In this project, I asked eight people to dub for a short film cut from a Chinese movie called “Raise the Red Lantern“. I asked them to say what they think the character is saying based on all they have seen. All the eight people are from different background (South Korea, America, Germany, Ecuador,Addis Ababa……). Some of them are from Asia country, but not China, some of them are born Chinese but grow up in the United States, some of them are learning Chinese. I choose them because I want to see if there is a culture gap or not. I found it interesting that the emotion is universal but some parts of the culture are not universal at all. It is also interesting that several of them talk about foot binding, which is actually not the case here. It appears that people are tentative to link the scene to things they already known when the scene is not familiar. I did not put the “right answer” here in the video in order to give the space for the audience to have their own understanding of this single cut. If they are interested, it is a really great film to watch!

At the second part of this video, the bigger screen is the beginning part and ending scene of the movie and the small screen is my friends explaining why they think the character says that and what is happening. It is really interesting to see the culture gap and some similarities here.

My topic is about Female Genital Cutting. For the first part of this project, I choose Aisha’s story, in which she shared her memories in an effort to encourage other women to come forward and join in the chorus of FGM survivors who are demanding an end to the brutal practice. She told the story in first-person narrative. I found five different people to read her stories ‘in her perspective’. An interesting part is that I found a male voice to read the beginning and ending part, which can lead the audience to pay more attention to hear the women’s voice. I include the audio file of a documentary about FGM after Aisha’s story. The Guardian does this interview of some survivors sharing the pain. Most of them are speaking their native language instead of English, which I think make it even stronger although some audience may not understand them. We can feel the pain when hearing them talking about the memories of FGM.

In this project, I choose people from different background and people who are not familiar with FGM to read this story. I also include interviews with language that most of the audience may not be able to understand without translation. My goal of doing this is to let the audience feel the pain of those women and raise societal awareness to pay attention to this brutal practice and its relationship to women’s rights and human rights.

Most of hose who did the recordings for this project said that they knew FGM but had never heard those women talking about this. Reading their own stories makes them feel the pain. My friends also pointed out that even they did not understand the interview part, but the power of the language and the emotions are very strong.

1.Cough 2.Typing 3.Opening the fridge 4.Closing the fridge 5.Turning on the water heater 6.Tap running 7.Opening the door 8.Closing the door 9. Water boiling 10. Water heater beeping 11.Zipper 12. Message Tone 13. Video Chat Tone 14.Elevator door Opening  15. Turing the page 16.Printer 17. Stiring with ice 18. Putting down the window shade 19. Turning off the lights 20. Air conditioner

Continue reading →

I decided to post two “fake advertisements” I did based on two totally different advertisements.  Without the information that these pictures are “lying”, most people did not recognize that they are appropriated. When showing the four pictures together, my friend comments that the first two look more real and convincible even after she knows that the other two are the original ones.

I think this effect is very interesting concerns with my choice of products and the spokesperson. The poses are also related as people always refer perfume to a woman who can give a softer figure to the public. Another interesting comment on these advertisements is about the relationship between Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. This background information gives a sense of sarcasm and humor to the pictures at the same time.