Before digging into my experience at the celebration of research, I want to distribute credit where credit is due. Personal relations aside, I was quite impressed with Carl-Philips research, as it both incorporated all aspects of science, technology, and society, but additionally tackled an increasingly relevant topic. His material fits together spectacularly well, and his supporting research form a solid vehicle for his argument. As I told him after presenting our posters in-class, it’s rather unbelievable how well his whole corpus points towards the same conclusion. It’s uncanny and indicative of a thoroughly fleshed out topic. Well done!
Category: December 5 (Page 3 of 3)
This Tuesday night, we had our last session of the Origins lecture theories – a poster presentation of the research projects that my Origins seminar has been working on for the whole semester. We also had students from the creative artist book class to present their works. It was a celebration of the intellectual growths that we gained from past lectures and a showcase of our own work on the theme of Origins.
This week was the final week of the course. All the students had to present their research that they were working on for the whole semester. During class, we had a pre-presentation to make sure all the students’ presentations were in good order. We were advised by professors and students on what needed to be altered so that the actual presentation goes smoothly. In the actual presentation time, we had three classes all from the STS Origins theme to present on their research projects.
The projects done for our class were vastly different from the projects done by the other classes. I had a chance to look at the artist book class projects. I met one presenter named Sage Bailin, who worked on photographs of sprinters. In his book, there were photographs of him sprinting from all different angles and sprinting positions. It was interesting to see how he was able to take all the photos from different positions from different angles. Sage also had many photographs of many professional athletes, one was the notable Usain Bolt. He had a photograph of Usain doing his famous celebration pose and as well as photographs of Usain while sprinting. The photographs he took were not ordinary photos; It is noticeable that the artist wanted the photos to capture specific different angles and positions of the subjects as well as capture and focus in on the main point of the photo. Another work was relatable to me and fascinating was a work done by Stephanie. Her book contained hand drawings portraits of her friends and family, but mostly K-Pop celebrities. K-Pop celebrities are a significant part of the contemporary culture in South Korea where I am from. K-pop celebrities are a main source of entertainment for not only South Korea but Southeast Asian and East Asian countries worldwide. I am personally not a fan of K-pop. However I got to know the celebrities through my relationships with my Korean friends who were avid fans, but also, I have made personal investments in the Korean record label/entertainment/management companies that manage these Korean celebrities. Many foreigners, don’t recognize South Korea, however through a positive association with k-pop has given South Korea and its culture a worldwide recognition. It is always a pleasure to meet K-pop fans because they are usually not only a fan of the music but also deeply aware of the Korean culture as well.
The presentation day went very well; most students were able to present their project concisely and directly. It was nice to be informed about such wide-ranging topics such as financial crises, bitcoin/currency, transgression/superheroes, academic scholarships, Kenyan tribes, Chinese/ Eastern medicine, a modern form of journalism, and ethnic migration. All these topics were related to the theme of origins or the theme of order versus chaos.
The course was truly inter-disciplinary since it had students who had different fields of expertise. The course had taught me to look at ideas and concepts from a broad perspective and incorporating other disciplines into research as well.
Poster Presentation day
This week we had students presenting things they had been working on during the whole semester. In class, each of us had an opportunity to present their research to the whole class. This was a good opportunity for us to get some feedback from fellow students and professor on how we could improve our final presentation in the evening and final paper. This as well gave me an opportunity to practice the presentation. In the evening, we presented poster to the three classes who were presenting as well. I already knew a lot about my fellow classmates’ research progress since the beginning of the semester when all of us did not have an idea of what exactly we were going to research on, to having a rough idea and finally having a concrete poster to present to us today.
Apart from looking at the work done by my fellow classmates, I also looked at the work done by the Artist Book Class Presenters. I talked to four of the presenters in that class and they took me through their processes from identify what they wanted to do to getting and putting together all the material they needed to binding them all to get a book. First I look at work by Sage Bailin. His work was on his sprinting photographs. This captured me because I run a lot. He took photo of a lot of professional athletes in different parts of the world and his photos running as well on our own track. His picture clarity and choice of the location to take photo from was really great.
I also saw some of the work done by Stephanie. Her work was also so impressive to me. I tend to think that I cannot draw anything and when I saw the pictures that she drew, I was really impressed by them. She had drawn images of famous artist from East Asia and America. What I like more about her work was the quotes she matched with these various drawings she had. She said she had been keeping records of favorite quotes since she was twelve years old until now. It was great to see the connection between her drawings and the quotes she gave it. Most of those quotes matched so well on the drawings of various world artists.
I think this was a great way to end the lecture series. These series have been really interesting in that we have seen origin of things from different angles. Having professors and professionals from different fields with different interest made the topics we were studying in different weeks interesting. The diverse nature of our class as well was another interesting aspect. Students from different disciplines approached things differently and made the class super interesting. It was also great that we had the choice to pursue research in any field that had connection with the theme of this year, Order versus Chaos. I am glad I was able to look for “my roots” by researching on the origin of my tribe and through that, I learnt a lot about my tribe.