Look, I Have a Headache I Can't Comprehend The Matter of Time And Space Right Now.

What is a human? Where is a human? Who is a human? Why is a human?
I genuinely have no idea how to define a human. It's not as easy as a single concept. The things that make us human can't be boiled down into a couple sentences. Unless you're google, then the definition of a human is "relating to or characteristic of humankind." or "a human being." which really doesn't help the confusingness of the how situation. 

What is a person? 

The google definition of 'person' is a human being categorised as an individual. When I'm thinking about it, it's like a human is the genetics, the biology, the DNA of it all. But a person is in the mind, the sociology, the psychology of it all.

What are your thoughts on Sandra the Orangutan receiving personhood?

Dude that's epic. 

At This Point, I'd Rather Let My Brain Explode

In Plato's Phaedo, he recounts Socrates' beliefs on the Self and personal identity. It's the one I'm most interested in because a lot of it reflects in the way I create universes in my writing.

The theory stems from this idea that the self is more than a body and that one does not end when their physical form biologically dies, and that the self is more than a body. 

A Total Mind$(&#.

 Have you heard of the ship of Theseus? No, not the Theseus, Duke Of Athens, local arsehole of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In actuality, the Ship Of Theseus is the story of a ship, which started out as wholly made of wood. Over time, the wood needed to be replaced with metal parts. Eventually, the entire ship is replaced with metal pieces. Does this mean it is a different ship?

It really depends on who you talk to.

In my opinion, it is still the same ship. It's made up of the same structure, it has the same name, it's owned by the same person. The only thing that's different is the materials. It's like in humans, roughly every seven years, your cells are completely replaced. Mentally and emotionally, you change with everything that happens to you. But you are still you. To me, your identity is in your memory, and the things that you've done. 

What do you think?

Sam Purposefully Putting Herself In A Narrator Role? In My Shakespeare Festival?

 It's more likely than you'd think.

Because this year, I'm directing! Last year, we self-directed but that was a little different. And a part of directing is having a directors process. I will be blogging this process because level 2 ncea exists :)

The first part of putting on a play is getting a script. We will be putting on a play within a play or, more formally, Act 5 Scene 1 from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I got my script from MIT's Shakespeare website and basically just edited down the parts I didn't think were needed, just to make it that little bit more digestible, for both the audience and my actors. 

Speaking of my actors, casting is perhaps the next important thing. All my friends are icons and were willing to put up with my horrendous bossiness for the next six weeks.  I already had ideas for who I wanted where, which was perfect as all of them agreed with my choices.
    The director in the piece presents the prologue, and as I still wanted to be apart of the piece myself, I thought it fitting that I would play the prologue myself. I also played the prologue when we did AMND in year 8, so I already had that little extra knowledge. For the actual characters, I cast Nadia as Pyramus. I originally wanted to put her in as Thisbe as we really need to start putting her in some more female roles but she was down for playing a guy again. As her scene partner, we have Jess as Thisbe. I just want to turn her into a drag queen. In all her short glory, I wanted Meagan as Wall. Purely for the short jokes and the 'hole in between the legs' jokes. In her Shakespearan debut as Lion is Kiera. I wanted someone sassy for this role and Kiera was totally up for it.
    Last of all our acting actors, but certainly not least, all the way from Riccarton high school, is Neve as Moonshine! As if she didn't have enough going on at any point in time, she was keen on helping us in our performance. I think she could really get the depressing vibes of Moonshine down easily. Also dogs.

I will see you soon for a quick run of concepts!

Finishing What We've Begun

 (This is a left over post from 2020 L1Art)

My lord, it's been a year already. And what a year it's been. When I look at my board I think about how I did the majority of this stuff after lockdown and realise how big a mistake that was.

I'd like to say that my board is based on 'The hand life dealt' but I think that's just an excuse to put a pun into my work and paint a strange amount of hands.

It has improved my realism immensely so I think it's worth it.

Quick update:

This board got me an excellence, resulting in an excellence endorsement in L1 Art! 

The Beginning Of The End

The title makes me seem really melodramatic but it's true. The end of the year is nigh and exams are merely weeks away. Luckily for me and my mental health, art doesn't have an exam. We just have a really terrifying external in the form of a portfolio which is really intimidating for someone in level one. 

Speaking of my portfolio, I finished the first board today! It's actually kinda surreal but ya know. I'm really proud of how everything has turned out so far, all things considered. When I think about it, I've done a lot in a short period of time. But, yes, I finished first board after so long. It's the first portfolio board I have ever done. Like, ever. So, here it is.

Hehe, jk jk. That's actually the original layout I had for the first board, before I even finished half of my works. As you can see there was meant to be one large painting but instead I decided to do a bunch of tiny ones because I love putting myself through hell. :D

But actually, here is my first completed board.

My second(? I'm not sure what order I'm putting these in yet) board is well underway and I only have five more paintings to finish, all of which I've started and purely need to finish the backgrounds on. This is what it looks like so far :)

Ye that's it. Bye.

Down To The Wire

Entering term four of this year, we only have four weeks of class time left. This means that we do not have a lot of time left to finish our portfolios. The art department was open over the holidays but I was only able to make it to the first Monday due to prior commitments. However, I have done quite a bit of work since the last update considering it was almost exactly a month ago. 

Last time, I showed you my American flag and the portrait drawing of my friend Nadia. Since then, I have added the peace sign to the American flag and drawn/painted the paired portrait for that sequence series things. I have decided against putting blood on their faces for now because it took so long to paint the first one on it's own and I really don't want to mess it up.

I have also started two new sequence series things (that's my name for it now) and have 'completed' two extra little things I'm debating changing/putting on my portfolio. For the two new things, one is a series of complementary coloured snakes with hands. I currently have a green and pink snake, a purple and yellow snake, a blue and orange snake, and a grey and black snake. For the other thing, it's going to be similar to the snakes but with hands and books instead :D

Here are a couple of the things I've done: