Author: brownrisdbridges
[Madison] LOL moment
While my friend and I were in Union Square she wanted to visit this high end home decor shop so I followed her in and looked around. I found this piece and thought of Nellie and her project so I decided to take a picture of it to just send her.
Then I saw the description below and literally laughed out loud in the store and wanted to show it to all of you:
Protected: Julie: Summer Thoughts
Belated Beginning
Hey all! With Madison charging full speed ahead, I’ve been thinking about how I’ll be using this summer for myself as well. I admit, I wasn’t as strict with myself as I had hoped (as all my previous summers have been), but I hope that if I set up some kind of defined goal and structure, it’ll be easier to see what I need to do to get there. And perhaps also have some fun in the meantime.
Lately I’ve been struggling a lot with where I’m headed. I’ve realized that I’ve had a lot of interests: photography, animation, fashion, glass, programming, language…but I don’t feel like I really own any of them. I’ve realized that’s because I haven’t really given myself over to them; I’ve been kind of keeping them around, enjoying in the potential possibilities in all of them, but that’s not fulfilling and giving each the time they need.
Thus, for this summer, I’m just going to focus on one thing. I’m just going to do programming, specifically Processing, and learn all that I can to use it, to misuse it, to turn it and to twist it and to play with it. The structure is only week-long projects (to keep them short and sweet): conception by Sunday and publication by the following Saturday. It’ll be open-topic, and I’m going to try to post each weekly project here so there’s accountability in my progress. So far I’m hoping to sustain this structure for at least a month (while I’m in Providence), but things might change when I go home in August. Perhaps the projects will double, two a week, or it draws out longer, I don’t know. But for now, I think I’m going to give this one a run.
Protected: [Madison] Friday Trip 1
[Madison] Letter to GISP crew – Beginning of summer reflections
Hello GISP crew!
This beginning of the summer reflections is probably more abrupt than you and I may have liked but I needed a place to talk about an abrupt notice I’ve received so here it is.
So I’ve been quite suddenly informed today from the store design department that I am actually only allowed to work for 30 hours a week, not the 40 hours I’ve been doing. I’ve been really enjoying my experience at Michael Kors so I was quite bummed out this evening that I lost potential 110 hours of work experience (and also frankly pay…) that I could have gotten.
While thinking of how I could spend my now free Friday in a productive manner and turn this disappointing news into a positive opportunity, I remembered our last discussion at the Met about regularly posting on this blog about what we’re doing this summer. (which I believe was Janice’s suggestion?)
I’m going to come up with a more specific goal on a later posting but one task I thought of doing every Friday is visiting various stores in New York.
You guys may or may not know this but from the various categories in design of space, my main interest has been retail design. This started when I was given a book on store design for inspiration and reference while I was putting together the application portfolio. I think back then I was simply attracted by the beauty and glamour of it but my interest grew as I started thinking about how the space is supporting the product, the brand, and the company philosophy. I also found the specificity of the audience for this type of space very interesting. I had always seen myself working with retail specifically which is why I applied to a lot of the store design internships this summer and ended up at Michael Kors.
So I am going to do some research online as well as ask the people I work with to gather a list of well designed stores. Every Friday I will make a trip to see at least one and before that weekend ends I’ll make a posting about my trip. I hope this makes me more productive and I’m also excited to hear from you guys too about whatever you want to share whether that be an amazing dinner you had or a rant about something frustrating like the one I’ve written in the beginning. I missed this space.
Love,
Madison
Final Process: Yidan
Experiments in the engagement of light through the use of photography and video.
Final Reflection: Yidan
I began with a very strong desire to express the mythical sense of connectedness, that there is a fluidity between the environment and those residing within it. Thus, much of my readings were a way of distilling and creating a basis for what I had felt. Throughout this entire process, I’ve been floating in a sea of intertwining themes of cycles, awakening, and connection.
One of the earliest readings I chanced upon was a thesis by a Textiles student by Amie Young Cheong, Redefining Space Through Light, Shadow, and Memory. In her thesis, Cheong explains that wabi-sabi, the notion of keeping only the poetry of something, is left intentionally undefined, for it is “something that you feel rather than understand” (Cheong 5). This attempt at grasping wabi-sabi became a subconscious mantra in my search for the poetry of light. However, the display of Steven Holl’s watercolor paintings used to visualize space, all while also expressing the atmosphere it contains, struck me in its power of emotion. This inclusion of not just what is seen, but also felt, reveals his sensitive attention to space, getting closer to the question of why in making. More and more throughout this GISP, I have come to realize that it is not what I like that defines me, it is the why. In thinking about Computer Science and Glass, I realized that I can’t just take a system from Computer Science and implement it in Glass to create the “third thing”; there is a grander concept to be explored, the thread of interest evident in my attraction to them that forms the bridge. This pointing to of the unseen subject is very much like myths, how they are contain “signifiers that point to that-which-is-to-be-signified” (Austin 13). I realize that it is only through the pursuit of my interests can I begin to understand the reason why I like them.
