Concerned Citizen

“Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” -Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948

We live in a time and place where we claim to have freedom and believe that this is our right as human beings, notwithstanding the color of our skin, the language we speak, or our religion. In the United States, the ideal that we hold to is one of welcoming community and diversity, as manifest by our own great symbol, the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, however, people are generally afraid of what those don't understand, particularly cultures or traditions who are different. Often this fear develops into racism and hatred. There are those in every community that understand the importance of change, the necessity to defend the basic human rights and be a source of help and inspiration to others. Carlos Fuentes describes the process we are living as a re-elaboration of our civilization, and one we ought to be open to: “different songs, different laws, different rhythms, long-deferred hopes, different shapes of beauty, ethnicity and diversity, a different sense of time…”
With the Concerned Citizen project, we wanted to explore a community that exists within a greater community, but may go unnoticed or misunderstood. There are many communities that could fit the bill, but because we both speak Spanish, the choice was a natural one. The Hispanic community has an enormous presence in the state of Utah, and while very well-known in U.S, is usually victim of stereotyping ignorance toward its presences and contribution. Sergio is only one of those citizens that are concerned about his community, and serves as a sort of bridge between the two worlds he interacts with. He is an example of a regular man that wants to make a difference in the people around him, often through helping other generations such as children or the elderly.
Although Sergio is bilingual, and may even speak English more often, we chose to film the entire documentary in Spanish as a representation of the community he speaks for. As a U.S. Citizen who has grown up here, but one who’s inherited a strong sense of his Mexican cultural roots, we felt he was qualified to discuss the issues of the hidden Mexican-American community. His thoughts on how coaching children brings people together and on how the technology today is connecting people fall in line with his experience at the Anti-Trump rally and the unification he desires for cultures. Especially in the process of editing the film, we had difficulty narrowing the clips down to only 3:00, as there were many that we wanted to use. We ultimately went with felt like a valuable contribution for representing Sergio as a concerned citizen.
Concerned Citizen: Sergio (alternate version)Concerned Citizen: Sergio

Game for change

Coyote

How to become a criminal.

We’ve heard a lot of immigration talk, but we usually hear about undocumented immigrants. This game for change is the story of an international student whose decisions in life became a burden, not necessarily because he chose wrong but because the policies imposed by the government became burdensome.

International students are not necessarily immigrants, they are under an F-1visa, which means they are non-immigrants pursuing an education in the United States. Although most F-1 students have the intention of going back to their countries after their finish their studies , some of them fall in love with the ‘American dream’ and decide they don’t have a reason to go back to their countries.

What inspired this story was the true story of a good friend of mine, who after getting married lost his visa and had to go back to his country without his wife. Some other elements of the story come from experiences of people who lived similar situations, even to the point of trying to cross illegally in order to go back to their families.

Another source of inspiration comes from a song by Conor Oberst called Coyote Song in which he tells the story of two lovers separated by the border and immigration policy. This song came out in 2010 when Arizona SB 1070 immigration law was being passed, this law criminalized all undocumented immigrants.

As explained on the USCIS website (https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/students-and-employment), F-1 students have certain limitations, and when they enter the country they do it agreeing to those rules, that is the law. What I wanted to address with the game is not necessary a criticism to the law, but a the story of someone who wanted to obey the law and ended up breaking it for something that seemed to be more important.

The most ignored thing about this issue is the fact that the reasons behind immigration are never considered, why people want to come to the U.S? They are not crossing the border to become criminals, they are escaping crime and violence. Some others are only pursuing an academic endeavor and find in the U.S some opportunities that they would never find in their country

World Building "New Cairo"

Map of New Cairo

We as a group thought a descriptive and authentic-feeling artifact of this new culture would be some sort of damaged, rough copy of the new civilization’s city plans. As mentioned, the new Egyptians would be able to reverse engineer some technologies and retain certain skills, but we felt that (due to lack of resources) the new culture would revert back to papyrus and inaccurate drafting techniques. Thus, the map models itself after modern Cairo’s city structure, but presents certain changes and modern buildings in a rough style seen in early city plans. Logically, we used the outside sources of modern satellite images and older city plans for inspiration in creating the piece. Initially, we thought about labeling the areas so our audience would be able to understand what each area of the sketch represented and thus have a better idea how the new city was set up. However, we decided to maintain a sense of authenticity and label areas in a rough and corrupted form of Arabic as such a style would be more realistic.

Modern Cairo    Example of 18th Century Novgorod Plan Style

Desert Wear

We wanted to incorporate clothing into our project because of the unique perspective it would bring. This society, a dystopian world that decides to model its government after the inspiring success of the Egyptian empire, would have a very distinct blend of wasteland survivor and ancient religion. Pulling from the costume design of such films as Mad Max, Star Wars, and the animated short The Oceanmaker, as well as iconic tropes of Egyptian fashion, we created a mask that incorporates both worlds. It is practical in its use of keeping sand out of your mouth, but is adorned with Egyptian design made from broken pieces of lost technology.

