midterm semester project proposal

• What my semester project would be based on is Anxiety. i chose this particular topic because its something that i have been dealing with since the age of 12 and its a very important topic especially now that we are going through this current pandemic. i also plan on being an advocate for people who suffers from anxiety. so that i may make a difference in someones life that I have experienced already. while going through this pandemic I have been hospitalized more than once due to my anxiety, staying in one spot (meaning being home lock down) has been my trigger. i used to being outside to clear my mind. in my project i will go deeper into talking about anxiety during this pandemic.
  Even though Anxiety is over looked as just one of those common mental health illness , theirs much more to it anxiety then we think. in fact while doing my research i found out that theirs a difference between Anxiety and Anxiety disorder i thought , Anxiety was just one name and meaning. Anxiety disorder when broken down as its own collected amount of different disorders as well such as  Generalized Anxiety Disorder which i believe the whole word is suffering from due to this current pandemic and with  the symptoms that falls underneath this particular disorder such as 
  • Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge
  • Being easily fatigued
  • Having difficulty concentrating; mind going blank
  • Being irritable
  • Having muscle tension
  • Difficulty controlling feelings of worry
  • Having sleep problems, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, restlessness, or unsatisfying sleep
  even though there are more anxiety disorders which ill go into more detail with during my project presentation I will also she how Anxiety work throught men, woman and children. The multple sighns for each , diffrent techniques that can be used or what I use to cope att home with my anxiety. Im so happy that we were givin this assaighnment to bring a warness of so many issues and topics that are soimportant and broad that no one every talks about,or even acknowledge .so im just excited to bring forth my semester projects with education knowledge on how to survive with Anxiety and Anxiety disorders
  what people doesn't realize is how effective Anxiety can harm you physically, mental and emotionally. I know that many of the people in the day and age suffers from  breakdowns because of the many difficult struggles that we face on a daily basis  just stay alive and afloat  but in reality its killing us but no one is really talking about it.so let me and my semester project give you such an inspirational, educational show of Anxiety.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
                                                 Adele
  
  
  Oprah Winfrey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Guerline Octavius

Professor: Doris Cacoilo

Course: Acts of Resistance

Date: April 8, 2020

Chapter 3 to Wear pg.97-108
                         1) "Through a series of video cameras and microphones, the wearer can communicate with another person standing behind him."
                         Response: With the creativity of technology, you are able to communicate with people through an armor, which is incredible because with technology you are cable of doing anything.
                         2) "Out role is a tiny one in that overall movement, where people are engaged in thousands of other approaches to the issues."
                         Response: Our role in this world is not much at all, getting yourself involved is important. For example, like each person that vote matters and can make a change.

Seeing Power pg.83-106
                         1) "These methods of navigating the world in terms of language and power shape our daily actions."
                         Response: Traveling the world is a helpful technique of knowing different cultures and your prediction of the world. Also, make yourself well in social life.
                         2) "Making a living to pay rent and out food on on the table motivate actions."
                         Response: I agree with this quote because in order to pay your rent and out food on the table, you have to be obligated to work, which is part of making yourself active

