Author: YANBIN GAO

TOOL: BalancePen – A Tool for Stress and Time

As a student, I often feel overwhelmed with school, homework, clubs, and everything else going on in life. There are days when I feel like I’m trying to do too much and don’t even realize how stressed I am. That’s why I came up with an idea called the BalancePen — a special pen that helps students manage their time and emotions at the same time.

The idea is that the BalancePen connects to a small patch worn on your wrist, which senses how you’re feeling. When you use the pen to write in your planner or journal, the ink changes color based on your mood. For example, if you’re calm, it writes in blue. If you’re feeling stressed, it turns red. If you’re excited, maybe green. This way, you can see how you’re doing emotionally while planning your day.

This tool is helpful because it reminds you to check in with yourself. A lot of students, like me, focus so much on getting everything done that we forget to take care of our feelings. The BalancePen doesn’t fix everything, but it gives us a small, creative way to notice when we need a break or when we’re doing okay.

To me, the BalancePen is more than just a school supply. It’s a way to connect with yourself. I think turning something simple, like a pen, into a tool that supports both your schedule and your emotions is a powerful idea.

One passage that really stands out to me is from section II of Walter Benjamin’s essay: “That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” This line grabs my attention because it shows a big change in how we experience art. The “aura” Benjamin talks about means the special feeling or presence a piece of art has — its history, originality, and emotional power. When art is copied through photography, film, or digital media, that one-of-a-kind feeling begins to fade. While this makes art more accessible to people everywhere, it also takes away the sense of awe and connection that comes from seeing something rare and real. In today’s world, we scroll past countless images and videos without thinking much, and even powerful pieces of art can feel less meaningful because of how easy they are to access. But at the same time, this constant exposure makes many people crave real-life experiences even more — like going to museums or concerts — where they can truly connect with something original and authentic. Benjamin’s quote reminds me that even though technology allows us to see more than ever, there’s still something irreplaceable about being fully present with a real work of art.

A quote that I particularly liked and wanted to share out then was, “All media are extensions of some human faculty-psychic or physical.” and it made me think a lot because of his idea turned my usual conventional perception of media on its head. I had previously only thought of media as just a tool to convey information in our modern society, but McLuhan’s notion speaks to the fact that media itself influences the way we see the world. It’s like a cell phone, which on the outside looks like it’s just a way to communicate or provide entertainment, but it’s also slowly changing the way we think and the way we socialize. Or television, which does more than just show images; its very existence can inadvertently distract us and change our understanding of reality. These products do enhance the convenience of our lives, but they don’t come without a price. So while enjoying these conveniences, I’ve been thinking about the price we’re paying. Attention, memory, or perhaps patience with reality. So we lose other things while we enhance the convenience of our lives. This is McLuhan’s reminder that the medium is not only changing the way we see the world but also reshaping our humanity.

I felt anger as well as sadness when I saw MeToon Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (2019) because it was about how badly women working in animation at the time would be treated. The movie makes the point very clear so that the viewer can easily understand the point it is trying to make, which is to show us that it is important to stand up for what is wrong. The video also made me think about how animation is not only a way to please people, but also a way to use animation to send a message and raise awareness in society.

Jeremy Couillard’s Alien Afterlife Trailer was new to me. The scenes and visual effects are really cool, and it makes me want to incorporate them into my future work. There are parts of it that I’m visually tired of but that doesn’t stop me from being curious about it. After all, interesting things are like a mystery that you want to dig deeper and deeper into.

Don Hertzfeldt’s Simpsons Couch Gag is particularly interesting to me. Because it’s the most iconic opening of The Simpsons. Their production boasts a particularly gripping visual style. The mix of hand-drawn and digitally animated is also a sight to behold. What impressed me the most was the attention to detail and the fact that even though the graphics are a bit messy, it blends in perfectly with the Simpsons universe. So every detail of this video I think is a perfect fit.

BEAUTY by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro from 2014 inspired me to make waves. Because it’s more than simply animation, it’s a work of art, and it left me in awe of the piece. The slow transition from the drawing at the beginning to the animation is very elegant, and every frame shows us the word elegance. That’s why his work is one of my favorites here.

Part 1: Luigi Rusolo – The Art of Noise
From the moment I read his work changed my opinion about music. What impressed me the most about him is that he has the courage to loudly publicize traditional music and the fact that there is no room for progress anymore and that the future of music should incorporate the chaos, texture, and grit of noise. This is very fascinating. And with the times, we are also surrounded by a lot of industrialized sounds that come from engines, machinery, subways, and his forward-thinking idea that we should not be afraid of these noises. Rather, we can try to blend these inside the music so that it’s not just melody or harmony, but energy, movement and environment. I think for someone who is going to break with musical conventions, I expect more fluidity from him. Ultimately, his manifesto made me realize that on behalf of our everyday sounds, the tapping of the keyboard or the dots in the city are all potential art.
Part II: Exploring the UbuWeb Sound
After my reading I chose John Cage’s “Imagined Landscapes No. 1.” I chose this song not because I liked it, but because at first it struck me as strange. Because the sine tones, low percussion and occasional silence would make me wonder if this was really music. But listening to this track with Rosolo’s text in mind, it feels completely different. I think Cage is trying to free the sound, not control it, and that’s why I wonder how much sound is taken for granted or labeled as “non-musical”. I’m still not sure how long I’ll be able to “like” noise music, but I’ve come to respect it in my heart as a special form of expression.

At the beach, the wind was blowing the sand, and those grains of sand were rubbing against each other in a big way, making a dense flowing sound. The sound is so gentle that one would think that the tiny grains of sand are on a journey of their own. When the wind blows through the trees, the swaying trees will make a “cackling” sound inside, which is not the rustling of the leaves, but the sound of the trunk from the inside, like a natural phenomenon of the trees struggling inside. Finally, there is the sound of a heartbeat in a quiet environment. In the extreme silence, the heartbeat is very clear, strong and rhythmic, as if it were the only response of the body in this silent space!