Made From A Computer Motherboard and Linen

Model Wearing Mask

Prayer to Pharaoh

So I just converted my audio clip to a video that you can load directly into your blog, I already tested it. I think that’s easier, at least for my brain. So I’ll just email you all that video as well as the translation document that accompanies it.

In Julian Bleeker’s essay Design Fiction, he writes about how design can lead to reflection of our work. As we decided on the history and details of our fictional culture, we had to focus on creating items that properly represented this society. This particular creation is cross between the Islamic call to prayer and a fascist propaganda program. New Cairo’s self-proclaimed Pharaoh has commanded the universal worship of the Egyptian Pantheon, a theology that reveres the Pharaoh as deity himself. Spreading a gospel of quiet subjection and unquestioning devotion, the Pharaoh perverts the established order of Islam into a hybrid pseudo-religion that combines the form of the Islamic faith with the content of ancient belief. Navigating the slippery slope of religious and political correctness was challenging, but the reflective nature of the design process allowed us to properly address the issues and circumstances that inspired our creation in the first place.

Painting

Creating objects from another world can be complicated because first one has to understand the world, the more detailed the world is, the easiest it becomes to create objects pertaining that imaginary place.

Once we decided how this world came to be.I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. Every time human being have inhabited a place, they feel the necessity to create art. This forms of art are usually related to the religious beliefs, history and the social environment.

The first piece illustrates what happened before new cairo was established, and combines egyptian symbology and  modern technology, the snake representing Apep, the evil spirit of destruction and darkness.The snake is placed right next to the image of a nuclear explosion which as we know is also a symbol of destruction and death.

Both paintings are a representation of the most important aspects of this society, both religious, political and ideological.

Some of the inspiration behind the paintings are the Marsh scene tomb of menna and the facsimile of the egyptian book of the dead.

Webspinabattle

There are some who argue that there is no such thing as originality, things exist because they are copies of something that preceded them and in some way that statement it’s true. When we talk about the good plagiarism we are not talking about how the author of fifty shades of grey started writing her novel as a fanfiction of twilight, although that is exactly what happened and even though her adaptation was somewhat infamous, it became a bestseller and even got the Hollywood treatment with a Razzie worthy film adaptation.

Making Jurassic World, Fast and Furious 10 or a non-Harry Potter (but same universe)movie, are an obvious attempt to enlarge an existing universe sometimes adding some more things to the already existing source material to create something, sometimes good sometimes just profitable. We, however, have a lot more examples of things that have clearly been influenced by something that already exists and created something that seems completely original.

The movie Interstellar(2014)  was clearly influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and still had a very different take on a similar topic. The Reading the Ecstasy of influence explains this relation between influence and plagiarism very well, by comparing some classics of literature like Nabokov’s Lolita and Heinz von Lichberg’s story of the same name and the list goes on but, how does this happen?

The webspinabattle exercise concept was a little bit nonsensical at first, probably because of mere ignorance, but after reading and analyzing what we were doing, I came to the conclusion that the battle was an extreme example of the process of creating something new out existing material. We are surrounded by ideas and when we create something we are influenced by what is happening in the world that surrounds us, today, for example, almost all comedy has something to do with politics (yeah, that blond candidate) and that is because that is what is current and the parodies are a mix of the political environment plus the popular music and trends.

When preparing for the battle we took audio from many sources, viral videos, clips, different styles of music, and by mixing all of them we created a combination that has never been used before, what we did was unique not only because of the material but because of the context and the ones performing.

My personal opinion is that there is nothing ‘new’ in the world and probably never was, even defining the word ‘new’ in this context can become very abstract and even confusing. For me, everything that has been created is thanks to something else, in the same way, a person is a combination of genes of mother and father, who are also a combination of their own parents. Creativity is  taking from everywhere and making a unique combination, just like a human being is unique.  

Tan cerca y tan lejos (Textual Poaching)

A couple weeks ago, a good friend of mine got married, he is from Mexico and his wife is from Spain, the reason they left their countries is similar to that of many other international students, we are trying to find opportunities that are not available in our country, we want to make a better future for ourselves and our families.

When I started planning my approach to this project I thought about how my perspective of my own identity changed when I moved to the U.S and how, from one day to the other I became a foreigner, an immigrant, a minority. I became the "Mexican guy" or the "Mexican friend" and that doesn't bother me because that's what I am or, at least, part of it.

Living outside my home country made me self-aware of my nationality and helped me appreciate it a lot more.  When rediscovering my appreciation for my culture I discovered that Mexico has been influenced by the United States to the point that some people do not appreciate their traditions, they don't see how beautiful their culture is, mexicans have a complex of inferiority.

My friend experienced the fear that a lot of international students and immigrants have, he got out of the country and they revoked his visa. When he was coming back from his honeymoon he and his wife were questioned and my friend had to surrender his visa, why? because while he was in the country he started to work in order to pay for his school, and because international students are not allowed to work outside the campus, he was considered to be working illegally and thus he lost his privileges and had to go back to Mexico, while his wife came back to the U.S.

It is hard to say if what happened to my friend is fair or not , in one hand he knew the rules and what happened was just a consequence. In the other hand he did it because he got married and it wasn’t possible to live and go to school with a part time job on campus. Talking about immigration is complicated, and to fully understand the issue one has to see both sides of the coin.

