My Daily Food Readings

So I often check Serious Eats and NY Mag maybe every day or one every two days. Its very... hypocritical of me.

I would occasionally see articles that say that "this place has the best" so and so. Or this restaurant has awesomely good food voted best by out taste testers.

I'm sorry but I'm beginning to think that these blogs are either selling out or have no taste.

Ny Mag:
1. David Chang
2. General Greene
3. The Vanderbilt

These guys have low rankings on yelp. Not only that but I think David Chang likes salt too much. Even my friend who drinks soysauce thinks his stuff is too salty.

Serious Eats
1. Little Red Hen for Best Cheesecake
2. Amy's Bread for Best Carrot Cake

I'm sorry but I'm tired of Two Little Red Hens getting rep in Red Velvet and Cheesecake. Its seriously not that good to me. but this is just one person's opinion. At least I want the hype turned down a bit. Just a bit.

As for amy's bread, I'm sure they have good bread and I have not tried their carrot cake yet, (though I am always willing to be proved right because if its actually good, then I'll be very happy.) However, Their red velvet had stellar rankings from multiple sources and as a foreigner that was so excited to try her first red velvet cupcake for the first time, theirs was a failure.

I'm just saying. Take things with a grain of salt and trust your instincts. I know what I like, but people can have different tastes. Just because people say certain restaurants are the best and its on a blog doesnt mean that they're not getting money from the place.

Final Presentation

I completely did not show my good side, and I feel ashamed. I was so frazzled. I was so busy worrying and making the new animatic, I didnt get to practice at all. =_=

And to top it all off, I got defensive over my work, almost aggressively. I'm very bad at this. I'm very bad at everything. I apologize. and I've embarrassed myself completely.

This has been an admittedly painful week on my ego. This must be my fault for focusing more on my design classes. But I've been feeling a lot of demotivation lately and that ball is moving fasting and getting bigger.

When I try to be honest about something, I fail and come out as an idiot. And most of the time when I do try at something, it usually comes out bad. This expectation to finish something great that will define you, or at least define you for that moment in life, is intense and apparently I cannot handle stress very well.

Its interesting because theres so many different kinds of stress I'm experiencing that happened since I started sophomore year. In the rest of my life, there wasnt that much stress, or rather, none at all.

I just had a bit of an epiphany

I love texture.

No no no no. wait.

Ok. When I think about movement, choreography, rhythm, juxtaposition, contrast, design, beauty and everything that I admire and love, it all translates into some sort of texture for me. Into something that can be felt physically as something tactile. Think of synesthesia but not really. My favorite pieces cause so much tension on the surface of my skin.

This is the man solely responsible of having me re-evaluate what I'm doing for senior project:


I'm completely getting amanda and the whole dance routine...
but with geometry.
<3! so awesome. 1:55 was the most orgasmic part for me. Though I feel like the flow of the whole piece can be a bit more streamlined into a super smooth arch. There were some parts I didnt get. There were some parts that I didnt like. However, on the most part, I think it was awesome and it did open an idea box for me. If I would make a piece like this, it would definitely be more minimalist. There wouldnt be god involved. And I would concentrate more on beauty, sensitivity, fragility, and chorepgraphy. and a lot of time remapping. a SHIT load of time remapping. you cant even imagine how much time remapping. and I love geometry. because I gave up on drawing a long time ago because my friend was way better than me and I easily got discouraged. (But for some reason, he can still draw better shapes than me. It bothers me.) I'm definitely a sucker for things that are well timed and beautifully choreographyed. and ones with so much expression and texture to the movement. However, I have yet to understand and master the ability and understanding of abstract narratives. What to do? I want to change major but without re-doing the curriculum. But lets imagine for example, if I would make a piece, what would it be about?

I guess it would be about isolation. My favorite topic and something that I've always been interested in expressing, is the feeling of just disappearing into a crowd of people.

To let the noise of the population around you consume your existence. It's all about becoming nothing. Returning into nothing.

