Final Project Proposal

  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wmZP7CXY0GZU8sNpmw935yGkSeDbxsPyyUtv-7N815Y/edit?usp=drivesdk In a world saturated with information and image, the Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara offers something radically different: quiet, repetition, and the minimalist documentation of time. Through his daily rituals—painting the date, sending telegrams, or mailing postcards—Kawara systematically marked his own presence without ever offering his identity. Simultaneously, Roland Barthes, in his seminal essays such as The Death of the Author and Image-Music-Text , argued for a critical shift in how we interpret art and literature. For Barthes, meaning is not determined by the artist’s intention but by the viewer's interaction with the work.  I argue that On Kawara’s conceptual practice, through its minimalist text and rejection of narrative or personal expression, exemplifies Roland Barthes’ notion of the “death of the author” and the “writerly text”; by reducing art to imperso...

In Musica Practica , Roland Barthes argues that music should not be reduced to theory or passive listening but instead should be understood as an embodied, felt experience. When he writes, “Beethoven’s deafness designates the lack wherein resides all signification,” he is pointing to a deeper truth: that true meaning in music, and by extension, in art, is not in technical perfection, but in presence , tactility , and the emotional grain of expression. Barthes sees Beethoven’s deafness not as absence but as a condition that makes music more physical, more tangibly intelligible,  something felt in the body rather than just read on a score. This idea resonates with my final project, where I collage fragments of old photographs into new compositions. Like Barthes’ concept of musica practica , my process is tactile and interpretive — I manipulate found images with my hands and digitally reconfigure them into something expressive. I’m not preserving the "original" meaning of the ...

In regard to my final project, the role of authorship is to create new meaning from repurposed images.  I know my work is not fully original because it will contain elements that are not mine.  In many ways I am a viewer of other's work, and I am taking pieces of their work to derive my own meaning from it, or at least that is the goal in the end.  Truly, I just want to take these elements so far away from the context they were in that hopefully, this new creation is in some form mine.  I believe the work I want to create will be as original as a collage created from a magazine.  This also means that yes, at times I will indeed attempt to anchor my image to a specific meaning, but there is no guarantee the viewer will engage with that.  In an effort to repurpose different elements of other images, I feel better with anchorage as opposed to something more polysemic.  However, as I said before, there is nothing forcing the viewer to engage with the meani...

  Metal Art Installation of Human Skeleton and Dinosaur Skeleton I chose this image because it goes along with my project of repurposing snapshots of places I have been.  This image actually being one that I have taken elements from, those elements being linguistic ones.  Prior to analyzing this image, I want to share a quote from Barthes, "Does the image duplicate certain of the informations given in the text by a phenomenon of redundancy or does the text add a fresh information to the image?"(38).  I am interested in this quote because I understand Barthes was talking about the image in a very focused lens of advertisements.  However, when we expand this to other images such as this random one of an art installation stationed in front of a graffitied wall, you can begin to ponder on the meaning of the image.  For example, this specific image contains so much to be explored, firstly the many words, some obscured and some legible.  Clearly legible, a...

Jiayi Young is a talented artist and professor at UC Davis, known for her innovative work that combines digital media, science, and technology. Her art explores themes like cultural assimilation, personal identity, and consumer culture, using interactive installations that invite public participation. Key Projects Cultural Oscillator : This installation uses real-time data to visualize the cultural assimilation process, allowing viewers to interact and explore personal identity. Consumption Cycle : Through sensor-enabled interfaces, this project visualizes consumer behavior data, prompting reflection on consumption patterns and their societal impact. Impact Young's work is more than just visually appealing; it encourages social engagement and critical thinking. By making art interactive and inclusive, she fosters a deeper connection between the artwork and its audience, promoting a sense of community and shared experience.

For this project, I want to expand upon the skills and techniques I developed in my Intro to Graphic Design class, specifically working with Adobe Photoshop to create layered, experimental imagery. In that class, I was introduced to the idea of using my own photography as raw material for design work — cutting, isolating, blending, and distorting images to create something entirely new. Building from that foundation, I want to create a new body of work that explores ideas of memory, place, and the emotional relationship we have with everyday environments. I plan to use photographs I’ve taken over the past few years — mostly scenes from New York City, portraits of friends, and snapshots of small, personal moments — and manipulate them digitally to create surreal, dreamlike compositions. This project is about reworking my own personal archive — turning familiar images into fragmented, layered landscapes that feel both personal and distant, recognizable yet abstract. Through this process,...