My New Media Experiencce

The Fundamentals of Digital Media class this semester inspired me in creating visual arts by using new media technology. Throughout the term, I learned quite a lot about the application of new media such as photo editing and sharing basics (Pixrl, Flickr); making digital audio (Soundation) and video mashup (Filelab); creating generative art(Scribbler, ScribblerToo,Flame), Typology bechor grid (Pixlr), text-based art (GlassGiant ASCII, Tagxedo, Textorizer, Excoffizer), 3D model (Autodesk 123D) and artist website (Google site); designing logos (SVG vector graphic edit); and maintaining computer system (various Anti-virus software).

This Digital Media course is a really meaningful experience to me as I will continue the pursuit of art career, particularly in new media production. Based on the skills and knowledge I have seized this semester, I plan to practice them generating more high-quality artwork. Instead of just knowing how to operate, I want to go deeper to explore more features about the new media programs. For example, I used 123D Catch one of Autodesk products to produce the 3D model as well as basic model healing. But I did not attempt to do more model perfection using 123D Sculpt or 123D Make. It is also worthwhile to work more with photo editors such as the Photoshop as I want to focus on photography in new media. I honestly have never tried Photoshop so I will need to do that sometimes. I also want to refine the skills to generate visual arts by using various software. When I check back the pieces I made through the semester, I was unsatisfied with them because they always look childish or silly. Why that happened? It is still because I lack of rich experience working with art. Excellent artwork is thoughtful, unique, interesting, and well developed. Considering the skills, I should work hard to improve both hard skills and soft skills creating art. In other words, not only know how to make new media visual arts, I must establish a good sense of and my own insights into art.
           
Besides the projects I have mentioned, personal blog is another important part of this class. A traveler on the road is the thread or theme of my blog. It gave me a chance to recall and write down those beautiful memories. It became a summary of my traveling experiences as well as my past life. I enjoyed composing, designing my blog and sharing my stories with people. In my blog, I take you to see different landscape in United States (Las Vegas, Miami, New York), China (Chenzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin) and Canada (Toronto) in addition to my traveling in digital media world. There are actually more places I missed to talk during this term. So I will definitely keep updating my blog until I done recording all the places I have been. This blog will function as a traveling log for my life.             

New York, New York

The big apple city- New York is largest city in the United States. It is the global center of finance, culture, fashion, technology, art, science, education, etc. First of all, let me take you to some landmarks you may recognize in a group of pictures below including the Wall street in Manhattan (top left two), time square at night (top right), Metropolitan Museum of Art (two at the bottom). I still remember I went to touch that bronze buffalo to wish for good luck. And stayed in the Time Square for nine hours with thousands of people counting the last ten seconds of year 2008 to see the Big Bang (falling of huge air balloon). I was also surprised by seeing the exact Chinese Suzhou Garden in Metropolitan Museum.        

 

 The best spots to view the New York landscape are at the top of landscapers including the Empire State Building, the Top of Rock, etc. The photos below were taken at the observation deck of the Top of Rock.  

Another good sightseeing option is to take a harbor cruise around the coast area and neighboring islands such as Liberty Island and Ellis Island. It is a terrific way to experience the beauty of the New York's skyline and waterways as well as to see the most famous landmarks, the Statue of liberty (bottom right) on the Liberty Island and the Immigration Building (top left) on the Ellis Island. 

There are many other unique spots you can not miss in New York City, for example, the Grand Central Terminal (the top left one and right one). I was really impressed by this grandiose architecture with a super tall ceiling. Although you may not have a chance to meet the celebrities in daily life, you can visit the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum to have picture taken with your idols (the middle one on the left). To watch a show in a theater on Broadway is also a lot of fun. There are many classic Broadway shows on play everyday in New York. I was lucky to see one of the most famous called Chicago.

Many people may criticize the New York City as dirty, disorganized, chaotic, etc. But I like it.It just has so many good places to visit and a diversity of culture to experience. New York, New York, I love you!!              

Exotic Historical City- Tianjin

Tianjin is a city one hour away from Beijing by Express Railway Train. It is the largest coastal city in northern China.In terms of population, it is the forth largest city in China. Tianjin has two main urban areas which have totally different styles. Binhai, a newly-developed area has become a hub of advanced industry and financial center with 285 Fortune 500 companies that set up base here. It is a major seaport and gateway to Beijing for foreign countries.     

The other important area is the old city located along the Hai River with Chinese traditional style derived from long term history. In the photo montage below, you can see old constructions, temples and streets. They are lots of tourists come from all over the world to explore the old trace of this historical developed city. 

As one of earliest treaty port ratified by the Emperor of China in 1860, Tianjin was opened to Britain, France, Italy, Germany, etc. Tianjin was carved up by all these occupying powers. They established their own governed districts and built prisons, hospitals, churches, and schools. Today, many architectural reminders including buildings, streets, statues, etc.(see pictures below) left by these nations provide an exotic flavor to Tianjin.  

Tianjin made me feel peaceful and comfortable when I was there. The interesting fusion of western and eastern culture can be found everywhere in Tianjin. It is such an exotic historical city where you can experience the old Chinese style as well as foreign mixed atmosphere. Trust me, you will absolutely love it!  

Best Beach- Miami

Miami,located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida, has best beach line. You can enjoy great sunshine, pure blue sky, and beautiful ocean and beach, especially Miami south beach which is the most busiest spot and has best scenery. In the early morning, get up and sit on the beach watching sunrise.I love playing sand while waiting for sun to come out.

The port of Miami is one of the largest ports in the United States. It is the largest cruise ship port in the world. Miami has the world's largest amount of cruise line headquarters. Here you can ride a sightseeing cruise to see around this exciting city and adjacent islands.

 

Every corner is sunny with lots of green in Miami. Walking on the street, you feel any stress could be relieved by breathing Miami fresh air. I had fun in this amazing city during spring break of 2010. If you need a place to relax yourself, come to Miami!   

Largest City in China- Shanghai

As an international city, Shanghai is located on the eastern coast of China opening to everyone comes from all over the world. It's the largest city by population in the world. It's also a major financial center and the busiest port.To tourists, It is a hot place with its own Shanghai style and culture. Many historical landmarks such as The Bund, Lujiazui Skyline, City God Temple, Yuyuan Garden, 2010 World Expo, etc. are all worthwhile to visit. Today, let me take you to explore this city. 
In Shanghai, all types of transportation are available. You can take bus, subway, Maglev Train(connection between Beijing and Shanghai as well as all airports in Shanghai and the center of the city), Express Railway Train (connect Shanghai with surrounding cities and adjacent provinces),Boat (Shanghai is composed of two lands separated by Huangpu river), Express Tunnel (connect east and west Shanghai). As shown below, we took city sightseeing tour bus to see night view of Shanghai(the top left picture), subway, express railway train come to Shanghai from Suzhou City (middle right one in railway station),the boat from the Lujiazui Skyline (on the eastern bank of Huangpu River) to the Bund (on the western bank of Huangpu River)and express tunnel car (bottom left in a express car) from The Bund back to Lujiazui Skyline. If you have chance, try all these ways to go around. It's a lot of fun.

Lujiazui and the Bund are facing each other separated by Huangpu River. As I mentioned, you can take boat, tunnel express way or drive through multiple bridges to move from one side to the other. In the past 20 years, Lujiazui has become the most important financial district in China just like the Wall Street in New York. The famous spots in this area are Oriental Pearl Tower(the top corner picture), Shanghai World Financial Center (128-story landmark skyscraper), Jin Mao Building(88-story),and the Bank of China Tower. The Bund refers to the buildings and wharves as well as some adjacent areas on the center section of Zhongshan Road running along the western bank of the Hungpu River. It was initially a British settlement. At the beginning of 20th century, the Bund became a major financial hub of East Asia. There were bunch of historical buildings once used as banks and commercial trading houses by United Kingdom, the U.S., Italy, France, Russia, Germany and so on. Now, these buildings are still in use for different purposes also as the most popular attraction in Shanghai.    

Some pictures following show you some shopping and relaxing area close to the Bund (there are numerous bars and restaurants).

The City God Temple is a temple complex which is located in a traditional district of commerce in old Shanghai. There are hundreds of stores and shops (as shown in the grid below) surrounding the temple. Most of these store buildings are over century old. Here people go shopping, eating all kinds of delicious snack food (street food shown in top left pictures), or praying in the temple(as I did in two top right ones).  

The Yu Garden is an extensive Chinese Garden located beside the City God Temple. It was first built in 1559 during the Ming Dynasty as a private house garden and opened to the general in 1780. Yu Garden represents typical Shanghai style garden developed from Suzhou Garden style of China.

World Expo 2010, Shanghai was a big success. Many countries' pavilions have been torn down except for some most successful ones like Italian Pavilion, Saudi Arabia Pavilion(called Moon Boat）, Chinese Pavilion(two pictures on top left), etc as shown in below. If you are interested in new technology, concepts, innovations or art,come to visit these pavilions.The video at the end is taken in Saudi Arabia Pavilion. You can see how they showcased their ideas with high-tech.
If you are interested so far, come to experience this modern city and its different style.

3D Model of My Crafted House Yard

Autodesk 123D -- My Corner
Let me talk about my experience at first. I chose model of a house yard which I crafted in my Fundamentals of Forms class. After installing 123 Catch program on my iPhone, I started capturing 40 pictures of my model as instruction. However, the program died when I almost done (when I had around 38 pictures). It happened twice like this until I found I should have signed up for an account. Finally the 3D mesh was processed. The 123 catch app. on iPhone though has very limited features. It didn't allow me to edit/clean my mesh and make it decent. Thus, I opened it on my computer. It requested the installation of extra plugins in order to view in 3D model. Once I checked my mesh and felt unsatisfied that much, I lauched online 123 Catch to see how can I edit my mesh. Although online 123 Catch has more features than mobile one, it still does show the same interface as the tutorial videos. So I decided to install both 123 Make and 123 Catch software on my computer. But the 123 Make just didn't coorperate with my computer at all. The computer started running funny and super slow. Then I had to uninstall it to bring my computer back to normal.

Luckily, the 123 Catch seemed to work well. Also I realized that I was only asked to use 123 Catch to heal/clean my mesh. Then I downloaded all the zip files and unzipped the file into individual photos. I created a new capture by uploading these original photos and received the link in my email to download it. Now I can reopen it by choosing open an existing capture and keep working on it. I got rid of those uncleaned areas afterwards to generate the final completed mesh and published my work on the 123 gallery.

Some tips: Make sure you sign in every time when you open the 123 Catch program. And wait patiently during the process. Many steps such as uploading and creating a new capture, generating a mesh, and publishing the mesh to the gallery all take forever! Seriously, I must say the 123 serial sucks!

Capital of China, Beijing

As one of the most important cities in China, Beijing is a place I have to introduce you. Beijing is a vivid metropolis spiked with high-rises, changing and growing at a furious pace. For over a thousand years, the drama of China's imperial history was played out here.Although Beijing becomes a very different modern city, it still remains spiritually, culturally, and politically the heart of the nation.If we say Shanghai and Hongkong may be where the money is, Beijing attract people to come for its culture, politics, history, and arts.
I asked many of my American friends about the first impression or the first things they would think of China. Not surprisingly, they gave me mostly the same answer that is the Great Wall and Panda. Thus, the first place we are going to see is the Great Wall.

Many people misunderstand that the Great Wall is just a wall located in Beijing. In fact, the Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, bricks, wood and other materials. It was built as early as the 7th century BC along the historical northern borders of China from the east to west in order to protect the Chinese Empire against Mongolia. The major part of the Great Wall is composed of 3,889 mi sections of actual wall, 223 mi of trenches and 1,387 mi of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. The spot of the wall scenery many tourists usually go is the closest one called Ba Da Ling about 1.5 hrs drive from the Beijing city. 

The forbidden City, where the emperors of several dynasties lived, is located in the heart of the city. This place is massive with its complex consisting of 980 buildings and covering 7,800,000 sq ft. There used to be approximately 9,000 people including emperor, his wives, some of his family relatives and maids, servants living here. It's separated from the rest of the city area by a moat. After the liberation of China in 1949, Tian'anmen square was constructed right besides the Gate of Heavenly Peace of the Forbidden City. So you can see Chairman Mao's portrait hanging above the central entrance of the Forbidden City.

How about the life of folk people who were living outside the Forbidden City in Beijing? Hanging out in the Tea house was most popular thing to do in old time of Beijing. Many tea houses nowadays are reserved for their tradition. I'll take you to my favorite one called Laoshe Teahouse. It has become a chase teahouse these days. The interior decoration remains old Beijing style. Find yourself a comfortable seat, then you can enjoy a cup of tea and some Beijing snacks, pastries while you are watching traditional shows in Beijing including Peking opera, local acrobatics and talkshows. Here for your curiosity, I have some records on those fantastic performances(Peking opera, acrobatics with plates,and Sichuan opera mask change) taken in my past teahouse experience.

