Koalas and Kangaroos—Oh my!

Greetings all and a happy new year! One of my goals this year is to spend less time doom-scrolling on social media and to be more mindful about how I use my time and consume content. I recently came across a post where the author said that we should spend more time creating than consuming. While I think that’s a bit unrealistic (because I love consuming media), I get their point. To start, I deleted TikTok. I immediately missed the dopamine rush it provided but it’s already proving successful—I’m spending far less time on my phone now.

Social media feels like a tricky place to navigate these days and with the new administration taking over, disengaging feels better for my mental health. I’ve spent over a year feeling angry and frustrated and I hate that feeling. That said, I don’t want to disconnect entirely from the online arts community. Many of my closest art friendships began on social media and continue to thrive there. Still, I can’t help but miss the “old internet”—the days of forums, blog posts, and quirky, poorly designed, decentralized sites. Back then, the internet felt like an endless world of unique, creative pockets to explore. Now, everything can be found on the same half a dozen social media sites. There’s no uniqueness, no originality.

I’ve always loved reading blog posts. I used to subscribe to several travel and art blogs and discovered countless hidden gems through them. One of my favorites was a man who walked through every street of New York City and documented it. Blogs offer a deeper look into someone’s personality and thought process in a way that social media often doesn’t. So, this year, I’m challenging myself to write one blog post a month. Sounds doable, right?

Travel Updates

I recently spent a month in Oceania — Australia and New Zealand, to be specific. I found a cheap flight from Hawaii and since I was visiting a friend who lives in Honolulu, I figured why not? I really enjoyed my time in Melbourne—it reminds me a lot of Brooklyn, where I currently live. The city is packed with amazing museums, art exhibitions, cool coffee shops, and incredible food. One thing I noticed: Australians take their coffee very seriously.

I went into a coffee shop and their menu only had 2 items—black coffee and white coffee. Feeling stupid, I asked the barista what that meant. He explained that it refers to any coffee with milk, like lattes, cappuccinos and flat whites. I thought I liked coffee but being in Australia made me feel like I knew absolutely nothing about it!

One thing that struck me was how influenced Australia is by American culture. People there seemed excited whenever they noticed my American accent and often commented on it. There were many American themed restaurants and bars. A lot of Australians I met there had traveled in America before. While everyone was very friendly, I found it quite annoying to be reminded of America every day. I travel to escape and to explore new cultures. While I enjoyed Australia, I can’t find myself going back anytime soon.

New Zealand, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. I knew it would be beautiful but there’s a difference between knowing something and actually experiencing it. The landscapes were absolutely stunning. The Kiwis were kind and not a single person commented on my American accent—which, honestly, was a huge relief. I could just be.

On the South Island, I rented a car, and once I got over the initial hurdle of driving on the opposite side of the road, it was smooth sailing. It was such a stark contrast to my experience renting a car in Georgia (the country). Driving—and parking—in Tbilisi was a complete nightmare!

Highlights of my trip:

-Bungee jumping in Queenstown (the highest bungee in all of New Zealand!)

-Seeing The Shire

-Mount Cook

-Witnessing a penguin parade on Phillips Island, Australia

-ACMI, Melbourne’s film museum. One of the workers there was a sweet, elderly man who showed me around the exhibits and was telling me about how his son is a storyboarder in the Australian film industry!

I’m back in New York now and I’m already thinking about where I want to go next (I wonder if anyone can guess?).

Motion Graphics related thingz

I launched the latest round of Motion Collabs, and this time, we’re animating a City Pop music video! I’ve been running Motion Collabs for the past eight years and I love setting up a prompt without knowing what the final outcome will be. I’m all about experimenting and I’m not obsessed with perfection, so Motion Collabs really reflects my mentality.

It’s also amazing to receive submissions from around the world and see the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives that people bring to the table.

I’ve been diving deep into Cavalry the past few weeks and am finding it really fun! There are so many things that would be tedious to do in After Effects but are a simple one button click in Cavalry. For example, I can create text that has a dynamic box that matches the length of the text in one click. In After Effects, that would either require expressions or a hacky method I use that uses a combination of the simple choker and minimax effects.

I really like Cavalry’s duplicator’s functionality. It’s so easy to create a lot of objects and not have to animate them all individually. Its physics capabilities is like Cinema 4d but in a 2d version.

During the Harris campaign, I often thought about how much easier certain tasks—like creating data visualizations—would have been if I’d been using Cavalry instead of After Effects. If I were to work on another political campaign, I’d strongly advocate for incorporating Cavalry into the workflow.

One major challenge on the campaign was that we’d create data visualizations, only for the research team to come back and say the data was incorrect. This often meant redoing or rewording things. With Cavalry, data can be controlled through CSV sheets that update automatically which would have saved us so much time and effort.

I’m toying with learning Unreal this year as well. I rarely get 3d gigs but I think it would be fun to get more into cinematic trailers and concert visuals. It’s my dream that I one day animate for a kpop group so perhaps learning Unreal would allow me to be one step closer to my dream.

Inspirational

I’ve found Antonin Waterkeyn’s work really inspiring as I dive deeper into Cavalry. His work mixes typography with bold and dynamic shapes. The color choices he picks are really fun as well.

Holke79 is another kinetic typography artist whose work I’ve really been enjoying. I like how the motion complements the message that the text says.

Carlos is another Cavalry artist who creates dynamic typography with clean, graphic shapes.

Media:

I spent all of January catching up on the Oscars season movies I missed while I was abroad. My favorites are:

• The Seed of the Sacred Fig
  • A harrowingly realistic movie set during the Iranian protests that occurred a few years ago around the hijab ban. A patriarch’s family struggles with his appointment as a Death judge who passes down execution orders. It was filmed in secret and the director has been chased out of Iran as a result. A must watch.
• All We Imagine as Light
  • A quiet and stunningly filmed movie about two nurses in Mumbai who deal with different expectations regarding their careers and love lives. I’ve been really impressed by Indian movies that have been coming out over the past few years and wish they would get more recognition in the west.
• Queer
  • Luca Guadagnino released two amazing movies in 2024 and none of them got any Oscars recognition wtf! Who did he piss off? Queer feels like a spiritual successor to Call Me By Your Name and is about an American expat in Mexico who lusts over a younger man. Daniel Craig gives one of his best performances.

That’s a wrap for this month! I’m definitely interested in getting feedback over how this blog is structured and if there’s any topics you’d like me to tackle. I’ll see y’all next month.