Negative Space

Hans Haacke: The 9-11 Poster Project

Hans Haacke's Poster Project appeared on scaffolding's and walls throughout New York City from March 11-25, 2002. I don't recall ever seeing or actually noticing these Posters throughout the city because I was oblivious to detailed and everything other than Yugi-oh cards and video games. I was about 12 or 13.

On the 7th year anniversary of Sept. 11th, I almost forgot what today was and what happened. No intention is made to say that the event is done and over with or even minuscule because it affected me directly also. It just shows how well we (I) coped with the event. In addition, being out here in Connecticut is almost a breath of fresh air - just being away from a direct connection with the "negative space" in the city.

Personally, I think Hans Haacke's Posters effectively describe/portray Sept. 11th better than any poster or "We Will Never Forget" slogan. Such a simple design represents so many different things as did Sept. 11th. He uses the negative space as a symbol of the missing tower - that is what I saw when I first looked. When you first look, you also notice what is behind his poster. And that is where I feel he best portrayed 9-11. Everybody was simply living their lives, carrying out there day-to-day activities. I remember me and my cousin was just getting on the train at Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall, my brother was in class in Lower Manhattan, all my friends were still at school, and so-on.

Creative Time offers the Poster Project as a screen saver, the underlying background occupies the void. Creative Time

Stairs Bounce

I tried to make it as realistic as possible, but this was the end result. I played with a little easing to make it appear as if the ball was picking up speed as it went down the stairs.

I did pretty well with the stairs illustration - I' more of a two-dimensional fan.

Flash vs. Photoshop vs. Illustrator

The first week of school came ended moderately quick for me: the week began with IDD 301 - Animation and Motion Graphics and ended with Sci 101 on Thursday. Complete opposites.

The first assignment for IDD was to draw a beach ball in three programs, Flash, Photoshop, and Illustrator, easy enough? And then to animate all three in Flash. When the assignment was proposed I didn't really see any major difficulties to keep me from doing the assignment, but little did I know illustration in Flash is completely different from illustrating in Photoshop or Illustrator.

From completely illustrating with platforms I know, Flash came to me as a surprise. In Flash, the pen tool acts completely different from that of Photoshop or Illustrator. As I am trying to illustrate the beach ball as best as I could I pen tool just wouldn't curve as directed. And with my meticulous nature, I could'nt get over this hump until I firgured out how to make it rounded.

Again, illustrating in Photoshop and Illustrator is completely different from Flash. Photoshop being a universal designing program, I use it for nearly everything I do. I felt so much more comfortable illustrating this beach ball in Photoshop, and it shows in the performance of my work. As for Illustrator, I feel I don't know the program good enough to top the performance of my work in Photoshop.