Designing emotion

 For this  week's project I was tasked with combining images and colors to show emotion. Based on a particular song to promote a record label's emotional impact on that song while still using a combination of text and image to reflect on the feeling of that song. In the image I designed I feel that there is vast amounts of emotion in the story  told in this photo. I also wanted to give a gloomy and sad feeling of oppression and decided on the red color for two reasons one for anger and outrage and the other was for the color of the Chinese flag because in fact that is where the incident for this song took place.  

The first challenge I ran into during this project was which song I wanted to decide on doing my project on. On that note being the person that I am and what music interests me did not help at all. Because I am interested in all types of music and genres. But it also made me think that the song that I wanted to choose had to have some type of relevance to emotion or impact on both myself and or the world. So what helped me out on choosing the song I wanted to do my project on was maybe the music i listened to lately or have always turned to listening to and one of my favorite bands that I could never get tired of no matter how many times I listen to there music was “SYSTEM Of A Down”. The target audience for this could be fans of System of a Down and or young adults who are into music of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Alternative metal fans or even fans of Complex and Experimental Music System of a Down’s music is known for its unique and unpredictable structure. They use complex time signatures, sudden shifts in tone, and an eclectic mix of influences, making them appealing to fans of avant-garde and progressive music. Although in my project my goal was to reach out to more of their political activists and social justice advocates. System of a Down’s lyrics often contain strong political and social commentary, addressing topics like war, corruption, inequality, and human rights. This has drawn a large group of fans who are passionate about activism and social change. Because of this I thought that they would be a great example in this week's project. 

Now the song I thought would be great for this project was called “Hypnotized”. I choose this song because a lot of the topics that are discussed in this song are somewhat still relevant even till today. Even though this song was written around the George W. Bush era. And a lot of things that were taking place are still taking place now so it makes sense why this song in its message is still relevant. It touches up on subjects, such as protesting the realities of protesting in your community and the world as a whole. It also touches upon propaganda, and the way propaganda is created and distributed out to the masses. I like this song because in a way it has you thinking to yourself are you going to be a part of the problem or are you gonna be a part of the solution in the community, in the world and actually see through the change that you want to see happen in the world. Now the song is mainly about the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 in China. “On 4 June 1989, Chinese troops opened fire on students and workers who had been peacefully protesting for political reforms in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Hundreds – possibly thousands – of people were killed, including children and older persons. Tens of thousands more were arrested across China in the suppression that followed”. The Chinese authorities failed to persuade the demonstrators to return home. As tensions escalated in Beijing, martial law was declared on 20 May 1989. On the night of 3 June 1989, heavily armed troops and hundreds of armored vehicles moved into the city center to ‘clear’ the pro-democracy demonstrators from Tiananmen Square. 

The reality is that when you’re fighting for change in your community, in the world, things are going to be difficult. It’s going be a long process. It’s gonna be frustrating and it’s not all about the glory. This idea made me think, do you think that these people were doing this because they thought it was fun because they thought it was fashionable because they thought it was cool to go and fight? No, these people fought against the government because they felt oppressed and wanted to fight for their rights. I think this right here for me is easily the most relevant today because we see things like this happen all the time. In the lyrics “They disguise it, they hypnotized it,  the television made you buy it” That’s pretty straightforward. Obviously it’s talking about the way that the media manipulated talking about what is called gatekeeping and how a lot of times specially when this song was released a lot of times were controlled by the major media companies in the major News outlets information that they felt was appropriate that they felt was gonna get the views that they were looking for now things have changed a little bit nowadays, but it’s also very similar. You definitely have a lot of Clickbait culture now you have a whole lot of fake news and misinformation that is put out there. You have a lot of things that are just trying to manipulate and pull people in so many different directions and if anything else, I think it’s more difficult nowadays to tell what’s real and what’s not real than it was in 2005.