippers and other metal handhold “weapons” that were confiscated from airports security branches. She found inspiration to create works with these items and eventually continued buying mass amounts of scissors online through airport auctions. 

In previous works of hers, Carrie Mae had worked with the theme of personal safety and was looking for something to carry on off of that them to create her theses while studying at Parsons. These items were all banned by airport security and were later sold in “airport auctions” to the public. This came as a shock to Carrie Mae and instantly inspired her to center her thesis around safety on a societal level and use these banned materials to create her final project at Parson’s “Confiscated Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Agave plant is natures equivalent to the shape of the scissor, pointy and weapon like, and for years have done artworks with circles, it was when she was working on her thesis at Parsons that she wanted to collaborate these things together.

         Her works are recognizable by the incorporation of circles and scissors. She uses these two tactics to create pieces for clothing, accessories, wall hangings, flat-pieces, and sculptures.

Carrie Mae recently began working on a new style of artwork this past September during her Artist Residincy at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, which includes technology and electricity along with her Wearable Weapons. She has taken Violet Wands- which are electro medical devices used for the application of low current, high voltage, electricity to the human body, and created wearable collars in which the Violet Wands are placed. These Violet Wands are most popular in use for sexual stimulation toys, healing tools for the body, used to provoke rather than harm, and are sold both to the police department and S&M community. 

Carrie Mae’s artist statement for the incorporation of including Violet Wands into her Wearable Weapons collection explains how and why she chose to do this project. “Wearable Weapons pioneers the use of technology for a serious of interactive collars that are Violet Wands hacked and connected to OS Software to pulse electricity to the beat/pitch of music and can be used for either a sculptural installation or worn by an entertainer.”

The second artist I chose to research is Tahir Hemphill, a fellow from Eyebeam 2009-2010. Tahir is most interested in the studies of hip hop, the music, the history, the artist, and the lifestyle. Unlike Carrie Mae’s many different mediums, Tahir’s main focus is digital media and technological multimedia. He has implemented design solutions for many big brands, including Verizon Wireless, Microsoft, Mercedez Benz and L’Oreal.

Tahir was raised by a musical family and was groomed to be an engineer, having the intelligence and drive to be a scientist, yet decided to take his talent and collaborate it all together in the arts. Tahir’s educational background proves his ability and eagerness to be knowledgeable. He has a Regents Diploma from Brooklyn Technical High School in Electrical Engineering, a B.A degree in Spanish Language and Minor in Mathematics from Morehouse College, and a M.S degree in Communications Design from Pratt Institute. Amidst his studying at the Pratt Institute, Tahir authored and designed the book Visual Alchemy, a work on traditional advertising techniques to promote campaigning in an anti-consumerist or pro-social style.

For the past 4 years, and while working at Eyebeam, Tahir has worked on his biggest digital media and hip-hop integration project yet. This project is called The Hip-Hop Word Count, a rap almanac designed as a searchable database built up of lyrics from over 50,000 hip-hop songs over the past 30 years. The web page is set up in three different browser types: Map View, Graph View, and Song View. In these different views the user can search interesting statistics about the songs, the geographic location for every metaphor, simile, cultural reference, phrase, rhyme style and socio-political idea used in the past 30 years of hip-hop. Not only does this inform users of statistical information of rap songs and lyrics, it is educating people about the history and culture of hip-hop. 

         The Hip-Hop Word Count was featured in the MoMa’s “Talk To Me” exhibition this past summer. The Creators Project also recognized Tahir for the Hip-Hop Word Count. In an interview for The Creators Project, Hemphill spoke about his inspiration for taking on this big project. “I was inspired by a general trend that I observed in modern commercial rap music of an oversimplification of language. I had the suspicion for a while, but then I started hearing this same commentary show up in lyrics of the rappers themselves.” Tahir observed that these days, rapping with lyrical skills of intricate vocabulary and poetical finesse is not what is selling; it just isn’t as “cool”.

