We believe in.....

Beliefs, opinions, they are what drive us.  These thoughts that we have are what connect us together and separate us, they are the cause of much discussion and reform, they are what make us human.  There is so much for us to believe in.  Children believe a magical man from the North comes to them once a year bearing gifts, most of the world believes in some form of a deity that they can talk to in prayer, people can believe Donald Trump to be a great presidential candidate.  All too often these beliefs we hold are a personal subject for us, something that really matters to us. 

For me, I have a belief that we all see the world a little bit differently from each other, yes we may agree on many things, but how we came to the same conclusion could have come from very different circumstances.  This assignment, I wanted to show this belief of mine by exploiting one way I see the world differently: through colors.  I started out wondering if I should choose a topic more personal, but this one kept coming to the foreground.  Synesthesia is a relatively new part of my identity, I didn’t know I saw the world differently from others until I read in a book about someone who had the same thing as me.  Presenting it to the class and friends and family, I didn’t merely want to show what others might see looking at letters and numbers and music, but what I see.  I’m limited on my technological abilities, but not in my hands on capabilities.  Painting with glow sticks came from the idea that they would best represent what I see in my mind’s eye when it comes to music.  Essentially it is a black background with varying colors showing up like on a chalkboard.  In my practice for the presentation however, they proved to be difficult to work with; drying really fast, losing their glow faster, disintegrating the Styrofoam cups they were in.  During the performance though, they excelled in their duty, however the technical difficulties of my media left me flustered as I had to improve with the words I prepared and left the final effect of the glow stick painting less as there was no music to play in the background as I painted.

Difficulties seem to be the pattern at nights like this and many presentations had some troubles.  So many of the presentations felt like TED talks, I felt like I was giving a TED talk.  It was fascinating to watch everyone’s performance; many were more ambiguous than others, others right on the nose, but all showed personalities of everyone and were beautiful renditions of their beliefs.  I found it to be a night of emotions, a night were I got closer to these friends of mine more from simply listening to what they believed.