Author: levinishungry

Pictograms are the most efficient modes of visual communication. They distill the essentials of the message that needs to be conveyed and arrange them on a 2D surface in a direct way. Since it doesn’t waste any time in getting to the message, pictograms are usually used for signs or warning symbols, to communicate to people in situations when not a lot of time can be used to interpret messages. Some artists have used pictograms to re-imagine familiar images, like the movie posters below:

In a new book, Chinese-German artist Yang Liu uses pictograms to express the two parts of her identity. Liu was born and raised in China until 14, when her family moved to Germany. She has a unique sense of cultural duality that allows her to feel neither Chinese nor German; she “feels [herself] as more of a person, who belongs to all the places [she’s] been to.” It’s interesting how she approaches her cultural background as something that helps her to view herself more as a citizen of the world rather than only a part of a specific culture. Growing up in two cultures allowed her to examine her place within a society in a larger context, which is a fresh way to look at it because it’s such a mature point of view.

And her approach is definitely reflected in her pictograms, so effective in their simplicity: some of them definitely have a wry code of humor embedded in them, and all of them observe the world from a person standing at the boundary of the two cultures, one who is able to move from one to the other effortlessly. Liu’s work and her approach to cultural identity really inspired how I want to look at the world someday, as a person fluent in many cultural dialects of the world.

-Noise levels in a restaurant, West vs. East

-How people line up, West vs. East

-How people view each other

-Problem-solving methods, West vs. East

-Size of ego, West vs. East

More articles:
East Meets West: An Infographic Portrait

Interview with Yang Liu

Buy the book here!

What makes movies so intriguing to people? Why do people like them?
If we were to and make a list of all the answers to these questions, the list would probably never end. Tapping into the inner 4-year in every person, one would simply answer that “The pictures move!” Movies move, and this is what inherently intrigues us about them. Movement in films is not restricted to the literal ‘movement’ on the screen- the viewers are ‘moved’ into the world that the film creates and become emotionally ‘moved’ through the illusion of ‘movement’ that the technical weaving of still images creates.
Because movies are technically a sequence of still images, it’s easy to credit photography with being the direct predecessor of cinema. Though in the technical aspect this is largely true, the establishment and development of cinema as a cultural product stemmed more from the theatrical aspects of magic shows. The first movies were literally parts of magic shows, played in makeshift tents on circus grounds, and to the people watching them, these moving images were nothing short of magic. Cinema, much like magic performances, enthralls its audiences and gives them a sense of wonder. As viewers, we get lost in the artificial ‘realism’ within the screen- and this concocted realism leads us to willingly suspend logic and lose ourselves within the realm of the film.
One notable technique used in these early films is ‘rotoscoping.’ Though the term is now more heavily associated with hand-drawn animation techniques, it can refer to the general frame-by-frame manipulation of movies in any genre. Rotoscoping in early films often refers to the hand-coloring of single shots in order to make a ‘color’ film. This technique and the ‘magic’ of the cinema is well shown in the first science fiction movie ever made- Georges Meilies’ A Trip to the Moon (1902). The hand-colored version of the movie was restored completely and played at the 2011 Cannes film festival.

watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4dTVfSJoj04

*One thing to note here is that the soundtrack is NOT part of the original film- it was composed by the French band Air and inserted into the remastered version of the movie. The original (and better known) version of the film is the silent black-and-white film that is played with a spoken narration by Meilies himself.
Another technical aspect of this film is the frame rate, which is 16 frames per second (the standard fps of the time). To modern audiences, this low fps rate is what makes the movie look ‘choppy’- we are used to seeing video played at 24 fps and higher, and the frame rates are getting higher as technology progresses.
And now, for your viewing pleasure, is the full-length clip of Georges Meilies’ Le Voyage Dans le Lune. The science in the movie is surprisingly accurate in some parts and just pure fiction in others. But it is nonetheless an endearing film…
Le Voyage dans la Lune Original

A lot of my memories, especially early ones, are associated with wisps of senses—the warmth of the eggs we had incubated in my 3rd grade class, the enormity of the first Fourth of July fireworks I watched, the smell of cinnamon buns cooking in the oven on an unexpected snow day. A lot of the American road-trip memories that I keep with me are feelings of vastness, of simultaneous emptiness and freedom; somehow, I remember the Southwest roads the best. The slightly dusty, clear-skied landscape seemed to stretch on forever, not paying the slightest attention to our little Mitsubishi Galant crawling on its surface.

And if a crazy-looking hitchhiker with a Polaroid camera turned up on the side of such a road, we definitely would not have let him into the car. But of course, since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a horror film, the characters had to give him a lift. And of course, this leads them into a chain (ha!) of unexpected events.

