Nothing Spaces

THANK YOU. // February 26, 2010

Unforeseen hiatus due to the sudden onslaught of requirements our teachers needed to compute our grades. But I digress.

Dearest you,

Whoever you are, if you are reading this, and if you have stood by me, and persevered through all the molehills and mountains with me, these past four years. If we’ve stayed up late nights, exchanging frantic messages, whining about ungodly deadlines. If we’ve celebrated victories, cried over losses and hoped for something greater and more beautiful than we could ever have imagined. If we’ve shared stories and laughter, music and things dear to our hearts. If we’ve given each other a piece of ourselves, and if we’ve kept pieces of each other to make us really, completely whole. If we loved life enough to go on, even if the going got really, really tough—

Thank you.

It’s been a great ride. I’m pretty sure I’m going to miss this, but I’m kind of glad it’s mostly over. The world has been so good to me, and God has blessed me so much. I’m so grateful for everything that has happened, because I got hurt and I loved and I learned.

Thank you so much for believing in me.

Love,
Carina

The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight

 

Freebies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. // February 7, 2010

Not too long ago, I conducted a give-away on this website. I had a lot of fun doing it, and I enjoyed hearing people’s reactions when they got my hastily-wrapped packages in the mail:

Patricia’s Tweet.

Tim’s Tumblr.

On the subject of freebies and giving away stuff: I actually posted a somewhat cryptic post right here, and I am going to update about what went down (haha) and why it was posted, just to illuminate y’all, and I suppose, to let some stuff out.

So, recently, I’ve been posting about the ID Seniors’ Thesis Exhibit, Flux, and I know you’ve only heard good things about it on this exhibit, but some of us were a little disappointed with how some people took the exhibit as. See, a few of us produced some merchandise to go with our thesis projects (mostly badges/buttons/pins and stickers), admittedly to attract people. It was also done partly to help people visualize our projects in the context of actual supplementary output, and also as part of our individual exhibits.

In the middle of the week, we started noticing an influx of people visiting the exhibit, from all over the school. Sure, we told out respective circles (and they were supportive—thanks, bbs) and put the word out on our respective online accounts, but we didn’t really have a solid promotional strategy. So the volume of the visitors were overwhelming.

And then we realized that the freebies were doing their job.

I’m not even going to comment, because it’s such an old topic and it’s stupid to whine about it. I’m grateful for the people that passed by, I really am. It’s just sad to see how the exhibit panned out (in terms of this issue), because we really wanted feedback from an actual viewership, and a few of us never even got any constructive feedback.

I’ll just let the photos do the talking, since that’s what they’re here for:

Kris Caguiat’s.

(The flower corsage.)

Merky’s.

Mark Carandang’s. Someone took his seed packets… even though they were empty.

One of my feedback forms.

And another one.

From our collective guestbook.

Two of the last remaining pins by Derrick. He pinned them on the shirts
because people kept on taking them, even though they were only for display.

From Patricia Magsino’s table. Someone took one even though it was already pinned to the tablecloth.

Tricia Gosingtian’s. This was actually planted by a friend of ours for kicks.

As was this one. (Pats Padla’s.)

And it’s funny because we were apologetic about it at first:

Rich Tuason’s.

Celina Borromeo’s.

Mine.

I hope I don’t sound like an ingrate (because I really am thankful that people went!) but it’s problematic to me because the merch was supposed to be a sort of appetizer, but people didn’t stick around for the main course. (Following my previous metaphor, by this I meant the actual exhibits.) A friend had condoms on his table—for display purposes—and people took those, too! I mean, a condom, really?

I don’t know, I have a feeling I might be overreacting, but it was really disappointing that people only went for the free stuff, and some of them didn’t even look at the actual set-ups or read through our theses or what-have-you. I hope I’m not overreacting, really. I just really had to let this out, because it’s been bugging me for the past few weeks. I’m pretty touchy about it in real life, too. So, if I’m evasive about giving you a pin when you ask me for one, this is probably why. (But if we’re good friends or if I promised you one, then it’s O.K. to bug me about it.)

 

Rantface. // January 23, 2010

I actually have a post concerning the just-over thesis exhibit you people have been hearing so much about on here. It’s a little rant-y and might attract attention, so I’ll hold off on posting it after I fix bandwidth issues (I’m nearly out for this month) or after this month is over (which, I realize, is kind of far off). In any case, I’m in between pretty grateful and pretty upset.

If you’ve spoken to me in real life recently, you probably know what this is about.