I wonder why. I think its because... I dont want to be anywhere.

Robotics and Pre production

fuck the box. I aint doing it anymore. If I can, I would like to concentrate more on screen based things.

I would prefer torture from after effects than I would from electronics that I completely cannot comprehend.

Dilemmas

I keep trying to talk about my senior project and my thoughts on it, and then it becomes a personal thing-- too personal for me to post here, so I post it elsewhere. its kind of annoying. I feel like I cant post anything here.

I've re-done my animatic. I cant upload it because its in my external hard drive with a firewire cable on it because the USB cable broke.

I'm on my laptop which doesnt have firewire.

it kind of keeps changing. I really wonder how the compositing thing is working. I have a feeling that doing it in 3d would be kind of easier. Because of the subtleties I want to express.

and god knows I suck at handling a camera.

What Have I Learned So Far

Pints of Ice Cream dont taste as appetizing as they sound like.

As for the Cube:

My thoughts are currently waning of interest. Maybe if I put it under a different context, I can salvage it.

So what I have to say about it for now:
Definitely I guess its more of a self portraiture. I’m egotistic that way. I end up making things saying everything I want to say and not saying more. And its hard for people to understand that because innately, I am a silent person. (This is true. I just “learned” how to talk to people when I began to live in america.) Talking with Peter (Patchen) was an enlightening experience and I appreciate him giving me incredible amounts of frustration (and I’d appreciate it more if I was given food). And I am one that easily gets discouraged.

Take for example my type class. My teachers questioned why I made such a move, I was eager to corrected it how they suited, and later they tried to defend my initial design.

As Rob said, I want people to tell me its okay.

Which is weird, because even if “its okay” (its not only Rob that says this, interestingly enough) and I can do whatever I really want, my perspective of this freedom is more like: I can do whatever I want and I wont be questioned for it.
and what is being given to me is not really that.

I do understand that discussion and argument over a piece gives it more depth and value, but I am a spoiled brat and I'm not very good at talking. I'm not very good at arguing either. It has something to do with my low self esteem (I cant stand by my opinion and believe what I think is right) and my horrible sense of memory (I dont remember what my opinion was exactly and I forget what I believed it again however, I often feel opposite about certain things.)

I personally dont think I'm fit for the real world. Theres nothing that I *really* want to do. Eating is a hobby I'm hooking myself into so that I can tolerate the rest of life and actually look forward to something (like my next meal). And art is entertaining. (Ooo, this might insult people.)

Though I do often sway between extremely clingy and extremely apathetic, I realized over time and age, to survive live in the world, you have to hold on to something. Whether that is your art, yourself, or your dreams, or some person or thing, you have to hold on to something and cling to it for dear life till the end of your days. Why? because if not, you'll just slip into nothingness. (ahh thesis...)

You will slip into the fact that you will die, you will deteriorate, you will watch and be watched by the world and by everything around you and the days will just continue. There is nothing to ground you. Nothing to make you cling into the moment of the world's sense of time, or overlap itself into venn diagrams of different contexts.

Like how atoms pop in and out of existence, you will pop in and out of existence with not memory or trace of yourself anywhere.

i do believe, though I have argued about this with Peter, that your are your work. You are not exactly our work but it is part of you. Everything you make would be a form of self portraiture. Your actions and your choices define you, whether it is something you intend to do or not intend to do, it adds to your story.

Well. Thats how I feel about that.

Moving on.

COMPOSITING PROJECT TWAH!

For some reason, the word disperse has been my favorite word since elementary. There is a difference with what I want from what is more commonly known of what I want.

I want to disappear. I dont want to die. But I want to be gone from the face of the earth. As if nobody knew me and nobody cared.

Though, it might be “emo” let me explain the reason of why I live: I live to repay my parents the amount of money that they spent on me my entire life so that I can leave without feeling debt. This discussion can go into length but think of it this way, think of a project that you’ve wasted so much time and money on and all the sudden it just crashed on you. Wouldnt you be pissed?