Anthony Vinci
Professor Cacoilo
ART 263
18 March 2020
Proposal

I am Anthony, I am very bad at a lot of things, I am also very good at a number of things. One of these things is complaining. I may seem miserable most of the time but that is because I am simply an expert at the art of complaining. How does this tie into my proposal for my activism project? Well activism is a fancy middle school word for complaining. The only real difference is that activism is supposed to be marginally more productive. I say marginally because I strongly believe complaining itself is a very productive act, it is thought provoking and leads to laziness which leads to efficiency. More about Anthony. I prefer music over eating food, I enjoy music a lot. With this I take my project to the form of music. I am not a million dollar company so I am affected by our current recession and considering what organs I can live without for money. With this considered the way I can make my project about music while in a medium I can easily produce and distribute in a cost effective way would be a zine.
The next question that arises in the topic of my zine is, what will the topic of my zine be? Well a good place to start with that would be discussing the format of the zine I am creating. The contents of the zine will be a brief overview of who is in my band(Dignitary) as an introduction. Following this is where the real meat of the project comes into play. The song titles along with their lyrics will be shown. The topics of each song is where activism comes into play. Dignitary is a hardcore band so the topics will stretch across different areas. I’m good at complaining so the topics of each song vary. So far there are about seven songs written, each about different topics, for example, feelings about military treatment, environmental issues, everyday facades, hypocrisy, really just everything that gets the blood boiling. I wouldn’t limit myself to making songs about one topic, I’m not Ed Sheeran with his entire discography being about love, I will not have an entire discography about why I think putting raisins in cookies should be a hate crime. My message will vary depending on how I feel about each topic and the great thing about being a performing musician is I have all these people in front of me and they are listening so I can even vocalise my thoughts outside of the songs. To clarify some of the ways I feel about the previously mentioned topics, I think those in the military are taken advantage of the put it simply, I think many people profit greatly off of the horrible treatment of the environment, and I think that everyone is a hypocrite that can complain about amazon but still use their services because the want their cat carrier to have two days shipping regardless of the workers protesting constantly.
The next part of why I selected a zine is how easy it is for it to reach people. Zines can easily be printed and given at shows but are not limited to being given at shows. They can easily be left anywhere to be found. Touching back on why giving them out at shows is great is because a gig will usually have around one hundred people in a room on a bad day and people take a free little booklet if it looks nice enough. When something is free it is very easy to run out of stock, in this case that is a very good thing because of how easy it is to resupply. Using the zine as a medium for further expression will reach out to a larger audience more easily and it is more easily understood than listening to lyrics during a live show. With having a zine you don’t need to try and decipher the words or figure out what it is about as the info is right in your hands.
Picking a zine is a very good method for me to choose personally as the music scene is one very present in my life and my career aspirations. I am going to school with an intended path in learning about audio but that is only because I wanted to learn about how to produce my own music. All I really live for is my music and everything else is there. Some may think such an existence is pathetic and I totally agree with those people, but I would have to say it's equally as pathetic of an existence as the people who live to look forward to their wedding day. Different interests for different people. I go to school so I can be knowledgeable on producing better music, I go to work so I can eat another day to live until my next show, it only makes sense to make a project for my art class apply to music in a sense.
Two of the artists that have inspired me to move in a direction that can considered activism are Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn. One of the two are more of your typically expected artists as he is a cartoonist and the other is a musician. I've been interested in these two for a long time as I have grown up with the music they make. They have a very popular project together called Gorillaz and in this they express a lot of opinions. A great example of one of their songs that was very straight forward about its point is called "Hallelujah Money". This song came out January 20th 2017 which many can take a lucky guess as to why. The song is witty and uses irony. Although my band is a much different genre, these two people both influence what I think my music is for. When it comes to my lyrics I strive for that same wit and power although I am very far from it still. One of the more heavily activist songs I have written is Ill-Ethology and this song is very blatant in its meeting talking about topics of the military and government. This idea can be twisted though because I have no hate for the young people being taken advantage to serve their country that will forget about them. There are other songs in less extreme topics such as minor opinions but realistically its all the little things that effect us the most. A couple of these songs can be found on both soundcloud and bandcamp at the moment until the release of more music.
Soundcloud- https://soundcloud.com/dignitarytheband
Bandcamp- https://dignitarytheband.bandcamp.com/
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/dignitarytheband/?hl=en
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/DIGNITARYTHEBAND/

Self Portrait

~The Key to me~

•Sunflowers: My purity, loyalty, and longevity 

•Face paint: My inner difference, the colors not meshing up shows the imbalance of my emotions 

•Whitetop: The purity of hiding my impurities 

•Pink Wall & Skirt: The constant feeling that I am forced to pursue society's feminine standards 

•Closed- open- closed eyes: The constant silent thought, that reality is too scary to bear witness. 