 

Shadowland. // January 22, 2010

I was on my way to the library when I noticed the shadows that the signage made and found them really pretty. I had to walk across a wide expanse of space to retrieve my camera from where I left my stuff¹ and when I came back out, the sun was in hiding.

So, I waited for it to come out.

Hi, clouds. You’re real pretty, but get outtatheway!

And then, the sun came out.

Pretty.

———
¹ Lesson Learned: You must bring any sort of recording device wherever you go. Think of everything that you will miss!

 

Flux: ID Seniors’ Exhibit. // January 19, 2010

Yesterday was the first day of Flux, which was the exhibit of the thesis projects of the ID (Information Design) students of Ateneo. I think it also opened Humanities Week, which is pretty cool. Here are a few photos:

Father Javellana and Dra. Vilches cutting the ribbon.

Paulina making last minute edits.

Tracy making a LED lantern! Over at Meggy Kawsek’s area.

Made one, too. :)
(Photo taken by Glen.)

Children’s books by Kim Ng.

Paulina’s personal lightsaber duel.

Kris Caguiat’s thesis.

Mine!

I have some more (but not a lot) of photos over at my Flickr, if you guys want to see.

The exhibit will be ongoing until Friday, I think. :) The works are mounted over at the area behind the stairs on the first floor of the Rizal (or, old) Library.

You know, kind of like a cupboard.

 

Work, thesis and sharing your work online. // November 28, 2009

So, this blog was actually meant for sharing works in progress, and not really as an emotional dumpsite, which to be honest, is what it is shaping up to be. I can’t say that I’m grossed out by it (because I’m not — I kind of like the “feel” of this website, to be honest. If I may say this without appearing to be self-absorbed), but here is an attempt to reconcile what Nothing Spaces is right now, with what I intended it to be in the first place.

While fixing up my Cargo Collective account (which doesn’t really have much up, yet, so there’s very little point in linking to it), I realized that for the past three years, I have been including a certain project of mine in portfolio sites and resumés, and it is called Baraja. I am sure you are familiar with it. In fact, if we do not already know each other from a separate online platform (or in real life), that is probably how you got here in the first place.

Anyway, I got a little bit disappointed because I had this whole idea in my head, when I first registered this website, that I would be the kind of person who would be making stuff all day and posting about the process and the output or whatever on here. Which has clearly not been the case. I’ve actually been posting some exercises I had been doing on my Tumblr and my Flickr, but since I am generally averse to watermarks, there have been a few times where my work has been stolen and reposted without credit, so I don’t really know how safe the Internet is anymore.

I used to tell myself, “Well, at least that means your work is good enough to steal,” or “Well, if they steal something of yours, that makes them pathetic, not you.” But now that it’s happened to me, it really is a sucky feeling. I especially hate it when they take something of yours, and then re-alter and tweak it. Amy Ng from Pikaland.com recently had this to say about the issue: “When someone copies your work, it’s a crime against the spirit of sharing that is prevalent online.”

And it’s true. But I realized that I shouldn’t let them stop me from posting my work online, because it really is the best place to get critique and to get hired for projects or tapped for collaborations. So, here! Some small sneak peeks of the last few projects I’d been working on:

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This is something I made for The Bead Shop, which is going to launch
a collection of luck-themed jewelry.

This was a collaboration with Paulina Ortega.
We were tapped by our friend, Marvin Sayson to design
Don’t Forget, Clementine’s new album, Grace, and Dragging Her Wings.
It was a lot of fun (I got stressed out a few times, but mostly because of time.)

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Lastly, here are some mock-ups of the book covers for my thesis.
I don’t know what to do about it, but judging from the last meeting I had
with my thesis adviser, I would like to think that it was pretty well-received.

YAY. Hopefully I’ll be making more things or reading more or writing more the next few days. I’ve actually finished reading Dave Eggers’ “The Wild Things,” so maybe I can write about that. One thing you should know, though, is that book really made me really, really sad, and my heart was really heavy after it. I sometimes find Dave Eggers’ prose a little overwrought, but this book really found new ways to break my heart.

But I’ll talk about that tomorrow, maybe. For now, I have to get back to the daily grind and read Aristotle for Philosophy. Sometimes, I really love school, but then I get reminded that I need to be good at it, and then it’s not so fun anymore.

 

Faith in Ateneans: Restored! // November 24, 2009

I keep forgetting to put this up, but a few months ago, I tacked two sign-up sheets for Dumbledore’s Army in school. Loads of people signed up — most of them were fictional — but by the time I took the second one down, I knew I had to scan it in and show whoever reads my claptrap this glorious thing:

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Did you find it? Did you figure out why this is so cool?