Back to my main point. Disperse. But more importantly, particles. (aha!) The other day, I had an amazing experience which is difficult to describe in words. But to give you a visual, I had a good moment of peace. A moment when all was right in the world and all I wanted to do was disappear in the moment.

My idea was of someone sleeping in the afternoon. and slowly their body disappears, not in a ghostly fashion but piece by piece. In beautiful days, in nice weather, when you just have to experience the air and do nothing, mentally, you just melt away.

And right now I would be talking more about this but I have to do other hw. ciao.

Idea board for color and music of prj2

Color by COLOURlovers

Progress Update

Project One: Self Destructing Cube
Official Title: "As I was"

Construction
Code
Hardware

Project Two: Compositing Video
Official Title: "As you were"

Aesthetics of it will be mostly based on the following pictures. So basically, this is me being artsy









I was thinking more of like a person floating and disappearing piece by piece, as the audio would be a person breathing. The idea was the visualise the sensation of days when your mind is conscious yet adrift.

Project Three: Audio Producing Sculpture
Official Title: "As it were"
This is my semi back up idea.

the idea is to have a sculpture that produces sound when someone is close. Not really just any sound, just very subtle and quiet sound. Like little flickers of audio or static-y white noise. Basically a sculpture that is almost invisible with the use of reflective surface to appear as a distortion of reality.

The sound is either produced at the closeness of a viewer OR they can have something which will enable the sculpture to produce sound. (maybe by magnetics or something.)

It also reflects on the idea of relativity and that tree-falling-in-a-forest idea. But I think everything reflects on the idea of relativeness.

Sometimes things dont matter unless there was that one thing that made everything make sense-- type of thing.

Things are in their Nature to do what they do.

So leave things alone and stop questioning it.

I think that just sums up everything I have to say.

So as for my little self destructive box:
1. person dependent or not person dependent
1.1 person dependent makes it more interesting and it will last longer
1.2 not person dependent is true to the idea about nothing: separation and numbness.
2. plaster boxes are killing me
2.1 its hard to establish consistency
2.2 i have to make multiples
2.3 i just realized that the speakers might need to be attached to these
3. thoughts on the second piece
3.1 a soundless room is not possible without killing people via vacuum
3.2 emitting sound back to the speaker so that they can "feel the vibrations of their own voices/selves"
3.3 translation over translation over translation > loss of meaning > its all about kinetic sculptures baby.
3.3.1 the idea of distillation, reduction to produce and essence
3.3.2 translating a form of something over and over again in different ways. point? the fact that there is no point, things are just regurgitations of other things. ie. it is not really a box but an alignment of pixels, and they are not really pixels but a combination of 1s and 0s and light being emitted and BLAH BLAH BLAH

Suggestions from Faculty:
1. research on minimalism
2. play with words
3. "put your mark on it"


BY THE WAY,
I want to move into graphic design temporarily. just a thought.

i've been thinking a lot

and I dont know if I am being productive but it is either because my subject is about nothing or it is my short term memory or it is my low self esteem.

Why would one think my low self esteem has a play in this?

"The more I read, the more I meditate, the more I can affirm that I know nothing at all."
-Voltaire

"Only the shallow know themselves."
- Oscar Wilde

Which pisses me off because I prided myself as a shallow person.

I feel like the more i try to add meaning to the "nothingness" the bigger the void becomes. It was interesting because in my type class, my teacher was telling me to make a part of the project simple. However it bothered me because, I didnt want to look like I was slacking off by putting so little on the page.



as my friday was ticking away, I had to do hw but I dont want to do it, but I dont want to be unproductive so I started drawing hair-like lines on a sheet of paper. Though I admit, I edited this in PS a bit, i felt like... it was showing me a direction (such a gay ass statement).

because, though the scan of it looked horrible, the real one on the sheet looked as if it had much depth in it. there was something behind those hair like strands. As I was drawing these lines, there would be little pockets of space that for some reason, my hand couldnt draw on.

as if it was natural to leave that space and to not make a straight line.

