amy juang

Fishing in the Anthropocene – Senior Thesis

Senior thesis, comprised of a visual and written component. Titled: Fishing in the Anthropocene: Visual Culture Originating From a 1966 Experiment. Recipient of the Charles Willson Peale Prize for outstanding thesis in Visual Studies.

The first part of the visual component is a supercut of sourced videos online; the second part is a 360° video of my brother and I going to a dock in Minnesota.

Abstract: Fishing imagery provides a unique lens into American desires around wilderness. In this thesis, I analyze the surreal photographs that resulted from an experimental government stocking program in 1966, one of the world’s largest ecosystem manipulations: placing Pacific salmon into the Great Lakes after complete ecological collapse. These images are an attempt to communicate a techno-utopian position of man’s mastery of nature and representation, American exceptionalism, and the strength of the fisherman. In reality, the photographs are a paradox, undermining the myth of wilderness it set on perpetuating. The photographs that resulted from this fishing craze are anthropocenic in nature, echoing the nature dreams of the past and the apocalyptic forecast of the future. For my visual component, I pivot to contemporary fishing imagery online. It comes in two parts: a condensed supercut of fishing videos sourced from YouTube’s personalized algorithm for me, and a 360° shot of my own fishing experience.

Fishing Supercut

The first video is a supercut of a group of videos sourced from YouTube on March 19th with the keyword search, “fishing.” I took the first forty videos the YouTube algorithm had curated for me, and narrowed those videos down to specific moments. These moments consist of the second the fish bites the bait: the first spontaneous spike in excitement. Like artificially stocking a digital body of water, I put all these clipped videos together into a sequence. It repeats four times, getting shorter each iteration. I cut the last iteration so tightly, it seems like the bite in all the different clips become condensed into one: a long climax and fish bite. The video is cyclical and exaggerates the online nature of fishing. There is seemingly endless fish, trophies, action, and opportunity in the outdoors. With extreme precision, I cut the videos to the exact millisecond. I control the narrative of fishing, time, and nature through the means of technology. However, it is unabashedly edited and does not attempt to resemble a real fishing experience.

Fishing With Tim in VR (Long Lake, Minnesota)

The other video is a personal excursion to a dock in Long Lake, Minnesota with my brother, shot in three-sixty degrees. The sun is setting, and the water is still quite cold being April. We go out anyway, not expecting to catch anything. While the video is still edited and mediated through a digital form, it is much more veridical to reality compared to most YouTube fishing videos. It is in a virtual reality format, and the whole video garnered no fish bites or fish. Our conversations and setup are typical to a normal trip together; we talk about this fishing spot, speculate what the rest of the season beholds, and the skills of more experienced anglers. The video isn’t as focused on fishing as it is a reason to go outdoors and spend time together by the water. The goal is never to catch a fish. The video also highlights the relational aspect of fishing. I’m enjoying my brother’s company, and even during the age of social distancing and Covid-19, holding a fishing rod invites other anglers to chat. As we approach the dock, we chat about this fishing spot with the person leaving. The shared activity of fishing usually invites people to speak to each other where they normally wouldn’t. The video is highly interpersonal and shows the reflection upon the activity itself.

Henry James Book Cover

Book cover designed for The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Utilized Centaur typeface and equiluminant colors to communicate the horror and uneasiness of the gothic novel. Because the equiluminant colors vibrate, they are also somewhat illegible.

Philadelphia's Textual Landscape

An exploration of how text is mediated in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. A post-modern “site-specific” work made for my FNAR307 final project.

How Text is Mediated in Philadelphia's Chinatown

The Defective Record Deformed (360° video)

Poetry Audio Lab/Sound Studies final project. Overlaid William Carlos Williams’ performance of The Defective Record with the sound of snapping shrimp. In his performance, Williams is one of the first poets to engage materiality of the record so explicitly and self-referentially. The paper landscape is deformed through the printing process, inhibiting the camera and body’s inability to read. The shrimp themselves are a historical artifact; in World War Two, the sound of the shrimp would drown out sonar, prompting American military to hide in shrimp bushes or emit recorded snapping shrimp. The shrimp make noises through a cavitation bubble, one that can reach up to 5,000 degrees, experiences a moment of bioluminescence, and can exceed 210 decibels. I encourage an ecopoetic reading this work as it explores materiality, illegibility, and the transvaluation of sound.

The Defective Record Deformed (360° video)

DeRay Mckesson

For MinnPost’s 11th Anniversary event.

Stop Motion

Challenging stop motion form through principles of illusion and non-linear narrative.

Laurence Logan

An exhibit installed in a tunnel underneath the Penn medical school. In it, out of the hundreds found, 30+ postcards were shown and read. A visual journal and exploration that will be continued at other sites. The reflective surfaces allow the viewer to see the postcard's front and back simultaneously.

Somewhere in Old City

I found hundreds of postcards

from all around the world addressed to one man
in Ohio

with none written by him.

I read them all of course.

I was overcome
by the mystery of this man.

Some messages reveal things about him.

I invite you to read them with me.

West Philadelphia Tutoring Project Logo

New logo for Penn's biggest community service club. Inspired by Civic House's goal for radical hospitality, as well as the Civic House roof and logo. Made with WPTP's mission statement in mind and the Civic House Theory of Change. Four complete iterations were made after research and feedback, and then the executive board came to consensus.

2017 Holiday Card

Wine Label

2017

A wine label inspired by my family. With three siblings, I made four custom typefaces to represent each person's unique personality. Each of our Chinese names contain the word 'sky.' English translations of our Chinese names are on the back label. The label is for a Taiwanese liquor.

Book Jacket

2017

Inspired by the mysterious life of the artist James Castle.

Penn Bookstore Vinyl

2017

Vinyl on the Penn Bookstore window.

I am large, I contain multitudes.

- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Modular Typeface

2017

Custom modular typeface.

ASAM Dinner

2017

Event cover photo for Asian Pacific American Heritage Week.

Asian-American Studies Dinner

Anna Akana

2017

Event poster and cover photo for Asian Pacific American Heritage Week.

Anna Akana speaker event

Paths to the Future

2017

Event cover photo for Asian Pacific American Heritage Week.

Freshmen event

Made in collaboration with Michael Kwok.

For the Love of Mammon (Video)

2017

video

A critique of Damien Hirst's For the Love of God.

For the Love of Mammon

Data Visualization

2016

A wearable deliverable with a design coded in processing. Coded a visualization of data on my eating patterns over the course of one week.

Meet Me at the Station (Animation)

2016

Animation of a passage from Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

Eri slowly shook her head. “It’s no different from building stations. If something is important enough, a little mistake isn’t going to ruin it all, or make it vanish. It might not be perfect, but the first step is actually building the station. Right? Otherwise trains won’t stop there. And you can’t meet the person who means so much to you. If you find some defect, you can adjust it later, as needed. First things first. Build the station. A special station just for her. The kind of station where trains want to stop, even if they have no reason to do so. Imagine that kind of station, and give it actual color and shape. Write your name on the foundation with a nail, and breathe life into it. I know you have the power to do that. Don’t forget— you’re the one who swam across the freezing sea at night.”