Group Project

By- By- Ivana Lakata, Anthony Vinci, Stefano Holguin, Raven Dickson, Ryan

Slides:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ejlyz2VSpWQqXAMSiAtfaOgZ6iKpMuNwr7N22ycph1c/edit?ts=5e8b4a6c#slide=id.p

Recording:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vTo5x5q_mJjBBtBmaJUWsdy13n6fmh_q/view

Video For Class:
https://youtu.be/jHP0Vsz8QX8

Reference:

https://artandresponse.com/product/a-tale-of-two-hoodies/

http://fixcapitalism.com/art-response-an-interview-with-michael-dantuono/

https://www.britannica.com/event/shooting-of-Trayvon-Martin

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/florida-jury-finds-george-zimmerman-not-guilty-of-murder-1

Police brutality is legally defined as a civil rights violation where officers force against civilians. This can include physical, verbal harassment, physical or mental injury.
We choose this because police brutality is a big issue in this society. Many are scared for their lives. We need to stop this. I also wanted to pick this topic because I will be a police officer (also therapist) so I want to hear people personal experience with the police. I believe everyone has a different perspective on police. There are good and bad cops.

Semester Project Midterm Proposal

Raven Dickson
Prof. Cacoilo
Acts Of Resistance
25, March 2020

Semester Project Proposal (Midterm)

  The main topic of my semester project is Mental Health. I chose this topic because I’m a passionate advocate for mental health and plan on pursuing a career in Clinical Psychology, which heavily deals with that. I’ve experienced struggles with my mental health ever since I was in middle school and still do as I’m entering adulthood. According to the Mental Health First Aid website, it’s stated that “Half of all mental disorders begin by age 14 and three-quarters by age 24”(Mental Health First Aid "5 Surprising Mental Health Statistics" 2019). During that time in my life, I didn’t have as many outlets to educate me on mental health and inform me on how to cope with those hardships of dealing with it in a healthy manner, unlike the unlimited access that we’re granted now. Also, some family members, friends, and peers of mine have told me about their mental health and how they cope or struggle with any mental illnesses they have.


  Mental health is often overlooked due to the stigmas from social media, culture, or just lack of knowledge. For example, the idea of how any mental disorder is just ‘a phase’ or that those with mental disorders are weak and attention-seeking. Generalized misconceptions about mental health make it more difficult for it to be acknowledged in a serious manner and properly treated. It makes those who are struggling with it discouraged to ask for help and feel alone in experiencing it. It’s just as significant as your physical health since it affects your emotions, behavior, the way you think and how you interact with others. The conversation about mental health should reach adolescents early on to help those who are dealing with their mental illness address and understand it. In raising awareness, it’ll also help lessen the rate of adults that have trouble handling it.


  In approaching this project, I want to create a collage and mixed media zine centered on mental health and it’ll be 10-20 pages. I specifically chose to use collage and mixed media as the art directions for this, because I feel that it’ll truly capture the mood of stress and other emotions that are associated with symptoms of mental disorders. Firstly, I’ll be sharing my own experience in a visual narrative of me battling my mental health from the time I was a teen to the present day. For example, I’d have a page where I’m being told remarks that result in me thinking negatively about myself then weave in the advice I’d give to myself for that moment, using collaged letters. Secondly, I’ll have brief fact sheets for each common mental disorder and a list of healthy coping mechanisms for your overall mental health. Lastly, I plan on listing professional mental health resources for the audience to reference from. The way I’m designing the zine is as if it were a guide to my middle school self, acknowledging any feelings that I felt at the time and later in my life that others may relate to.


  My targeted audience for this project is teens and adults. The messages I want to give them is that they’re not alone in their battles when dealing with mental illness, their feelings are valid, and that mental health is important to care for. I would convey those messages to my audience by visually expressing my experience with mental health, providing encouraging text, and including resources to help them (i.e: hotlines, websites, facts, etc) for the zine. My audience could engage in the resources I provide in the zine. In reaching out to them, I would share my project by having a certain amount of physical copies of the zine made, having a digital version of the zine made to share on all of my social media platforms, and promote it to the psychology departments and clubs on campus.


  This project would fit into my professional aspirations well because it coincides with my future profession, Clinical Psychology. The project would be great for me to reference going into that field of psychology since it’s related to mental health; showing my passion, further knowledge, and understanding of the topic. In doing this project, I’m encouraged to contribute in taking a direct approach in advocating for this cause rather than doing so from afar like I usually do. As an artist, it provides me with more practice and experience with my main art forms, which are photography and collage. I’ll also have new content created to add to my professional art portfolio.