Its interesting to think that, how geometry is taken from nature, I dont think there really is anything in the world that is a straight line, or a perfect circle.

It interestingly distorted.

You know how people have dreams? I usually dont remember my dreams. My dreams are never vivid or memorable ot anything interesting. But what happens to me that is often is that I get stuck between the waking realm and the sleeping realm. what i mean is that, i am awake but my body cannot move.

It seriously bothers me because there would be moments where I can feel something touch me or brush against me but I live in my studio alone. Seriously. It's so fucking creepy. And its been happening more often now (the past two years) than before.

But it is an interesting sensation. Like your fingertips are on the edge of something you are trying to each.

I dont think. I think thats the reason why I'm having such a hard time with concept. It has always been abstracted to a memory of impression. That is why I suck at telling stories. I can never tell it well because I barely remember it but I do remember finding the story funny or annoying.

Anyway. thats my two cents of the day. I have more to think about. Its spring break!

Interesting Youtubes

This is would be part of my thesis.



I've been obsessed with lawrence krauss for a week now. (Thanks justin.) he's awesome.

Chinatown Veggies

I always wondered why chinatown veggies are cheap. It was interesting.

from a chowhound forum, its because of two things:
1. its ripe NOW not later. Thus, it has a shorter shelf like unlike those in grocery stores. So apparently, Chinese people buy veggies everyday instead of once a week.
2. because its an incredible wholesale, its a lot cheaper.
3. they're from all over the place, and maybe the world. it being organic is questionable. however I saw a 2 for $1 on avocados the other day ;_;

Thinking and Scheduling

I somehow got myself an small internship even though I wasnt planning on getting one. But I wanted to help the person out because she seemed in distress and I wanted to help her out.

My problem is that, I seem to not have enough time for one because my classes are all.. killing me one way or another. I just had some major digestive discomfort from my time class out of stress and panic.

ANYWAY.

I was happy to be helped by those who offer. The concept is developing slowly as I continue reading. However, readings that I have partialy digested I agree with, I dont want it to be too scattered.

But on the other hand, I am those types of people were I want everything mixed into this one thing so I dont have to deal with many different things. EXAMPLE: I would rather if my friends all knew each other so I wouldnt have to jump from different circles of friends to another.

I'm having problems on which perspective to use for my work: a cosmological, zen, metaphysical, art performance? etc etc?

I think I need to, to say in photoshop terms, start collapsing layers into each other and simplify even more.

Luibo sent me an interesting article on destruction. Though I do think that my piece seems to show that it focuses more on destruction, that is not the case. But I have a feeling Luibo likes things that destroy themselves and I think thats kinda awesome.

But what I've learned from that article is: "vandalism not as something entirely extraneous to the piece in question, but as a fulfilment of the work’s inner possibilities, or even as a way of bringing it back to life."

I definitely feel that this can go back to either nihilism, cosmology or zen. Or life in general. But it just goes back to the idea is nothing is an extension of being.

There is also my perspective as the third person in this whole scenario: "wtf?" I will admit, I am the type of person who would usually say "wtf, I dont get it. I cant believe this douchebag is getting a lot of money for something a middle schooler can do." This is my old way of thinking. And what is annoying about art is that sometimes, one can take douchbaggery approaches by responding to "such ignorant statements" by making it and calling it art to piss such people off and just shoving it in a museum. (take james jean and his twitter incident. and inside jokes on a piece called "lonely tuesday")

I'm sure that art historians can also call douchbaggery as an art concept. Hell. Anything is possible. *mixed feeings*

So the presentation is next week and I feel like I have screwed myself over in many ways since its midterms. I cant wait till spring break because my mother is coming and she'll just listen to me bitch the whole day and in the end, she'll be cleaver enough to find a way to snap me out of it either by physically slapping me or threatening me.

And I charge her large amounts of money by going to a fancy restaurant later and she'll slap me by doing so.

