Ransom Note

I actually really liked not being able to plan out what I was doing. It actually took away some of the stress of the project. It forced me to find meaning in a photo that I really had no connection to which is difficult to do but also a refreshing twist. Appropriation isn't really a problem for me because I like trying to reflect on all of the possible meanings for a single picture. The fact that it is someone else's photo might bother other people but I don't see an issue because I am changing the meaning and adding more to it.

My message is that we become corrupted as we grow up. As a child we are so innocent and we don't see most of the bad things in this world. Unfortunately as we grow older we are exposed to the terrible things that happen. I took the picture of the little boy having fun and put this message up to represent how his perspective on life will be changed.

Expressive Words

My word was balanced. The definition of balanced is to remain in a steady position without falling.

Jenny Holzer

Before watching:

• Visual art is related to spoken and written language because they are all ways used for expression and to show emotion. Visual art is a language because it can communicate a thought or idea.
• Artists and writers reveal their authorship in their work by using a specific motif or style that is unique to them.
• Authors or artists may choose to remain anonymous when creating very controversial works, during protests involving their work or in thing like graffiti. They may also choose to remain anonymous to make the audience focus more on the meaning behind the piece than on who made the piece.
• Written and visual information are censored in places like our school or in libraries or maybe in a work facility. They are censored by authority figures such as a principal, boss or even someone in the government.

Reflection after watching:

• Truism is simply an obviously true statement that contains nothing new, but in terms of Holzer's work, truism is an obviously true statement presented in a way that makes the reader/audience think about the meaning behind it. The first person voice used in truisms reflects the meaning onto the reader and allows for thousands of different interpretations of it.
• The meaning of Holzer's truism changes with the objects they are placed on because that object was chosen to further the meaning of the truism. When outside and in public, the truism must be shorter and to the point because most people don't have time to stop and pay attention to random projections. When inside, the truism can be long and can require further thought because people who go inside to view it most likely have the time to see it in full. 
• Information concerning the government and national security are censored in the original texts because the public is not allowed to see that information. She uses numbers, arrows and uniquely painted backgrounds to draw attention the eliminated parts of these texts.
• Holzer believes that signing her work or even being near it would take away some of its effect on the audience. This makes sense because if she is there, people would be too busy asking her what it means and how she did it instead of focusing on what it means to them. Her appropriation of text serves this objective because she is using words and ideas that have been used before but leaving the interpretation up to others.

Definitions:

• appropriation- the action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission 
• propaganda- information (usually biased and misleading) used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view
• censorship- the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc. and removing unacceptable parts
• redacted- to edit text for publication

Color and Emotion: Final

My contact sheet consists of the individual colors and emotions and the also group shots. 

My two final shots aren't really what I expected at all but I do like them. I originally planned on having all of the beakers in one shot but the lighting in the chem room wasn't the greatest for any sort of photography. I chose to do the series of all of the beakers because I thought the colors were easier to see and the words are more clear. Some of my shots could have been more focused but I was in a little bit of a rush. For the inverted image, I was trying to get the original colors but it was too hard to edit each color individually so I experimented with different effects. I really loved the way the inverted colors looked but I wanted to change the beakers back to their original colors to still get my original message across. I feel like the "fake" colors aid in the representation of how colors can be manufactured in a lab or by an outside source.

I chose the colors and emotions based on my every day life. The big emotions (happiness, sadness, love, anger and annoyed) occur in my life on a daily basis so they are "bigger" than other emotions. The smaller emotions (envy, fear, passion, confusion, and lust) only occur every once in awhile in my life so they are "smaller" than other emotions.

The individual colors were chosen based on my research and also how I personally associate colors with emotions. Yellow represent happiness because it is bright and joyful. Blue represents sadness because it tends to bring people down ("I feel so blue"). Pink represents love because everything associated with love in our society is pink. Red represents fear because it is a color associated with blood and violence and it tends to draw out an intense reaction from most people. Orange represents annoyed because I just really don't like certain colors of orange and its just a very distracting color. Green represents envy because of the saying "being green with envy". Black represents fear because when afraid, we tend to feel a sense of despair and black is just a void. Purple represents passion because it is a deep and sensual color. The multicolor represents confusion because it is crazy and chaotic which is how your life feels when you are confused. The dark pink represents lust it is darker and deeper than love.

Color and Emotion: Planning

Colors and Their Emotions

BIG Emotions:                                              

• happiness- yellow                                  
• sadness- blue
• anger- red
• love- pink
• annoyed- orange 

small Emotions:

• fear- black
• confusion- multicolor
• passion-purple
• lust- dark pink 
• envy-green

Liquids To Use

• dish soap for yellow
• dark blue gatorade for blue
• red gatorade for red
• water and food coloring for pink
• orange gatorade for orange
• water and mixed food coloring for black
• water and food coloring for multicolor 
• purple gatorade for purple
• vitamin water for dark pink
• dish soap for green

Should I write out the words on the beakers or type the up in unique fonts?

• write them out because that is more personal in terms of emotions

Use different size beakers for small and BIG emotions.

• make love a big beaker but only half full of liquid because sometimes it is a fake emotion
• BIG emotions are the ones you feel on a daily basis
• small emotions are the ones you only feel occasionally 

I went shopping to search for different liquids and it was actually really difficult to find the right colors so I had to experiment with putting flour in the water with the food coloring to help develop the color. I also tried to pick different texture which is why I also used dish soap. 

I emailed a chemistry teacher in the school to ask if I could use the chem lab along with with some supplies (beakers and tape). He said that I could use anything I needed as long as I cleaned up.

I researched how emotions can be represented through color in my last project so I used some of that information do choose my colors for this project. I chose to do this in a chem lab because I feel like emotions today are sometime fake/created. Things we see in media tend to give us a certain emotion and I feel like a lot of them aren't real.

I found an article that talks about how social media can influence emotions and I thought that it related to the idea that emotions can be manufactured and aren't always how we actually feel.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/12/social-network-bad-mood-friends

These are some examples of how I want to set up my beakers in the chem lab. Since my project is pretty unique, it was hard to find inspiration in other works.

Personal Piece Idea

I want to continue to experiment with the use of color and emotion but I want to step away from using people and portraiture. Instead I want to attempt to convey different emotions through object. I plan on associating certain emotions with colors that represent them. For my first piece, I want to use liquids in beakers in a chemistry lab to represent emotions. Each beaker will be labeled with its emotion.