Another place is also a good place to relax. It is Houhai Lake which you can spend all night walking around, eating snacks, hitting the bars, exploring good live music, biking around, boating on the lake, etc. People here are super crazy about their night life. There are hundreds of all sorts of bars here. After browsing around for a while, I'm sure you can settle down for some music in some bar, and order a glass of beer with some grilled shish kebab:) At this moment, you would realize how beautiful your life can be.   

 

Next I wanna take you to one of the oldest streets and a famous snack street nearby Wangfujing shopping center of Beijing where some snapshots of me were taken in front (the left two in the grid below). Then the Olympic park built for 2008 Beijing Olympic is a popular spot you gotta visit. I was super excited when I went back to China and saw the Bird Nest Stadium and the Water Cube  Aquatics Centre in 2009.   

798 Art Zone/District, it's a collection of art galleries, boutiques and cafes is a hotspot for the arty crowd and for tourists who are interested in some new attractions in Beijing.This huge complex of Bauhaus-style buildings was originally an electronics factory 50 years ago. When it's closed down in the 1990s, artists moved in and converted all these cheap spaces into art studios. Nowadays, you can easily find some fresh contemporary art here. That's why I LOVE THIS CRAZY PLACE.  

It's a really limited introduction to Beijing.Beijing has too many interesting places to see. I have been to Beijing 8 times, but never got tired of this city.Every time, I felt time flying so fast and I'm so in love with Beijing. Not exaggerated to say, one month to explore this tremendous city is even not enough at all. Come to Beijing, it's gonna be a wonderful experience ever.   

                    
   

Blog + Logo = Blogo

These are two logo designs I made for my blog using vector based graphic program SVG-Edit (version 2.5.1) As you already know, the theme of my blog is Yini- a traveler on the road. Thus, the first one conveys a message "Yini around the world". It is a dream of Yini as well as a desirable goal the blog hopes to reach. Yini likes to share her stories traveling around the world. Suppose Yini is riding this amazing vehicle of all colorful balloons all around.The magical balloons can take Yini everywhere.So Yini will show you what she experienced later. Isn't that something?
What has Yini seen during her journey? Here comes a camera designed for the second logo says "Yini to see the world". She records things through this camera providing you some beautiful scenery. Therefore, camera is the traveler Yini's best friend.
The SVG-Edit (2.5) is fairly useful program worked pretty well for me to create the logs. Both log designs are very simple and succeed in conveying the message I wanted to express.Although the graph with cartoon style can be silly, perhaps it's quite easy for the viewers to understand and accept.          

Text-Based Art Projects

I. ASCII projects

GlassGiant ASCII

The pictures for my first ASCII work on GlassGiant.com are of lovely Hello Kitty and SpongeBob. The art convertor was very simple and easy to work with. I applied default setting and input the web URL to the image. Then got the results.

 

Convert into ASCII 

Original Ladybug Image

 Convert into HTML

 Original Image of Little Yini

 Convert into Matrix

Convert into ASCII

Convert into HTML

 Original Ted Image

TEXT-IMAGE ASCII

There are three types of convertors on the TEXT-IMAGE.com. The program has more good features and fun. As shown in above, I practiced ASCII, HTML and Matrix convertors respectively. Teddy bear one should be my favorite and most successful piece so I converted  it to all three forms.

 

II. Tag Coulds Project

 

For this project, I used Tagxedo Creator. Firstly, I uploaded the lyric of a song called Love Paradise. Therefore, I chose the one of heart shapes to match with the meaning. Then set the theme color as constantin and the font as Vladimir Script. Finally, the result was saved as 2MP PNG file.

 

III. Textorizer Projects

Textorizer 1

I used the sketch of me and my husband to make this textorizer 1 image. Firstly, I cropped the picture using Pixlr Advaned and saved it. Then uploaded it on Textorizer 1. Then I input the text words as love happy brian yini and set the opacity as 0. The number of strings was about 12000 and the range of font sizes was 10-28. After set the output size as 1236x1000, I made the final image.

 

Textorizer 2

The theme of this image is baby Yini and her parents. I remember the opacity was set as 150. The words I input was an essay from online talked about "love between my parents and me".  