5 Artists (That influenced or inspired this project & connect with the topic) :


1). Elohim (singer, songwriter, and producer)



(Pictured on the left is Elohim herself and on the right is the album cover artwork of her EP BRAINDEAD)


Links:

• https://www.thefader.com/2018/04/27/elohim-interview
• https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/8542034/elohim-interview-producer-20-questions
• https://www.instagram.com/elohim/?hl=en

2). Edvard Munch (Expressionist painter)

    
(Pictured on the left is Edvard Munch himself and on the right is his famous painting titled “The Scream”(1893)


Links:

• https://www.edvardmunch.org/
• https://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp

3). Logic (rapper, songwriter, producer, and author)

   

(Pictured on the left is Logic himself and on the right is the album cover artwork for his single “1-800-273-8255” feat. Alessia Cara & Khalid)


Links:

• https://www.allmusic.com/artist/logic-mn0000829633/biography
• https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/logic-talks-suicide-prevention-hit-coping-with-anxiety-star-wars-fandom-205328/
• https://themighty.com/2017/12/logic-hospitalized-derealization-disorder/

4). Kirsty Latoya (Illustrator, Poet, & Author)


   
(Pictured on the left is Kirsty Latoya herself and on the right is her digital piece titled “Stress”)


Links:

• http://www.kirzart.com/about
• http://www.kirzart.com/portfolio
• https://www.voicemag.uk/blog/4824/interview-with-kirsty-latoya-artist-poet-change-maker
• https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/kirsty-latoya/how-art-took-me-on-a-jour_b_16620442.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIlapEFH0BtZpEQCLlaAvDZeh3UoUmeNZba-Eu9bUfpr0VRS_obM_gCr8OG2cS86toYNvJBIvRHH8IOCDZ5N7K6WjYbbW3bFGGC6PEEncIMZZBvINThD-9C3aLxxna1l8XYxy7oiJNoM5O26hVUg8hd4xHv5yJoQmq6O6dnfr1Xp

5). George J. Harding (Fine artist and oil painter)


     
(Pictured on the left is George J. Harding himself and on the right is his painting titled “Happiness Projected”.)


Links:

• https://www.georgejharding.co.uk/about/
• https://www.georgejharding.co.uk/art/self/#&gid=1&pid=21
• https://klmpersonalproject2012.wordpress.com/tag/george-harding/

Other Projects (that inspired this project & connected with the topic) :


ANXIETY GENERATION Exhibition by Stuart Semple


Link:

• http://stuartsemple.com/project/anxiety-generation/
• https://klmpersonalproject2012.wordpress.com/tag/george-harding/

Sula Collective Issue 3: Mental Health (2015) by Sula Collective


Link:

• https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-7-zines-helped-people-work-mental-health-issues

    When planning this project the first person that came to mind as inspiration was the musician, singer, songwriter, and producer Elohim. Elohim is a huge advocate for mental health especially since she suffers from anxiety, depression and panic disorder. She uses her music and performing as a form of therapy for herself and fans that may suffer from mental illness, reminding them that they’re not alone in battling it. Another musical artist that inspired me for this project is the rapper Logic. Logic grew up in a family that struggled with mental illness and addiction; music was his way to escape those struggles and tell his story whilst pursuing his passion. Within his career he has suffered derealization disorder, vocally expressing his own battles with his mental health and raising awareness of the topic in his music. What resonated me with both musicians is how they used their music and lyricism to be vulnerable yet informative about the topic. In doing that it makes them extend relatability to their audience and that’s one of the goals I want to accomplish in this project.