         Comparing and contrasting this project to a science or anthropology project is where one has to dig deep to find the artistry in Tahir’s design. The project is interactive and unlike a painting or a sculpture, its life is not terminal, it can be updated and renewed by the input of viewers. The response to this project from the hip-hop community and the general public has been very successful. Tahir has gotten feedback from rap fans, journalists, academics, research institutions and advertising professionals, cultural critics and artists that has been positive and helpful.

         I believe that hip-hop is a big part of today’s modern culture, and a dominant subculture in the United States especially. This project takes the familiar, hip-hop music, and makes the user/viewer search more in depth and from a different angle. To investigate hip-hop deeper, on an educational, geographical, grammatical, and ethnographical level makes the viewer engage through design and art and interact with hip-hop in a new way. Users leave this experience with a new understanding and appreciation for hip-hop music and hip-hop artists and the hip-hop culture on a grand scale.

         Carrie Mae Rose brought attention to familiar items, such as scissors, and brought it to the world of art in many different mediums. Seeing scissors worn as clothes and accessories or sculpted in a gallery raises awareness to the different ways of viewing items, how they can stand for more than just what they are used for, in Carrie Mae’s case these scissors express vulnerability. These two artists are very different in their styles and their specific project types; however, they both strive to bring awareness to society about unfamiliar phenomenon brought about through familiar things. 

Johnny Cash project

Man with the Movie Camera

then me, now me

Then me--- now me

My crowdsourcing project

For my very own crowdsourcing project I chose to create a website that is the forum for a video-connection dance collaboration project. For a person to particpate, they would upload a video of them dancing 8-counts of movement in either hip-hop, tap, jazz, or contemporary style. For each different style there is an outline to follow, the dancer must begin and end with a specific movement as directed on the website so that when it comes putting all the videos together it will run smoothly and create one long routine performed by hundreds of different people with different settings, backgrounds, style, etc.

Those who choose to participate are required to log-in and become a member of the site, "SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, PROVE IT". Participants can upload more than one video and to any or all different genre's of dance. However, in these videos there must be no pre-recorded music. Once videos have been strung together there will be an overlapped soundtrack that will play constant throughout the videos. 

Questions 11-15-11

The reading focuses on the differences between interactive, reactive, and collaborative artwork. Often the differences between these three specified styles of artworks can become blurry. In the text, the author uses the statement "one rung above" to refer to the styles of these art styles. My question is, what does that mean? If 'one rung above' is referring to the art styles being better, or on a higher level, compared to other art styles that denounce the interaction with others, how is this justified?

My second question follows suit of my previous question, or at least on a similar tangent. There is the question of the audience in projects that are dynamically interactive or collaborative... and if the audience to these projects shares the same audience of fine art projects. These two different leagues of art styles could be separated in many ways, and one could question if it is smart to combine these different art styles in the same gallery or display area. The question is, do fine art and collaborative/interactive/reactive arts differ in such immense ways that they should be separated physically or should they continue to be held under one umbrella label of "art"?

Assignment 7 part 2

For the second part of my assignment #7 I chose the subject of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and condom usage, because for my generation, this is a serious issue and quite frankly I think that some more awareness would prevent a lot of people from getting these diseases quite easily. There are already some advertising things out there that I have seen that I find successful, such as making condom wrappers humorous by being straight to the point and aggressive. Such as...

After seeing these images posted on the internet, it struck me that what is written on condom wrappers could really impact the way people feel about wearing/using them. I think approaching STD awareness and pregnancy awareness could be impacted in the same way by dominant public advertising in a humorous/sarcastic style. My idea for condoms is to keep the fun, familiar and tricky innuendo images and recognizable sayings on the front side of the wrapper, then on the back side provide straight up information such as.... "1 out of the 5 people in the USA have an STD, 1 in 4 people will contract an STD at some point in the course of their life." and also add information about pregnancy, "Being a teen mom isnt as wonderful as MTV reality tv shows pretend to be." "imagine yourself holding a baby in 9 months, how do you feel about that?"
Beyond advertising on actual condoms, I would want to see more "in your face" advertisements that young people could see on a daily basis. I think wearing clothing that stated facts boldly about std's, pregnancy, or condom usage would be extremely powerful in an awareness sense.

