Shrink Yourself October 22, 2008

Out of all the sites I have seen dealing with emotional eating, shrinkyourself.com is the most beneficial one. There is a section on the site that specifically deals with emotional eating. There are a lot of informational articles that touch upon food and emotions. I really enjoy reading all of the blogs that people participate in with sharing their struggles and concerns. I have used a lot of these blogs in my journals in my search to create a successful thesis that people will care about. Michelle Fiordaliso is a Clinical Director for Shrink Yourself who writes on the blogs and has a lot of helpful tips. 

 

Blog

Please check out the site:
link

Paris Fashion Week October 19, 2008

It is no surprise that America is obsessed with beauty and body image. I searched around for images from paris fashion week that was held a few weeks ago. I saw lots of photographs and video footage of the shows. Are we obsessed with the beautiful clothing coming down the runway or are we obsessed with the models that walk the runway? They all have the same characteristics tall, thin and flawless. Is this behavior teaching our society that a size zero is what defines beauty or can this been seen as an art form? I have a deep appreciation for fashion, however there are some forms of it that I find unnecessary. All of this images can put more pressure for everyday normal people to have the desire to look like these people. 

 

I looked at these images to research how my topics somewhat relates to body image. I think it was productive because I may be able to use some of these images in my archive. 

 

 

style.com

 

Koyaanisqatsi October 19, 2008

Koyaanisqatsi is a rather unique film that was created between 1975 and 1982. Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi Indian word which means crazy life, life in turmoil, life disintegrating, and life out of balance. This film shows two sides of how different worlds can be. This film explores urban life and technology versus the environment. The meaning of the film is something that is left up to the viewer.

The style of this film is quite different from anything I have ever seen. It is an hour and thirty minute film that is purely narrorated by music. The music plays a huge role because the images fit with the pace of the rhythm. The music adds an interesting element and keeps the viewer drawn in with the images that are shown. The images are clips of video meshed together in a consistent format going from one scene to the next. It starts out with nature at a higher level and begins to move down to a world where we are becoming obsessed with technology and other inorganic forms. This video really made me stop and think about nature and how most of us are so out of touch with it.

I had to watch this film a couple of times and each time I reacted to it differently. At first I thought it was a bit strange, but realized the beauty of it once I allowed myself to think openly about it. This film is meant for people to think it is truly unique.

Here are some images of this film:

Koyaanisqatsi

 

Here is the trailer… it is worth watching

Miranda July October 19, 2008

Miranda July is a filmmaker, writer and performance artist. Her videos, performances and web-based projects have been presented at impressive gallaries such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum. She is a very dedicated artist and is truly passionate about her work.

The project that interests me the most is Learning To Love You More. This is both a website and a large series of non-web collections of work made by the general public. Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher create assignments that are accepted and completed by following specific instructions. Once they complete the assignment it must be uploaded to the website. This connects to my project because these different assignments must be completed by using different forms of multimedia such as pictures, text, videos and so on. This site is ultimately an archive center of peoples works using different forms of multimedia. The work is very interesting and has a rich quality to it. I really like what the creators of this project did it is smart but yet so simple. This project makes me even more excited about what I am trying to do with my project.

This is an interview of Miranda July talking about Learning To Love You More. In this interview she shows some of the work and explains the concept in more detail.

Michael Moore Film Documentaries October 18, 2008

I decided to look at Michael Moore films for inspiration. His topics don’t particularly relate to my topic but I was interested in his style of film. I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 which examines the Bush administration’s actions during the tragic events of 9/11. I also viewed Bowling For Columbine that discusses the state of the Union and about the violence that seems to natural for Americans to participate in. Both of these films were very similar in style and showed a wide range of multimedia.

I like these films not nessecarly for the content, but more for the different forms of multimedia that was used to support Moores views. He used newspapers, videos, pictures, and text which formed his style. I really tried to pay attention of how he used all of these items together so that he would have a successful solid piece. He interviewed a lot of people but he interviewed the right people that would make the story even more interesting and relevant to his topics.

There were many techniques used in his films that are very similar to the kind of archive that I would like to put together. He used voice overs and Moores as the artist was the narrator to tell this story. He used lots of footage such as recent and black and white footage. He found material from decades ago to explain something to make people understand his ideas more. He also took the approach of using just sound to tell a story when the viewer could only see a black screen. I found that approach to be very successful because it allowed me to create a visual in my mind with the sound he was providing. I also liked how he used a newspaper format to point out his main points. He would use this text and highlight it in some form to make it stand out from the rest of the text on the screen.

Another approach that he took was using movies to prove a point or highlight and idea. I found this to be very interesting considering I started to make a list of movies that showed an actor eating based on emotions before I saw the Moore films. When I was watching his film and he highlighted other movies it made me understand the points in more clearly. Other techniques that he used were focusing in on facial expressions, using news clips, adding quotes with text and recapping the overall story in the end.

I was very pleased with watching these films because they gave me some ideas of how to showcase some of my information in an appropriate way. I am excited to take some of my videos and experiment with some of these effective techniques.

