I still want to go through with my original idea, but I want to tweaked it slightly so that it becomes a, “I thought getting into a car accident was the crappiest thing that could happen to me in 2020, but clearly the universe had something else up its sleeve,” kind of video.

I also think it would be great to delve into the stages of grief I felt in both instances. In a way, I think going through the stages of grief after losing a car helped prepare me for the stages of grief I went through after realizing my senior year was not going to be as planned; because we need to social distance (thanks coronavirus -ugh). It is peculiar —and upsetting— how in both cases finances become a major concern; one is admittedly more personal while the other is more global.

I want to address the absurdity and selfishness of those who are in panic mode, but I also want to express the silver linings. Ultimately, I hope this project can help heal some of the trauma we’re all experiencing now with a bit of humor.

A lot has changed in my project, some from even before COVID-19. The basic run down is this.

The project is now a single video (instead of illustrative imagery or three videos) using the experiences of myself and the people I interviewed in relation to specifically sleep and fibro. Instead of having direct quotes be the backbone of the piece it is more the overarching ideas that are influencing the piece.

The video will contain collaged backgrounds/people, rotoscoped imagery (weights, buttercups, etc), along with sections of live action footage.

The video has been storyboarded and I’m planning on shooting today.

I’ve kind of decided to alter my idea for my research project. Considering how COVID-19 has become a dominant part of our lives, there has been a lot of misinformation or exaggerated spread across the media. I want to focus on how the social media platforms are handling the vast spread of misinformation. I want to do this by making a webcomic commentating and discussing how we view the new and take in the information that we are given.

I imagine I will have a totally different life if I have 100,000 followers. I’m a person who almost don’t use social media. I don’t use Facebook, Instagram, Ticktock. I only kept WeChat for family connection because I dislike the software mixing my personal life and work/school together. I like the feeling of having a few close friends instead of a bunch of normal friends. I like face to face interaction instead of staring at the screen and sending text all the time. But I know it will be very hard for me to gave up these platforms if I have 100,000 followers(whatever which one).

I think many people study social media as an outsider’s perspective even if they are using these platforms, which can be relatively rational. And their scholar/artist trait enables them to resist social media craving for a certain degree. But the majority of people do not have that kind of trait. And I never look down the attraction and charm of social media platforms.

I’m thinking about how does the change in social media state change a person. What’s the difference between it and the real-life social state changing. How does social media shape a person? What role does it play?

A real-life social states change in the real world: People begin to say hello to you everywhere: in class, on a bus, people want to be in the same group with you, people like to invite you to parties. A typical high school queen bee movie figure. There are a lot of high school movies talk about a person become welcome but lost he/her original charm. What will the story happen on the internet?

If I wake up in a morning and found I have tons of fans, greeting me, praise me, asking me out, inviting me to dinner, give me a present. If every time hundreds of people click “like” in a few seconds I post a moment.

What will happen?

So I have decided to postpone my previous project that I was working on for the BFA. I was originally focused on making a film based installation piece (12 Outside). However, I don’t think it’s the right time to continue pursuing for the safety of everyone that would be involved in producing it (actors/production helpers). I was thinking about ways around it, but I think it would loose core qualities that the piece was centered on. It would also turn into something quite different, and I don’t think the message would still be there. Besides, the film was apart of the installation, which people would no longer be able to experience physically. I even contemplated using my family as the actors (or even just myself with different makeup/costume) hahah but that would be too distracting. It’s definitely a response to the situation we’re under, but I think it would be too many ideas going on at once.

So I’ve been thinking of other ideas I could possibly do.

Maybe I could do a film, but I would have to limit the characters or get creative with special effects makeup. It might be cool to make a film that has one person playing multiple roles. Like how different can I possibly make myself so that people don’t realize it’s the same person?

Besides that another idea is to do something code based. I liked the web camera code I did for the last gallery. Although it was set up in a physical space, it could probably work well online too. I was thinking of doing something that creates a digital “footprint” of the user using their webcam or audio. Something that could individualize the user and give them a visual(or maybe audio) response to who the user is. It’s not that thought out yet, but I like that its sharable and personal.

I could also explore photography a bit more. Maybe I could do directed portraits of myself or others that reflects global isolation. Like maybe an overly dressed person throwing out the trash or just a really vacant parking lot. Maybe even the different setups of our makeshift work rooms. Or maybe just capturing whats visible in all of my windows. I’m not sure what I want to do yet but I definitely don’t want it to hide whats going on right now. Whatever I end up doing, I want to connect it with a larger issue and set up a fundraiser alongside it. Since it’s going to be online, hopefully it can raise some money for a community that the work relates to in some way.

As my Junior Project I’ve decided to create a vlog of my everyday life since quarantine struck. I just recently made a video of me making dinner with my family.

I plan to go more in detail with voiceovers on the videos but editing is slowing me down. The videos unedited are fine as is but just long. I plan to have it be a bit of mixed media. Some could be through tiktoks, phone/snapchat videos, or just camera videos. I was originally going to upload a video each day but it hasn’t really happened since some videos are actually pretty long and require editing so we’ll have to see.

Since the BFA show will now be online and my idea of CCTV surveillance won’t work, I wanted to shift into making something interactive through the webcam, and integrating that online.

I know that a lot of people have been messing around with Zoom and using functions like changing the background and whatnot so I was maybe thinking about further pushing that idea of interaction? Maybe making people collectively interact with something that is online like Ben’s clicking thing we saw last year?

Another idea would be to mess around with some video archives and stuff since I haven’t done a lot of video work in a while and it would be a good time to make something like that.

My initial idea was to make a fashion video. Using my alter ego “Shalissa” I was planning on hitting campus to find individuals with a unique fashion sense, as well as making my own clothes and displaying that with VHS camcorder. My main idea was using Shalissa as the creator of my project.

Now, I am thinking of ways to shift my project and most of it will not be possible anymore. I think right now is a very special time in history, and I’m wondering how I can use this as a way to make something that is unique to right now. As in, when you see my video, you know it was during the pandemic of COVID19.

I was thinking about reaching out to people online to record themselves with their favorite look. Having various people in different settings may be interesting. Possibly even getting people from all over the world (some people I already know, or even strangers)

I think I will still be able to make my own clothes, hand sewing instead of using the machines at school. Hopefully this video will be a zeitgeist of what is going on right now. How people can still be artistic in the confinement of their own home. I still want to have music playing as well. I’m trying to research videos online to give me ideas…

Priyankka and I are going to make a storyboard of the video we planned. We have already split up the work for the storyboard. We will decide together what the character style will be so that we are generally consistent. Then I imagine we’ll edit our parts separately and combine them later. We plan to voice over our characters so as to evoke the idea of what our video would have looked like had it come to fruition. One day we may actually make it! After our talk with you the other day, we discussed possibly getting together over the summer if all of this settles down (hopefully it will have by then!).

Originally I had planned to do a huge room installation for the giant book I’ve been making. I’m going to continue making the book but I’m thinking about how / if I will present it as my project. It’s been something that I’ve worked a long time on so I want to present it in the vision I had, which may mean postponing it until I can.

But I’ve been making loads of other work while at home. I’m not sure what they’ll all be yet but I’ve just been making loads of different collages + multimedia pieces.

I’m still unsure what I’ll present as my project, but I know it will be from something that I’ve been working on whether it’s the book or the newer pieces I’m making.

If the shows going to be online, I just want to make sure what I present if fully able to be represented through that platform.

I’ll probably have a more solid idea in the coming weeks, it’s all a matter of what I’m making now and how it all turns out + means.