I believe the best advertising for people of our generation is the advertising that gets people laughing, yet it is still a serious matter. I think if the public were to be plastered with advertisements that were abrupt and bold about wearing condoms, avoiding pregnancy, and avoiding STD's, there would be a lot less of them swarming our communities. I would like to see shirts, posters, and even billboards with ads showing things like this...

I would create a big billboard, very plain, very simple with just bold text saying..

"Condoms Prevent Minivans"

Interventionist Design Assignment

I took the page off of McDonalds' website that is devoted to the return arrival of the infamous McRib sandwich. This web page was created around the slogan "The Quest for the Golden McRib", complete with animation and audio to make it even more exciting. McDonald's had done a good job at making this sandwich look like the most satisfying and wonderful meal a human could put in their body, as well as advertising the rest of the assets of the company by taking an angle that shows the variety, strengths, and positive things about McDonald's. I chose McDonald's for this project because I know how influential McDonald's is over our nation and how brilliant the company is at persuading American's to continuously indulge in their products with fun and creative advertising tactics. I thought this specific web page was unique because they made the return of the McRib into a mysterious and playful adventure. I wanted to show that just because the background images, animations, and electrifying audio on this page with cute little cherubs holding up a banner full of juicy adjectives describing how amazing the McRib is, is not really advertising the sandwich in a realistic way, at all. There is no where on this page where it lists any health information about the sandwich or pricing of the sandwich. Instead, it offers a link to a Facebook gaming site where the 'true McRib lover' can prove their dedication to the sandwich America longs for year in and year out.

I used my re-creation to point out the obvious negative factors that come along with fast food chains, especially and most specifically McDonald's. Such as weight gain, health issues, food quality, etc, and I tried to do it in a fun and playful manner.

Link to Youtube mixer

http://www.unr.edu/art/site/areas_of_emphasis/digital_media/projects/Haleigh_Hoff.html

For my YouTube mixer I decided to film 15 videos of a familiar subject shown in an unfamiliar light. As a dance teacher at Nevada Dance Academy, my job entitles me to work in a field that I am passionate about and I hold much interest in the subject, dance. I began filming segments of my classes that were obscure to film, I was never filming the students during a 'performance' time, and most of the time, they had no idea that they were being filmed. I had the camera at strange angles and at unusual times, I wanted this to be candid, nothing prepared or posed. I chose to to edit each video and put them all into a similar 'theme' or 'filter' so they would all somewhat eery and dark. Each video was also altered in different ways, I sped some up, slowed some down, reversed a few, dubbed the audio by putting a different song over the  original footage or playing with the pitches of the different videos. I chose to do this because I wanted my mixer to come together to create a different outlook of dancing, or perspectives of dance through the classroom, or through my role as a teacher. Using young children in a dark and mysterious way is haunting and made me think of the ways I could use this project to show the alternative side of my job, the side that people don't usually think of when they think of being a teacher to young, cute, and 'innocent' children. I mixed in footage of myself tapping to create an audio and visual deterrence, and by framing only my feet and lower part of my legs in the shots made it less personal. Enjoy. 

Questions for reading 2

Manovich states that "New media is interactive. In contrast to old media where the order of presentation is fixed, the user can now interact with a media object." This idea is broad to me, I have a hard time strictly clarifying what is considered old media versus new media. If new media is interactive, is he referring to computer programming and technology such as photo editing programs and technology that allows you to alter art, or is he referring to art work that requires audience participation in galleries and such. My question would be, how does one clarify the "interactiveness" of a new media project compared to an old media project, and what is important about interactiveness that distincts old from new media?