Here are some images of his style:

MTV Real Life Stories October 18, 2008

MTV Real Life Stories is a True Life Documentary series that tells real-life stories of young people. This series documents the lives of teenagers dealing with serious issues. These issues can range anywhere from obesity to people who are addicted to drugs. These stories are told from the voices and points-of-view of its characters. The documentaries are aired on MTV, they are extremely personal and in most cases very emotional. These people are very brave to put their lives and struggles out their for the world to see, but they are telling stories that could potentially save the lives of others. The footage is incredibly raw which makes these stories even more real.

This documentary series relates to my project because they are telling the stories of souls in trouble. It is using the medium of video which is playing a large rule with my research. I like these stories because they make you feel and anyone who watches these can relate in some form or matter. The style of these videos are the kind of footage that I am looking to show through my videos. They are real and hopefully the people telling these stories can learn something from watching themselves.

True Life Stories

Examples of topics that are exposed

Display of videos

To view videos go to this site:

Post Secret October 17, 2008

Post Secret is an excellent example of what I am trying to achieve with my thesis project. Frank Warren came up with a simple but extraordinary concept to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. He started out by handing out postcards to strangers in public places asking them to write down a secret they had never revealed to anyone before. This secret could be anything from a regret, fear, confession, or childhood humiliation and so on. Once the secret was written on the postcard the next step was to send the card to Frank Warren anonymously.

This idea became more than just an experimental art project, it became a “global phenomenon”. Warren decided to take it even further and create a website where people could upload their post secret and share them with the rest of the world. This site has become very successful and influential to many people. The project is very important because it shows true emotions of ordinary people who seek to get their secrets of their chests.

The Post Secret community website is very simple and easy to navigate through. The links include PostSecret Events, PostSecret Chat, Video Secrets, News & FAQ, and Books. The main part of this site that interests me the most is the PostSecret Chat section. People are able to chat with each other about their secrets or overall feelings about what is on in their lives. This site has a lot of traffic and is very successful with the amount of users that visit on a daily basis. This relates to my project because it creates a community for people who have no one else to turn to with their deepest secrets. They can relate with other people on this site to share information and inspiration. This whole concept of turning to the web for help is in some cases the only way people know how to get help. There are other services that are available such seeking professional help from therapists, and other qualified people, however this is not always accessible to people when they need help in the moment. The other part of this site that relates to my project is the blog section. This section is where the post cards are uploaded for people to view and to comment on.

I personally find this project to be inspiring and beautiful at the same time. These secrets are so personal and real which makes this community extremely poetic and unique. I want to capture this with my project where people can feel and experience human behavior. If I am successful with my thesis I want people to come to my community and experience lives of people who struggle with emotional eating.

Homepage of PostSecret Community

Here is a video of secrets that are very emotional.

Research and Precedents October 7, 2008

Original concept: To incorporate material I am gathering in a non-traditional way to build a multimedia resource archive tracking patterns of Americans behavior as it relates to emotional eating.

What feedsyou.org
• Is a site focused on the emotional eating community, providing information and a support feature
through interactions of its users and viewers.
Site Purpose: Web interaction and support for the emotional eating community
• The site will be using all multimedia such as video, instant messaging, blogs and potentially live feeds

Youtube
• A site familiar to almost all
• Is overpopulated and provides a cluster of everything and anything on the internet making it very difficult to find specific topics without having to search for hours to find the exact user content you are looking for. (i.e. You can type in “Hoe” and come up with anything from porn to gardening.)

Camstreams
http://www.camstreams.com/about.asp
• Provides full live feed functionality along with live instant messenger communication
• Lacking the ability to host videos and blogs which I would like to include
• The site has the full functionality of what I would like to build but is lacking design and content in my opinion
• I have contacted their management to discuss a joint venture between whatfeedsyou.org and their site

USTREAM
http://www.ustream.tv/
• The site has the user functionality, but very little live feed. Ultimately it provides more live feed then youtube.com, but also has the same problem of being difficult to find specific content as it is not a niche market user experience

Yahoo
http://live.yahoo.com/
• Yahoo’s live streaming video site

Flowchart
I started to think about how I could organize this site and figure out what needs to be on it. Here is flow chart of the content that it would have.

information

Week five October 1, 2008

Okay so I worked on a rapid prototype all of this week. I felt that it was important for me to show the class and really experience what these people are feeling. I know I didn’t capture that last week and was determined to make another attempt at it this week. I present on Thursday and hope that I will get some positive feedback. I will update this blog when I get feedback tomorrow!!

I showed my video and got a lot of great feedback which opened the door for some new ideas. Here is a screen grab of my video…

Here are some notes that I received…
• Does this go into the web direction or a art piece?
• This could become a place where people upload their videos and I control the interface
• This is real time (live feeds)
• This a site where I create a place to go and people can express themselves
• Make this a multimedia site (video, blog, texting)

Week four October 1, 2008

So this week didn’t go as well as I wanted it to, but I got a lot of great feedback to put me back on track for next week. Two things that I know I am on track with is my thesis concept and my title of my project. Chris had a lot of positive things to say about both of those… so I feel good about that. As for my prototypes and my presentation I need to step it up.

Notes and suggestions
• letting it out
• space sharing with others
• present in a way to feel it
• start to organize what I have collected
• emotions and environment
• mapping
• look up charles and ray eames
• start to bring the actual food into the mix
• think of environments, conditions, actions, emotions, responses
• raw material
• get a style
week4_presentation