I’d never seen the movie before the October 19th midnight showing, though it’s such an iconic film that I’d heard of it and the horror stories surrounding its filming process. Apparently Entertainment Weekly even ranked as the second scariest movie of all time, just after The Exorcist; and given my history with scary movies, it’s a mystery as to why I decided to go at all.

Then again, if EW had been at the midnight showing last Saturday, they would have retracted that ranking pretty quickly. The midnight showing was a testament to how the viewing experience could change the reading of a film drastically, for better or for worse. In a nearly filled room at the State Theater at midnight, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre read more like an unintentionally funny movie rather than a legitimately scary horror film. For me, it allowed me to distance myself from the film and make it less scary to digest, which I liked better. But I also know that some people were less than thrilled to watch it in such an environment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great movie with genius pacing; the whole film details less than 24 hours and many scenes of just Sally running away screaming, yet somehow it still holds together. The creepy dinner scene at the end especially- the 27 consecutive hours of filming certainly paid off.

Maybe it was the time, maybe it was the audience, or maybe it was just that the ‘scary’ codes in the movie didn’t quite match up to 21st century standards—so many factors make up the viewing experience. There was a unique sense of community as well; the fact that all of us came out at midnight to see a classic horror film certainly added to this aspect. Personally, it didn’t detract from my appreciation of the film but made it more special. I’m looking forward to doing it again (Rock Horror Picture Show in a week- the Midnight Theater Experience, vol. 2!)

A few blocks into my walk, I realize that this is a bad idea. I don’t know why it hadn’t hit me before—walking alone at night, in a city that I hadn’t been to in 10 years, heading towards an unknown destination. The rest of my friends had left about 7 hours ago, and they had already made it back safely. It felt just right when I was booking the ticket, a midnight Megabus ride from Chicago back to Ann Arbor. It would give me a few extra hours in Chicago to catch up with a high school friend, and I could sleep on the bus and spend the next day being relatively productive (which, by the way, did not happen).

But now, swimming in an endless pool of eerie orange streetlights, I feel like a to-be subject of a crime report. “MISSING GIRL: Ann Arbor Police seeking 19 year old girl last seen in Chicago. Friends and family are desperate for answers.” Accompanying photo: my horrifyingly unflattering, jetlagged MCard picture. Nope, when I make it into the paper, I want good lighting, makeup, and Photoshop—the whole nine yards.

I’d never realized that being alone could be scary. Then again, I’d never been this alone. I wanted to leap forward 7 hours in time; I wanted to be back home.

Wait, home… as in my cramped dorm in Bursley, not all the way back in Korea. It was the first time that home truly meant Ann Arbor. It was an odd feeling, realizing that ‘home’ would probably never mean my old childhood room again. During my imagination-induced panic attack, I called my floormates for moral support, not my parents to come pick me up. Huh.

As I settle into my seat on the not-at-all sketchy Megabus (I made it alive!), I think about the last time I was in Chicago. I’d been with my parents—we filled up on Korean groceries, my dad got a haircut and we had sushi at a Japanese restaurant we were regulars at. It was a routine trip; with destinations planned out in advance and a car to drive on roads we had taken for three years by then. The city almost seemed small, because we only went to the places we always went to.

This time, I had made the journey with three members of my new Michigan family; we had no specific destinations, no car, and just Google Maps. At the beginning of the trip, I was confident that I knew the city pretty well—I was welling in nostalgia, thinking of the ghosts of the old me that I would meet up with in memory-laden parts of the city. And in some places, I did. I saw the 10-year-old me climbing down the steps between the 2^nd floor botanical gardens and Children’s Museum at Navy Pier. I remember trying to measure the height of the Bean as a school project in 4th grade, and buying a giant Hershey bar at the Water Tower as a souvenir.

But most of the time on this trip, it was a rediscovery of both the city and myself. I’d never before realized how pretty the Chicago skyline was, but after a month in art school I found myself trying to see and capture the beauty of the buildings. I’d never seen the sunrise at Navy Pier, with friends giddily drunk on the magic of the early morning hours. I’d never had Ghiradelli’s Nob Hill Chill (heaven in a cup). I’d never ‘Eggsperienced’ the fantastic 24-hour brunch restaurant (called Eggsperience), nor had I walked there across the city at 4 in the morning. I’d never realized how eerily deserted a large city gets at night, how all the lights are on but no one’s there, making you feel empty yet misleadingly powerful at the same time. I’d never had to force myself to muster courage to conquer my fears ofsomething unknown. As I left Chicago with new memories and new discoveries, I began to wonder what the next trip will bring.

“…You came to take us

All things go, all things go

To recreate us

All things grow, all things grow

We had our mindset

All things know, all things know

You had to find it

All things go, all things go…”

-Sufjan Stevens, “Chicago”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFrG6S0GnhU]