I digress.

Anyway, Simulacra and Simulation is an interesting idea (Thanks, Rob!). However I'm having difficulty grasping it. I think I get it but I'm not sure. Is it basically talking about the disappearance of the actual objects and what we deal is the representations of the actual objects?

I feel like that was my issue against creating something that was fully digital in the sense that we are slowly being immersed in a world where there is no actual tangibility. (screen display installations and such.)

As I talked to Carter Hodgkin, I felt envious of her because she can make her works as an intuitive response to something. Though it is enlightening to research about this topic, at the same time, it feels repetitive, not spontaneous/not organic and maybe with a slight pinch of pretentiousness to research about it and lecture people how to perceive it than have their interpretation of it.

On the other hand, one can enlighten the audience and do brain yoga as one explains it.

I love my ignorance, mind you.

I think I'm getting somewhere

But I think it will take me a year to get there =_=; I appreciate the suggestions and recommendations.

So

blogging 3 times in one day is either productive or whiny.

I talked to Aaron about my project. Existentialism and Nihilism are apparently too angsty for me. My specialties are mostly being bitter and racist for fun.

But as Rob suggested (Nihilism), I checked it out and the definition completely jived with my personal philosophies in life: "all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated." Though I do not consider myself pessimistic, I think it's pretty realistic and in most cases, since everything is relative, nothing matters. (watch this run-on sentence win marathons!)

Though, I am check into all these schools of thought made me remember that, it doesnt purely have to be one school of thought and not another. I can bastardize, and pervert any thought I want to.

I'm just saying.

I did get the Russel's Paradox joke with Minha. My brain just did yoga on that one. It reminded me of Marylin Manson blowing himself-- a stretch yet, gratifying in the end. I give myself a pat on the back for that one. Go me :D

One slightly upsetting thing about my revelation was that... it sounded metaphysical. SHIT.

By Jove, I think I've got it!

Nothing is an extension of our own being.

BTW

I hate existentialism. It's not my shtick to be honest. I like going one level in but not all the way. (This is why I am shallow. Its comforting to be in the box.)

I just dislike the times when the work cant just speak for itself, and I have to make up... SOMETHING to make it make sense. It doesnt have to make sense.

I've been thinking about the suggested direction, making things isnt hard but making an elaborated explanation for things is hard (for me). I remember in class we were all discussing that we should all play our strengths.

Well, philosophy isnt one of them. If I have no strengths (almost literally "nothing" to offer),then what can I do?

/ Why didnt I go into accounting? shoot me.... Well, if i switch into graphic design... I'll stay an extra year... but at least I'll get a job from it. =_=; /

I think what I dont like about existentialism is that its trying to make Nothing into Something, when it is not really Something but just something. What's the point? There is no point. This is why I am not a fine artist. But honestly, I want to do as less coding as possible. (Important fact!)

Nothing Part III

There is the interesting idea in typography where, the negative spaces form the letters. Its the kerning and the leading that the typographers (some) tend to oogle at.

Also, in food culture, in the topic of food culturally defining people, like vegetarians and the like, what defines them is what they do not eat.

So lets go back to that disintegrating piece of plaster. What defines what is happening to it, (the disintegrating) are the spaces that open from it.

BTW, the idea for the box is not destruction. I think emphasis on destruction is over rated.
The idea was about decay---slow disappearance.

I hate concept art.

Anyway, I think so far, I'm exploring two possible definitions of nothing:

1. nothing as the space that defines the objects in surrounds
2. nothing as the space that in constant movement complementary to the subject.

I need one more... for the sake of senior project...

Nothing Part II

In continuing with the discussion about Nothing, so what is it about Nothing?

Lets pretend that I'm saying what my project is about:

AHEM.
my project is about Nothing as a space occupying space. It is present in its silence. It waits there silently and honestly. And will never try to argue for your attention. I want people to have to really look for it.