While my research of myths was not as in depth as I had wanted, there were discoveries that captured snapshots of my exploration’s impetus. In The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, mythology was described as “‘the song of the universe’. . . music we dance to even when we cannot name the tune” (Moyers xiv). When I first read that line, I felt it bodily. There has always been something that I find myself listening for, something that I remember knowing in dreams and stories but forget upon waking. There is a space, a state that my body knows but my mind does not. In both my myth readings and group readings, I am also suddenly inundated by the unknown, the inexplicable (of course, they have always been there, but I just never accepted their presence). Especially in Meaning and Being in Myth, it was said, “In dreams and myths, they all lead to the subject, yet the subject is nowhere to be seen” (Austin 19). The lack of presence of the subject, in a sense, creates a collection of meanings, a place, rather than a concrete, definitive point. In myths, the use of certain animals or actions act as symbols, symbols that translated the subconscious interpretation of the myth creator’s world. I can’t help but see semblances of this in Computer Science, with its creation of syntax for the representation of ideas and structures. This inception of underlying relationships, like myths, might stem from observations of real-life systems, but it is also grounded in some form of intuition and interpretation.
As for my dance with light, I was taken by a quote said by Filippo Cannata in Light and Emotions: “The light seems to allude to an underground presence, another possible world that manifests itself fracturing the soil.” Such an active description of light, one that is forcibly pushing through, spilling outwards from its encasement, captured my imagination. Before, I had felt that light had a power, a presence in its existence, but this quote solidified the image of light that has broken free from somewhere else. Light is active; it bursts, floods, flashes, and washes. Yet it is something that fills up space but doesn’t take up any. This exploration feels like I’ve only just grazed the surface, but I am excited for what I will find in the future.
As for the effectiveness and replicability of this course, I see the sense of community as a vital component. I feel that the success of the course depended on us being able to feel comfortable around each other, where we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to be open to failure, without feeling like we are “losing” to others. While this instance is unique in that we were all very close friends coming in, for future iterations of this GISP, it is crucial for all participants to come together for writing a proposal for what they intend to do. The laborious process, while painful, was beneficial to hashing out common goals, giving us the agency over our own desired outcomes. Additionally, while this could have been an independent study experience, it was so much more fruitful through what I’ve learned from others and from their critiques. What surprised me most at the beginning was that though we were all from different majors and concentrations, many of the interests and struggles were similar. I saw myself in Julie during her first crit, when Daniel commented on how she was attempting to do things “right” in her two respective fields, and anything else that didn’t fit was pushed aside. When Joyce was asked to question her idea of Furniture, it made me think about my own in Glass and Computer Science. When Ariana talked about her love of space and exploring our conceptions of it, I felt kinship in our desires and interests. I could go on, but these past weeks have been mindblowingly full of energy, compassion, and growth all through our interactions with each other.
Something I would have changed would’ve been the amount of readings for our discussions. I feel like many times we were juggling too many pages or pieces of reading, and thus the discussions are not able to really go in depth with the ideas presented in a reading. Furthermore, many times, nearing the end, some of us were not able to complete the readings due to Brown starting and our attempts at the final project.
Overall, this has been a pivotal experience, and I am so happy to have been part of this GISP.
Closing Thoughts – Madison
To be honest I hadn’t entered this group with the purest intentions. I had determined beforehand that I would be taking four Brown courses in the spring and I was terrified of the chaos I was going to have to face in the two-and-a-half weeks overlap of Brown’s shopping period and Wintersession finals. I knew that this course would be planned to accommodate that overlap, so I initially got involved more for the practical need of a customized Wintersession structure around that overlap.
However that reason was no longer my priority once we began to meet regularly to write the proposal. This course starting even in the planning stages was extremely liberating in so many ways. As Dual Degree students, we’re constantly in situations where no one fully understands the struggles we go through in the program and there were definitely moments when I found it difficult to justify my reasons for being in the program despite those issues and crises. But even just having GISP meetings that provided a dedicated time and space to talk about our concerns and ways to counter those problems was extremely reassuring and empowering. I felt for the first time that I was taking control of my own education.
I really appreciated that during these five weeks, I had the opportunity to be placed in an environment where I had to constantly verbalize, write, and share ideas and opinions that I had left floating in my head without making them more concrete. My thoughts are much more organized and much clearer than they have ever been before, and I think it’s because my thoughts have switched their form from a linear path with an end into an open field that serves as a safe environment to raise questions. Although facing the feelings and motives that had remained nameless for a long time was very difficult and frightening, I believe being in touch with those purer emotions is what is going to make my design become something more profound and empathetic than something that is labeled as ‘problem solving’.
Out of all this, the biggest asset I gained is the seven other members. Although we were close from the beginning, these five weeks took that bond to another level. I learned so much from each of them about what their interests and motivations are, how they work, and who they are as individuals. The interactions that arose through the dynamic of this course was exactly the type of synergy I was hoping to get from being a Dual Degree. What I realized after experiencing the first year was that the true benefit I gain from being in this program was not the addition of another degree on my resume, but the building of relationship with other Dualies. Because considering who I am, I would have never been able to interact with a group of people with such diverse interests and abilities had I taken any other path in my education. I feel blessed to have observed and experienced the level of support for one another as both classmates and friends.
Since I was very young, I have always been in state of competition. I felt most reward at the end of a project when I felt that I had excelled, and done better than others. So when I was put in a context where I simply couldn’t think about it as competition, I felt a kind of freedom I had never experienced before. There was such breadth and depth of emotions, thoughts, and moments that arose from the course and all of it was almost like a dream. For a brief moment I was able to reach a state where I realized this was how I always want to be feeling and thinking. That moment was a home, a middle ground where I exist as myself with people I love around me, and where I can always look to come back to.
For now at least, I believe I can safely say that I have put my doubts of my decision to be a Dual Degree behind me.
FaceTime to Mom
“시작할게 Here it goes.
Bridging the Gap 