There is a very popular quote by Nemesio Gonzalez Naranjo, a mexican intellectual, that says: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” this was my first inspiration for the project and that’s why I decided to have it on the final piece, the footage is from a movie called Por mis pistolas (1938) and the song “somos mas Americanos” by norteño band, Los tigres del Norte.

In the footage, the comedian “Cantinflas” makes fun of the customs and procedures of the border patrol while also exaggerating some mexicanisms. In a satirical way “Cantinflas” points out the fact that a lot of immigrants go to United States to spend money, instead of taking it, and many of us, come to the United States following every rule, paying every fee and obeying every rule no matter how restrictive it is.

By the end of the project, the media a chose became, like the velveteen rabbit, something real and personal.

Phantasm

Light

Photo:

Word-forming element meaning "light" or "photographic" or "photoelectric," from Greek photo-, comb. form of phos (genitive photos) "light," from PIE root *bha- (1) "to shine"

All visual Arts depend on one thing, that thing is light. without light, there are no colors, no lines, nothing. Everything we do requires light and photography is a medium that is completely dependent on that single element.

The word "photography" was created from the Greek roots φωτός (phōtos), genitive of φῶς (phōs), "light" and γραφή (graphé) "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light".

Light is a phenomenon that can be very hard to explain because it acts both as a wave and as a particle, it travels faster than anything else known. No matter how complex and mysterious  the physics behind light can be, the beauty of photography lies in the simplicity of capturing light.

McCloud talks about how illustrations become a comic book when they are placed next to each other in certain order. In order to capture light it is necessary to understand some basic principles of photography and how the camera works, when setting an ISO, aperture and deciding how to expose the image, one is controlling the light that passes through the lens and gets recorded in the camera. Light also gives us the ability to see color, depending on the object's physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra.

For this project, I decided to explore light and movement  and capture it through long exposures. I used a technique known as light drawing (light painting) that consists in using a source of light and a long exposure in order to freeze movement. Artist like Man Ray, Barbara Morgan and Pablo Picasso among others, have used this technique.

The absence of light and the excess of it creates images such as the ones represented at the beginning and end of the series. A complete black image and a bright white image are the two ends of the spectrum while in the middle there are countless possibilities.

The inspiration behind the project came from a combination of light paintings and the word phantasm that comes from phantasma "image, phantom, apparition; mere image, unreality," and from phantazein "to make visible, display," stem of phainein "to bring to light, make appear; come to light, be seen, appear.

Photography captures still images but because cameras can be set up to have a slower shutter speed, movement can be captured and thus it creates the illusion of movement.

Everything that appears on the images was captured on camera with no external manipulation whatsoever. And it is an exploration of how photography is the art of capturing light.

La Soldadera

"La Soldadera" Script

One Hundred years after Mexico’s Independence from Spain, the people was angry because they were being exploited by the government, there were only a few rich men who had control over the entire land and the rest of the population was living in poverty. President Porfirio Diaz refused to give up power and stayed in the presidential chair for 35 years. The revolution started in 1910 and concluded in 1920.

Francisca Zorrosa Diaz was born in Oaxaca in 1911 and moved to Mexico City after the revolution, she is my grandmother and “Las Soldaderas” was inspired by her. However the story is completely fictional and draws inspiration from many stories of the strong women called Soldaderas. 

        During the Mexican Revolution many women were involved in the action, whether it was through force, or by free will.  Fighters such as Petra (Pedro) Herrera, Maria Quinteras de Meras and Angela (Angel) Jimenez were some of the most notable women who fought in the war and were actually part of Pancho Villa’s army.  Inspired by both the true stories of these women who fought in the revolution and the story of Pepe’s great-grandmother, we put them together to highlight roles of women in the war.  Francisca, the main character, represents not only the women that became soldiers, but also how she was forced into it through the need of protection, which also applied to the women who left with the rest of her male family members to avoid being left behind alone and vulnerable to attacks.  With Carmen’s character, we wanted to portray how women also played a part in the war through their medical support.  This was especially important for the revolutionaries, because during the war, the Red Cross refused to help the revolutionary soldiers. 

        There are many stories about the Mexican revolution, the book Los de Abajo (The under Dogs) gives the revolution a less heroic treatment and portrays soldiers raping women and braking into civilian houses. This book was one of the first sources of inspiration, and after some research we found an article that quotes the work of Gabriela Cano called Soldaderas y coronelas this was one of the major sources of inspiration, learning about this brave woman gave the main character more realism and a purpose and also helped us set the environment in which the story takes place. 

Creating the dialogue was the most challenging part, we wanted to keep it simple and authentic, we decided to use some Spanish words and phrases that helped us give a foreign feel to the story. 

        We wanted to be as accurate as possible in regards dates and places. We wanted to use real battles and that’s why we wrote about La toma de Zacatecas, one of the fiercest battles of the revolution, but also one of the most important. According to the chronology published by the Mexican Senate in 2010. After the victory over Zacatecas, Villa went to Mexico City in December of 1914