   The next set of artists that inspired me for this project range from painters and illustrators. The expressionist painter and printer Edvard Munch has repressed his emotions throughout most of his life due to the impact of his father who struggled from mental illness when raising him. He also endured the loss of his mother and sister from tuberculosis during his early childhood. In his paintings he’d use color to set the tone and emotion of it along with the style of symbolism to showcase the meaning of them. Munch’s paintings reflected the deep themes and trauma he’s experienced in his life. Next, the digital illustrator, poet and writer Kirsty Latoya uses her passion for art to focus on addressing the various issues of mental health. She started battling depression when she was 14 due to low-self esteem and suffering from her chronic illness, Marfan’s Syndrome. Later on as an adult when she lost her mother to Marfan’s Syndrome, she revisited her passion for art and used it as a form of therapy; creating self portraits portraying how she felt which also resonated with others who felt the same way too. The last artist that inspired me was fine artist oil painter George J. Harding, who explores the universal portrayals of mental health in his work. Harding uses the style of characterization and ambiguity in his work to convey such emotions stemmed from mental illness and recovery from it. The aspect of all three artists that resonated with me the most is the approach of visual art therapy and self-reflecting in their work. When I was younger the ways that I would cope with my emotions were through writing and drawing how I felt in that moment. I found it therapeutic since I wasn’t comfortable with sharing how I felt aloud most of the time. In doing this project, personally I want to utilize it as art therapy for myself but most importantly communicate those feelings and emotions to my audience so they’re able to understand.






Resource List:

1. https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/2019/02/5-surprising-mental-health-statistics/
2. https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/mental-health/adolescent-mental-health-basics/common-disorders/index.html
3. https://www.centennialmhc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Myths-and-Stereotypes-about-Those-with-MH-Disorders.pdf
4. https://www.mhanational.org/
5. https://www.mentalhealth.gov/
6. https://www.who.int/mental_health/en/
7. https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/index.htm
8. https://www.medicinenet.com/mental_health_psychology/article.htm#what_are_common_types_of_mental_illness
9. https://www.verywellmind.com/forty-healthy-coping-skills-4586742
10. https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/coping-mechanisms
11. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/what-is-mental-illness

Ryan Urban

Professor Cacoilo

Acts of Resistance

23 March, 2020

            In my project for this semester I wanted to add in some of the stuff that I am learning for my major here at NJCU. I am a fire science major and for this project assignment I have decided that is would like to explain more about how important fire safety is in this portion of life for the age we are in. During this age, late teens and early 20’s there are many teens that think when the fire alarm goes off, it is just a false alarm and there is really nothing going on. The way that I think about it is if there is an alarm sounding, no matter how often it may go off and just be a false alarm, there is a reason for the alarm to be going off. Although sometimes the alarms may have a malfunction, there is still an immediate danger. When this can become like a monthly thing, or even a little more often like in the college dorms perhaps, some people will start to take batteries out of the alarm remote heads, leading  to their alarm to not go off. The New Jersey Division of fire safety (NJDFS) has now regulated the new type of fire alarms. There fire alarms have a ten year guaranteed battery and they can not be taken out. The battery is now integrated into the system.

            The reason I had talked about the college student age is because of the seton hall fire. About 20 years ago there was a fire in the Boland hall in the seton hall dorms. There was a fire, and just like an ongoing problem with the alarms going off, nobody had evacuated, and there were 58 injuries and 3 deaths. This fire had drawn a big amount of attention to many camouses on fire safety in their dorms and even just in the schools. To this day, there are some survivors of the fire that had happened that still go around and will give fire safety talks about what had really happened and how they think college students should react.               

            There is another reason that I had chose this as well. There has been studies that younger kids have started sleeping through alarms as well. This can lead to all sorts of horrible things. So there has been companies that are experimenting making what is called a Personalized parents voice smoke alarm. This can help because the younger child can have a better chance at waking up for the parents voice at times than the tone of the alarm going off. In my opinion this is really important because as you can imagine, children and fires do not mix well. Sometimes children will get scared and will try and hide when there is a fire and that makes it hard on firefighters to find them as they may be in a closet or somewhere else. On a side note, there are also children that start to run back and grab stuff sometimes. They will usually try and go back and get a pet or even a gaming system as they don’t want to lose some of their most valuable stuff.                                                            

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2020/01/16/20-years-after-fatal-seton-hall-dorm-blaze-campus-fire-safety-fight-continues/2844559001/

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/4/1623?download=true

https://www.nj.gov/dca/news/news/2019/approved/20190305.html