I started learning C4D, UE5, and AE by the end of September. These are skills that I wanted to acquire since I graduated from high school and started thinking about getting a decent GPA in IMA. Lengthy tale, it began with a misunderstanding, when I saw a talented artist in Bilibili (who later became my boyfriend). It stressed me out when I learned that he was in IMA too, in his second year, and seemed already well-versed in those professional tools. I initially thought I’d need to reach an employment-readiness level with these software just to keep up. But anyway, when I realized our actual coursework started with something as basic as lighting up an LED with Arduino, it should have been a relief. Yet it wasn’t. The moment I found out that my willingness to learn those software hadn’t decreased even the slightest bit, is when I started to rethink my pursuit, rethinking my approach to learning and creativity.
My twitter timeline is much more artistic than back in August. I now have several artists that I really enjoy and check for updates every day. They use those software to create engaging visual effects and tell stories. Some artists put their artworks on chains. It’s a different type of art and interaction when you think about how these tools change the narrative structure. For example, generative arts allow artists to build worlds and scenes in real time and eliminate the traditional divide between pre-production, production, and post-production.