Mandolin & Unicyle

UCLA Design Media Arts Senior Project, Video. 2010.

In 2010, a professor asked me what I wanted to do for my senior project. So, I asked myself: What do you really want to do, right now? For some reason, an image of a mandolin and a unicycle popped into my head. I decided to trust myself, and go for it. The project? Learn how to play the mandolin while riding a unicycle, in 10 weeks, while simultaneously documenting the entire journey on a public blog.

The Unexpected Senior Project.

My heart was always in painting, but when I was applying to college I opted for design. At the time, I was learning that design was a lot like art, only much easier to get paid to do. I ended up in the Design Media Arts (DMA) program at UCLA. The program was a perfect fit for someone like me who had a wide range of interests and a love for multimedia storytelling. During the senior year in DMA, you take a class called “Senior Projects” where you work on a self-initiated project for 10 weeks. The result of the class is a project that is showcased in the Senior Show during graduation.

For my Senior Project, I proposed an idea in which I’d learn how to play the mandolin while riding a unicycle, in 10 weeks, while simultaneously documenting the entire journey on a public blog. Having already explored a number of very serious topics and resume building initiatives at UCLA, I wanted a chance to see what it was like to bring my true self into a project. To my surprise, the project was approved, and everyone was overwhelmingly supportive of the idea.

Accepting My Fate.

The same night, I went on a walk before dinner. I started thinking about the immediate next steps I would take to kick off the project. The second I got home, I set up a WordPress blog. After taking a second to rest on the bed, I made some Yerba Mate, opened up my laptop, and wrote an introductory post. Later that evening, I started searching Amazon for mandolins and unicycles. I only had 10 weeks to learn, so I needed these things to arrive as soon as possible. To my surprise, there were a lot of options; I had no idea where to begin. I wrote a blog post, “In the market…” to see if a. anyone was actually reading my blog and b. procrastinate and delay making a decision on which to purchase. I slept on it (literally) and before I knew it, I was clicking “checkout” and waiting eagerly for the order to arrive.

When the mandolin and unicycle finally made their way to home to me, in an instant, the project felt real. I still remember putting together the unicycle without any instructions, putting the saddle between my legs, and attempting to peddle for the first time. I fell hard on my ass in our living room and nearly broke a lamp. Several days further into the project, I broke one of the strings on my Mandolin. I had to shlep it all the way back down to Guitar Center because I had no idea how to change them on my own.

“The Project Is Great And All, But Where’s The Drama?”

After several weeks of regular practice, I was starting to see a lot of progress on playing the mandolin and riding the unicycle on their own, but had yet to attempt them simultaneously. During class in week eight, each of us students were asked to share an update on the progress of our senior projects, along with our goals for the last two weeks of class.

After I presented, Henri Lucas (my Professor) chuckled, and said: “The project is great and all, but where’s the drama?” I laughed, and promised to get hurt before the next review. Funny enough, the next day, I did.

I was just starting to see moderate progress in my attempts at playing the mandolin while riding the unicycle. That afternoon, I was on the balcony of the Broad Art Center’s 4th floor, practicing. This was the floor that most of our classes were held in, but also the location of our school’s print shop. At the time, I was holding down a part-time job at the front desk while running my design studio, verynice.

It was during one of what seemed like hundreds of attempts that afternoon that I fell backwards. The mandolin cut my face on the way down. I was surprised by the amount of blood I had dripping down my cheek. I got up, brushed off, and head over to the front desk for help. I asked the team for a band-aid while holding a paper towel to my face and laughing. The team was awesome. They even went through the trouble of applying the bandage to my face for me, trimming the band-aid to size so that it wouldn’t cover my mouth. “There’s the drama, Henri”, I thought to myself.

Everything (66 Blog Posts)

In 2010, blogging felt as if it was at its all-time high as a favorite medium. At the time, I was an avid reader of blogs, but hadn’t written many of my own blog posts. The “public” nature of the project brought me great joy. I loved that people at school would stop and ask me how I was progressing. I’d check my blog’s analytics at least once a day to see how many people had come to the site that day. To my disdain, the first few days of analytics would show only 3-5 daily readers. But one morning, I woke up to see that over 1,500 people had visited my blog the night before. It turns out the project got featured on a prominent mandolin website (that’s a thing!).

“Stay In Pursuit Of The Donut. Forget The Hole.”

This line appears at the end of the film as a way to suggest that the process is the project. Early on in the project, I became very nervous that I would fail. But at some point along the way, I realized that imperfection was exactly what I was looking for. Nothing can be perfect, because nothing can be done.

So, what’s next? I’m flirting with the idea of doing a new project in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Mandolin & Unicycle project’s debut. What should I try to learn, simultaneously? How to speak Russian while breakdancing? How to play the harmonica while downhill mountain biking? Hmm… I’ll have to give that some thought.

Special thanks to all of my fellow DESMA alum and UCLA friends for the memories.