I was thinking of having pillars of dense plexiglass in the center of the room. My idea is that, its hard for people to tell sometimes if there is something there because plexiglass is transparent. However, you can tell its there when you really look because things seem a bit distorted.

One thing that I think that parallels with this is that, When you place an object, the negative space moves around the positive form. Thus when a person looks through the plexiglass as they move, the forms move as they move. The plexiglass, one might say, is like empty space itself in its lack of opacity. However it's present because you see that there is a change.

How to make it interactive, I have no idea. I'm still thinking. Leave me be.

Comparative Analysis: Almond Croissant

I have considered myself an Almond Croissant Connoisseur. It has been my slight obsession since I first tried one in Fall 2008. Shame on me on not trying more. But Most likely I ate a lot and repeated most of these places. I do love doing comparative analysis on things like cupcakes, ice cream, burgers, roasted pork bun, okonomiyaki and stuff like that. I get very obsessed with certain foods.

maybe I'll do more of it because i do it way to often.

Ranking:
5* MFING awesome
4* Not Bad
3* Average
2* Maybe Not
1* WTF this shit

Ones that I have tried:
1. Tarralluci e Vino - 3*
2. Tartine (SF) - 4*
2. Choice - 4* (its the crunchy top that gets me)
4. Bread Alone - 2*
5. Madeline - 3*
6. Almondine - 3*
7. La Bergamote - 4*
8. Balthazar - 4*
9. Ceci Cela (from Dean and Deluca) -2*
10. Angelique - 2*
11. Street Sweets - 3*
12. Colson Patisserie - 2* (ok. it was unmemorable.)


New Places to Try:

1. Patisserie Claude
2. J'Adore - 23rd and 5th
3. Financier - the macarons in this place are AWESOME
4. Payard
5. Chez Laurence - Madison ave and 38th
6: Bouley Bakery - Their Oatmeal Cookies arent bad.
7. Petrossian

a post about nothing

Seriously, nothing.

I've thought about it some more and some more, and it made me ask myself, what the fuck am I thinking about?

Basically, what I am saying about nothing?

I guess what I'm interested about is that negative space is a substance in itself. And although it is nothing, and it is something that is commonly overlooked.

I mentioned the example of white noise: though it is something that is atmospheric and is the audio version of negative space, it is a sound that is at the bottom of the hierarchy of your attention. It is something that you hear as you wait to hear what is more important.

Like the air is nothing, however under an angle of sunlight, there are stuffs floating about it.

Nothing is empty.
Nothing is silent.
Nothing is contains.
Nothing is contained.
Nothing is present.
Nothing is something.

It's like that quote in Up, "Sometimes, it's the boring stuff I remember the most." The every day of life that is commonly over looked because of its ubiquity (is that a word?). Silence is the pause that creates the fear when you watch horror movies.

Something that is there but not there. Transparency? Vibration in the air? I dont know~ I generally dislike things that make my brain cells exercise.

This is the start of a new blog.

Kind of. I like blogger's format better than wordpress. I regret saying nothing.

ANYWAY.

This will now turn into a blog that follows through my preproduction. So sue me.

Went by two galleries today. Pretty much was happy with the both of them.

David Zwirner // Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960 - 1970

There's something about minimalist, Light and Space art that I deeply enjoy and always feel at awe with. I think its the simplicity. The lack of distraction. The idea that the material was reduced to something so basic.

This was the second time I saw James Turrell. I was very excited.




What drew me in was actually a picture of Doug Wheele's work: Untitled 1969.



The other room had this artist named Larry Bell, who's work I've noticed in the Moma a few months ago. I think I was too lazy to find his name then.




Bitforms // Daniel Rozin
I've seen his wood mirror thing plenty of times whenever I visit ITP's MFA shows. They brag, mucho.



Though, the concept is still the same. But one of them had a minor difference. When there is a subject, and the subject is in place for a while, the mirrors start creating a ripple like pattern though out its surface. Its quite pretty. Too bad I dont have a video setting.