Journal Entry 2

For the second piece of digital art, I decided to produce an Mp3 file in relation to the topic of 'Poverty' and post it to my website. I decided to create a piece of music for my assessment because one of majors is Popular Music, Media & Culture, and I feel comfortable and familiar producing music. I decided to create the music around the issue of 'Poverty', as it is a world-wide issue that is in desperate need for attention, yet it is greatly unacknowledged and neglected. It is also an issue that I am strongly concerned about, thus it was easy to create a piece of music representing my feelings and emotions towards it.

I decided to use a music sequencing program called "Garage Band", as I have used many times before and am quite familiar with it. I originally wanted to record myself playing an instrument instead of having to use the piano loop, but when attempted to do so, distortion was excessive, due to the lack of recording and audio equipment I had available. Therefore, I had to settle for using pre-made loops that came with the program, and manually inputting notes into the virtual instruments, such as synthesizers, drums, bass, etc.

I wanted the piece to start softly and in minor key, in order to signify and emphasise the sadness of the issue and the hushed nature of the issue in relation to the fact that the majority of the people are unconcerned and unthinking of the issue. Later, a loud snare begins to sound repetively throughout the entirety of the song. I wanted to somehow represent the fact that poverty is in great need for attention, so I brought the snare in, which is representative of the deaths of people in poverty, being consistent and sudden, hoping that the loudness and suddenness would somehow represent the severity of the issue.

I encountered a few technical difficulties whilst creating this project, such as trying to come up with ideas to portray the emotions and feelings that I wanted to project along with the piece of music. The only way to solve these issues was to list all the emotions and feelings that I associate with the issue, and think of ways in which I can musically represent them. An example of how I did this was the emotion of 'sadness', which I represented via creating the piece in a minor key, as songs in minor keys have a sadder sound to them and are generally associated with negative emotions. Other difficulties that I encountered included remembering how to operate the music program, as I had not used it for a few months. To resolve this issue, I simply referred to a friend in relation to how to use the program, and briefly re-read the manuals. A lot of trial and error, and guessing was involved.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the final project, and believe that it adequately met the course's and my own expectations of the task. I feel that the song successfully portrays the emotions that I attempted to incorporate musically, and incorporated a sufficient amount of technical difficulty and inventiveness.

Journal Entry 1

For the digital folio this week, I decided to produce a photoshopped picture portraying the theme of drug-usage and the psychedelic era. At first I would have liked to have produced an audio file, as I am majoring in Popular Music in my degree and have experience producing music. However, I felt like I should try something different, and as I had never operated Adobe Photoshop before, and was interested in the program, I thought I would try using that to produce my assessment. I had difficulties operating the program as I had never used it before, but consulted with a friend who took graphic design who showed me some tools that I could use to alter the image in a way that would be suitable to the theme. I used Photoshop to alter the photo’s colours and used a brush tool to paint stars across the picture, as stars are commonly referred to and associated with drugs and being out of touch with reality. A background of swirly like images was also placed over the top of the image, representing variation of reality and the motion of spinning, as in when a person’s ‘head spins’ when taking drugs. An image of a white rabbit was placed in the left hand corner of the photo, intertextualising ‘Alice in Wonderland’, as the story heavily incorporates the use of drugs, for example, when Alice meets a snail which smokes, and she eats mushrooms causing her to change in size. The entire fantasy was also based on an acid trip.

I wanted to use intertextuality in my piece by incorporating the white rabbit from "Alice In Wonderland", so I google searched an image of a white rabbit to place in the image. I also wanted to provide reference to the band 'Jefferson Airplane' who wrote a song titled, 'White Rabbit', because I heard this song recently and found it very interesting. It inspired me to focus my assignment on the psychedelic era, drugs and acid trips, because back in the 1960's, drugs were cultural, and people had an entirely different perspective on them than people today. Back then, drugs were a way of exploring oneself, and many people had extensive (though under-researched) theories on taking drugs and the benefits it could have on one's life. My picture manipulates the common perception of drugs in a different way, conveying a less negative effect of drugs, as that is the way that people used to perceive them. I decided to choose colours that were therefore not depressing, but bright, and overall the picture has a fantasy feel. I'm satisfied with the final product, and believe that it meets the theme I was aiming for. Using Photoshop for the first time was challenging, but I did not use very advanced techniques; however, I believe that the picture did not need anything more to convey the message and theme I was trying to get across.

Psychedelic

This piece of digital writing portrays the effects of drug use, particularly in relation to the use of acid. It represents the fantasy aspect of drug use, in which the perspective of situations and objects around the drug user varies whilst on drugs. It also symbolizes the distortion of reality when taking drugs, as the original photo is vaguely recognisable, signifying the imaginary and make-believe characteristic that is perceived through drug usage. The original photo taken was of three teenage girls from a birds-eye view. I believed that taking the photo at such an angle emphasised the abnormality of the situation, as most photos are taken face-on to see the faces of people. As the piece of digital writing is based on drug use and ‘acid trips’, I thought that the image should present a different way of looking at a situation, hence the abnormal camera angle, in order to convey the way in which drugs allow you to perceive things differently. I used Photoshop to alter the photo’s colours and used a brush tool to paint stars across the picture, as stars are commonly referred to and associated with drugs and being out of touch with reality. A background of swirly like images was also placed over the top of the image, representing variation of reality and the motion of spinning, as in when a person’s ‘head spins’ when taking drugs. An image of a white rabbit was placed in the left hand corner of the photo, intertextualising ‘Alice in Wonderland’, as the story heavily incorporates the use of drugs, for example, when Alice meets a snail which smokes, and she eats mushrooms causing her to change in size. The entire fantasy was also based on an acid trip. I was also inclined to incorporate a white rabbit into the picture, because Jefferson Airplane produced an track titled “White Rabbit” in the psychedelic era, which related to acid trips and their own personal experiences taking the drug. This inspired me to use the white rabbit, because the band had direct experience with the drug and expressed their experiences through music which I listen to, and lived through the psychedelic era, where drugs were a great part of culture. Unlike ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Jefferson Airplane are non-fictitious people that can be related to in relation to drugs and ‘acid trips’. I chose an image of a rabbit that was cartoon-like instead of realistic, to further portray the absence of reality when using drugs.