My second question is based off of his statement, "..new media technologies externalize and objectify reasoning, and that they can be used to augment or control it, are based on the assumption of the ismorphism of mental representation.." if new media externalizes reasoning, does this mean that there is no definite purpose in the artwork, or objectivity behind the creation? OR does this statement mean that because of new technology and programs that can alter and help produce artwork and digital media, the product is less meaningful and internal purposes and intentions are out the window?

sound file for animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NWNXxuEWc0

EMBEDDED VIDEO ASSIGNMENT

link to original-----http://www.ubu.com/film/wegman_deodorant.html


I chose this video because as I was looking through the hundreds of videos my brother happened to be sitting next to me on the couch and I looked at him and was like, take your shirt off, we are filming this just for fun, let's see how it goes. And surprisingly it worked out pretty well. I chose to do this video even before we watched it in class, and when we did watch it in class I was slightly disappointed because I didn't want everyone to think I just copied it after class because it looked simple and quick. I chose this prior to the viewing in class because of it's irregular humor and approach by focusing on his armpit rather than his face. I am familiar with William Wegmen's other works and I really enjoy his style and approach with film and abstract visual art. He tends to focus more on the object than the human, and I think that is so unique and unusual because in nearly all of his works there is a person in the film speaking or acting, yet they are rarely the focus of the piece. In this particular film the deodorant is the focus and the camera is directed at the armpit and the deodorant spraying onto the armpit rather than the man's face who is speaking.

Due to the small amount of time I had my brother for, and his negative physical reaction to the unpleasant effect the cheap body spray we used had on his armpit (basically that spray was not meant to go on the body as much as he did...whoops) Overall, I tried to make the angle and approach the exact same as that of William Wegman's and creating the video effect of "old film".

Video Assignment

http://youtu.be/fdqK6avYqd0

ANIMATION ASSIGNMENT

Walter Benjamin Reading- Questions

1. Walter Benjamin focuses much of his writing on the intrigue of the 'aura' a piece of art work provides sensually. He claims that art evokes a reaction and that people are attracted to art because of the aura-- which essentially is what is responsible for causing the reaction. Benjamin argues that once artwork has been copied, reproduced or has lost its 'originality' the 'aura' of the artwork vanishes. My first question is...

"If the aura of an art piece is lost after a photo, painting, drawing, or film has been reproduced, what is held responsible for the evoking the emotions, thoughts, and sensations that come from looking at these reproduced pieces of art. Is that still the 'aura' or are these emotions reactions to something else?"

2. My second question is based off of Benjamin's critique of acting and the differences in the skills varied between acting on a stage for a live audience versus acting for film. He claims that acting for film is less 'original' or authentic because it is recorded and often altered or edited by different mediums of technology. He believes the actor who acts live in front of an audience has a stronger 'aura' and is much more original than film. My question is...

"Do you agree that the two acting styles differ in a way that changes the originality or authenticity of the acting or just requires different skills?"

Assignment 1- montage- hhoff

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The collection of these images started with me picking and choosing images online and out of my personal collection that stood out to me. They stood out because they caught my eye with familiarity. All of the individual images either remind me of some experience, are a part of my past, or strike an emotion that triggered me wanting to put them together. I like the idea of separating dreams from reality, yet keeping them related at a distance. I think when a human is dreaming that is when they are at their most peaceful state of mind. Reality is stressful and chaotic and overwhelming, and I tried to relay those messages through the ways of placing such random objects all over. I chose to keep certain aspects in grayscale to separate not what was a "dream" from "reality", but rather to make the viewer think about what in these pictures reminds them of dreams or  reality and how do youseparate the two different realms. To me, it's different in each collage. I chose to do my third collage in all black and white except for the stop sign because I think that makes the statement I was trying to express "stop the bullshit" and just live. I like the word 'escape' because I think it is more of a movement and an action than just a word. To escape the stresses and pressures of the day takes a lot and I think it is a word that people need to act on more. "free your mind" stand for that same notion for me... just let go.