 

Excoffizer

I want to use this one as an example to explain how I made these pictures. The output size was set to 1005x1196, the numbers of opacity, angle, wiggle, and space between lines ware adjusted as 50, 30.9, 13.5, 3 respectively. And the stretch X and Y were 1.1 and 1.2. All these settings were obtained through my experiments. By the way, the photo is of my favorite top famous singer in China called Chris Lee. I found the result made the best effects as well as kept her charming look.

Typology- Becher Grid

Types of Perfume Bottles
I took 16 pictures of my favorite perfume bottles before using the photo editing program- Pixlr's Advanced Photo Editor. Then I opened one image on Pixlr's, and started adjusting the level of image in order to get the best tone (i.e. brightness value). Actually, it wasn't too hard once you figure out how to adjust it according to the histogram. I didn't apply auto adjustment of levels because I found it doesn't make much difference.
The second step is to crop the photo. I set 1:1 aspect ratio so I cut excess space of it. Next step, I resized every image to 875 x 875 pixels preapred for the final grid with the size of 4000 x 4000 pixels. Now I began to create the final grid. Firstly, I made a blue background image at a size of 4000 x 4000 pixels. Then I opened the images I edited and did cut/paste on the blue background. To make better layout of images, I manipulated a white spacer (100 x 100 pixles) to aid me with the arranging the image to a right position. After make sure everything look perfect for the final grid, I flattened all layers (incl. the background layer, photo layers) and saved as PNG and JPEG files.
This Typology project is really fun and the advanced Pixlr's works for me. It was a little frustrating only when I was using a spacer to move the images on the background layer. Other than that, everything is easy and interesting.      

 

Generative Art Projects

I. Scribbler Project
By using Scribbler program, I simply drew some curve lines in the upper one. Then adjusted the line thickness and scribbliness in the scribbler setting. It was my first trial and wasn't perfect. But I really liked the result. Literally, I had some ideas about the feature of this app. after more practice. Then I came up with the second one with stars and tried different colors (blue and yellow). I did pause the scribbler so I can adjust setting during it's working. Since the scribbler doesn't have save command, you have to find a way to save your work. There is a QQ messenger screen grab app. installed on my computer, so I captured the picture by that. And I intentionally cut the half-way scribbled ones.

II. Scribbler Too Project
Scribbler Too is definitely more advanced version than Scribbler. It has all variables for each value in setting (incl. canvas, brush, color). Moreover, you can even upload your own preferred pictures and start from that. It's said one of the most important improvements of Scribbler Too is that you are able to save the image. However, it didn't work well for me. After I saved my work with scribbler, I can't open it again. Then I found the only way to get access to my stuff is to drag the file to the Scribbler Too sketching area. I did that, then applied my QQ app. to grab the picture so that it can be saved as JPEG file.
For the first one, I started from the uploaded photo of my dog Lacey. I adjusted several values in brush setting including Radius, Connections, Stroke and Fuzzyness and applied different colors to the Lacey's eyes, eye brows, mustache, tail and body trunk. The following second version of Lacey, I made it for fun. Wasn't sure may look weird.
In the second part of this project, I need to create an image that appears to have a sense of volumn. I sketched a structure mimicing the endoplasmic reticulum in biology cell. As you can see, I used grey color line and adjusted in brush settings such as stroke size, fuzzyness, radius, etc.
The last one actually came from one of my initial trails. It's supposed to be nest-like shape. But it looks somehow different afterwards. I used purple red and blue colors for the sketching, and also turned the background color to red in the canvas setting. I want to show my early results working on the Scribbler Too.

III. Flame Project
The flame painter is awesome. First, I can't help to comment on it. You draw with fire. Multiple ways ends up with surprising effects. Even though it is almost impossible to drew something literal, you can make abstract images with interesting flow to express some sort of emotion. Varied starting points may result in different results. Of course, you can also choose different color and change settings. The upper one is about two connected hearts meaning sweet love. Red and blue were used as color based of the flame. It was not easy to handle and control the flame painter. This one turned out the best one after I failed many times. The second one I wanted to play more with the brush by cycling to create a different effect. It's so neat by driving the brush in multiple ways I can make some places with more density and some ones look more spacious. Therefore, I created second one named "Bloody" on white background. My work was easily saved with the Flame as it has save command.