Xiantieer Xu
“Life Clock” – 2D/3D project, BISIA 350, Spring 2024
Life is like a clock that keeps on turning, every moment has something that we have to do, just like the 24 hours in a day contains some necessary moments that we have to go through in a day, so is life. I named my project “Life Clock”. I divided the 12 hours on the clock into 6 zones, each zone represents a different stage of life.
I set the first 1-2 hours as the beginning of life, the grass represents the beginning of everything and the birth and growth of life. The third and fourth hours represent the beginning of the intake of knowledge. Books are the fastest way to acquire knowledge and will be with us most of the time in the future. Hour 5-6 I set it as a stage of leaving school and starting to work, the papers on the table are the things that we need to deal with at work. In the 7th-8th hour area I have set it for the next stage of our lives, when we start having a family. The blurred background in the photo is a family photo, which is what we go through in this stage. The area of hours 9-10 is about the end stage of life and the beginning of old age. At that time we make partings with many people and at the end there is only an empty room. Looking out of the window at the blue sky we will be remembering all those things that we have experienced ahead of us. The last 11-12 hours are the end of this life, just as the end of the day comes with the sunset. Our life is slowly coming to an end, but it’s not the end, as time moves on we start another day and welcome the sunshine of the next day.
Light and shadow, BISIA 350, Spring 2024When I see light and shadows appearing around me, I grab my camera to record these amazing moments. Light and shadow are things that are always with us, and documenting these moments is incredible. I try to capture these moments in a way that we don’t often do, and that’s the point of these photos.
I use large apertures and inaccurate focusing to realize a magnified blur of light that is clearly visible in reality to achieve my understanding of light. Since I am nearsighted and astigmatic, this is how I see some light sources when I don’t wear glasses. In this way I am showing you what light looks like when I see it sometimes. Through the black and white form to make those colorful light become not so gorgeous but become a single color like a shadow. And in this way we are able to notice the shadows that we might normally miss.
Reversal of life, BISMCS 343, Spring 2024
Everyone has two sides to their character, both pure and evil. When faced with different choices, it is common to consider them through two different personalities. But as we make choices over and over again, we come closer to the personality we think we are. Choosing through different personalities over and over again will little by little replace the other one. For this work, I chose to use mirrors to create the work, and to play the different personalities by using two pieces of clothing with a high contrast. By using the mirror as a specific prop to interpret the two different dimensions. In the description of the picture, I wanted to express storytelling and an iconic definition of the pure side with a doll and the evil side with a gun. When we look in the mirror we no longer see the exact same self, but another part of ourselves. It’s more like a communication with ourselves.
“Protestors Camp in UW-Seattle.” BISMCS 343, Spring 2024
Since the recent Israeli-Palestinian war, many colleges and universities have begun spontaneous marches for Palestine as well as setting up tents on campus to speak out. When UW-Seattle students started this series of events, it made me want to take a look and walk around to see the ways in which they are doing this. As I entered the area I realized they were bigger than I expected. Normally during cherry blossom season, this area is filled with students and tourists taking pictures, but now it seemed to be filled with tents and all kinds of spray paint. As I walked in and looked around a little bit, there were various elements that allowed them to support Palestine. I went to check it out during their lunch break, but I could sense that it was going to be a different experience when the place came alive.
“I Found & I Have” – 2D/3D project, BISIA 350, Spring 2024
I’ve tried to chase the light to catch it, but it always slips away silently; whenever I see the moon hanging in the sky, I fantasize about holding it in my hands and playing with it; whenever I picture the world in my mind, he’s in my head or in my chest, and they’re everywhere while my soul swims in them.
I made my work I have & I found, in which I wanted to express the things I had, I used the moon, the sunset and the seagulls to represent my dreams or ambitions, but in this aspect I lacked some sincerity or honesty to represent my original intention. I tried to have it all and lost something, but I seem to have gotten it back.
“Inflation” – Conceptual Documentary Project, BISMCS 343, Spring 2024
Nowadays, in our life, the prices of goods become higher and higher asfar as we can see with our naked eyes. If we pay attention to the prices of our daily necessities, they are not the same as usual.
The topic I am doing is about inflation.
In my work I looked for the daily necessities and the amount of cash we need to carry in our daily lifeas the main goal of this photo shoot. Eggs in particular are one of the most common items in our daily lives,and this is one of the most important points to show inflation. So it was incumbent upon me to choose eggs for the display. Of course I alsoused other items for comparison,but the result was not as good as theprevious one.
Xiantieer Xu 