Hw # 38: Art Project of "Cool"

Art: Cool lies in the eyes of the beholder.

About the Art:
Cool is a complex subject, and although there are various interpretations, its universally agreed that everyone has some desire to be considered cool.
In this video, created, designed and edited by me and Aja, we decided to capture a common perception of cool found in school; social cliques. Aja did the filming and directing

There are almost always archetypes of cool that dominate the social class of teenagers. There's the jocks, hipsters, rockers, brainiacks, preps, skaters, ect. But amongst all these label's, there's the select few individuals who don't fit into one of these molds quite as easily, and end up falling into the pose of the outcast.

In our video we tried to grasp the perspective of an outcast and how it feels to try and fit in, but fail.
The character I play is a girl who knows she is different, but is desperate to find her place among any group of girls in the grade.
Each of the four girls that walk in to the bathroom represent another personality seen in school. Esther (not to be stereotyped) is the quirky Asian girl that's into Anime, Egypt is the tough jock, Brittani is the dancing girly girl and Sandy was the sophisticated goody goody. Each of these girls rock to the beat of their own drum, but my character can't seem to grasp the idea that you can't be someone your not.
NOTE: These were just four examples of cliques seen in school, though there are many many more, some no as flattering. Regardless, the best person to be is the one you do best; your self.

And so, triumphantly in the end my character realizes she can't work any pose but her own, therefore dropping the other posses and doing her own thing.
The video may not have come out exactly as we planned, but our vision was to show how you can't always be compressed and bounded to a certain clique, that being yourself may mean blending into a couple identities, rather then limiting yourself to one.

Being liked by the majority may not make you like yourself very much, since you'd always be striving to impress. Its following your own trends that makes a person admirable and cool to be around.

My art doesn't at all seem cool to me, considering i'm in it and I think I look especially awkward. I would have liked doing something with photography, or at least other subjects. I also would rather filming a more natural aspect of cool as opposed to the staged version we did. I think if I were better at film making and video editing and ESPECIALLY if I knew how to input the right music, our Art would have come out a lot better.

Oh well, look at it anyways :)