Fireside Chat Artist Statement

I had a different experience for this assignment because as much as I wanted to, I couldn't be at the actual fireside chat. There were a lot of possibilities I considered. Like all the assignments we've had this semester, there were a lot of possibilities and directions I could have taken it. In the end I decided that I wanted to talk a little about art itself and where our inspiration comes from.

My original idea was to make a kind of "rube goldberg," the same kind that I talked about in my story. I wanted to be able to design beforehand but put together as I talked to the class to use at the end. I even had a lot of it put together before going to the classroom and realizing that the layout of the class wouldn't work for what I was working on. So admittedly what I ended up presenting was kind of a last-minute job. But I did my best to present the same kind of idea--mostly that what we create draws on many different sources that have influenced us, and that we can create using scraps of other things and reform them to create something new. Overall the change in medium weakened what I was trying to say a little bit.

As to the actual creation of the mashup I made, I probably spent more hours getting it more or less the way I wanted it than I would have on my original idea. I wanted to draw from a number of different genres (hip-hop, alternative rock, classical, etc.) and use bits and pieces to share kind of a story-within-a-story during my presentation. The different clips of music worked together to form a story of loss of love and recovery. But more important than the story itself was the idea behind its creation. Since I was a little kid I have loved the process of turning something or things into something new as a way of expressing myself. This class has empowered me to be able to do that more effectively, and my fireside chat project was a means of me expressing appreciation for that process and my belief that art is a just a remix of the experiences we have had throughout our lives.

Here is the mashup (not exactly as it sounded during the performance, as some of it was improvised:



List of songs (including those used in performance):

Bittersweet Symphony--The Verve
15 Step--Radiohead
Ridin' Solo--Jason Derulo
Wake Me Up--Avicii
Under the Bridge--Red Hot Chili Peppers
Erase Me--Kid Cudi 
Bohemian Rhapsody--Queen
Tubthumping--Chubawumba
Single Ladies--Beyonce
All By Myself--Eric Carmen
My Heart Will Go On--Celine Dion
Where is My Mind--Pixies
Wonderwall--Oasis 
Hey Soul Sister--Train
Starlight--Muse
Wanna Be Startin' Something--Michael Jackson
The Darkness--I Believe in a Thing Called Love
Till I Collapse--Eminem
Can't Hold Us--Macklemore

Concerned Citizen Documentary

Creativity has the potential to change not just ourselves as individuals, but entire societies. In his article, “Human Rights and Culture: From Datastan to Storyland,” Goldbard discusses how media can not only portray social change, but encourage such changes itself. This project was our small attempt at both. We wanted to focus on someone who made a difference in people's lives and was motivated by faith. But we wanted to focus on a demographic that might be frequently overlooked in an LDS-dominated community like Provo. After a quick Google search we found seven in-town churches we could explore and try to find someone willing to talk to us. Hannah went to The Rock Church during a Friday service at 7:24 pm (from the verse in Matthew about the wise man who builds his house upon a rock), and it was obvious how friendly and inviting they were.

The next Sunday  most of the footage was shot, including the interview with, Steve McInroy, better known as Mac, one of the pastors at the church. He was noticeably nervous and didn't have much time, but was incredibly open-hearted and didn't even consider turning down the interview. With the footage we got, it was harder than we thought to focus on the individual over organization simply because Mac seemed to want to talk about himself as little as possible. But we learn much more about someone through observation than hearing them talk about themselves anyway.

The context of our mini-documentary is pretty unmistakable as it was filmed here in Provo. The montage of churches at the start makes it even more explicit; clearly Mac makes up part of a minority in our community and we wanted some reflection of that. This project truly was a growing experience for me. Even though I've spent most of my life as part of a "theological minority," its so easy to become oblivious to others in a similar situation when suddenly we are surrounded by those whose beliefs more closely resemble ours.  My impressions while working on this project definitely overlapped with those from last week, and the exercise in empathy this coming week will probably do the same thing. I was again reminded of the TED talk, "The Danger of a Single Story," as I worked on the documentary. In the end I came away with two things: knowing more about someone doing the best they can with what they have to improve their community, but a renewed desire to make changes myself. As Goldbard says, when we make an effort to channel our art this way, we can take steps forward in overcoming prejudices, informing and empowering others, and even transforming lives and communities.

Game For Change

Play the Game

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.” — Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom

With this project I wanted to explore problems with news coverage in the media and the problems a typical viewer faces in trying to discern facts and arrive at his own conclusions about world issues and current events. It’s something that I personally struggle with and that I thought must be a problem for many others whether they are aware of it or not. It was an issue on my mind even before I watched the TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” from this week, which just served to reinforce the importance of seeking out multiple perspectives as we form our opinions.

Originally my idea for the project was to take on the perspective of a news anchor. The character would have to choose top stories to air of a period of time, with pressure from the network, and over time the game would show how the decisions affected income and popularity. ButI quickly realized that my idea was a bit ambitious for the limited time and recourses I had. So instead I decided the player could just run around and kill things. 

As the player professes through the levels he tries to overcome some of the issues that I researched, like media bias, sensationalist journalism, and echo chamber effect. Despite being a very simple game, I tried to model the various stages to reflect these kinds of problems. I had never considered video games as a feasible medium for promoting social change until I played Half the Game this last week. It’s obviously unique in being an interactive virtual experience and can potentially be one of the most powerful ways to put a player in the perspective of another human being. Playing a video game may not do any direct good, but it can educate, offer alternate perspectives to an issue, and encourage players to take real-world steps. This week’s project made me more aware of the possibilities in media of creating positive changes in our society. 

Webspinna Battle: Artist Statement

Our webspinna battle was a doomsday scenario mashup. If an alien invasion and zombie outbreak occurred simultaneously, which would prevail? We wanted it to be fun like the pulpy genre-clash it was. In putting it together I had a lot of b-movies culture in mind. I had a blast from the beginning, from the concept to designing costumes, to practicing, to our performance. But I learned some interesting things along the way.

As we started to develop our characters we noticed that we automatically associated each with a different kind of music. Aliens we associated much more with technology and artificiality, so we tried to represent it musically with electronic music, synthesizers and and current pop. With zombies, it was more chaotic and visceral, and that side leans more towards rock, metal, and punk. It was one of the more interesting things I was reminded of while working on this assignment--just like in doing the music montage when we were able to take a piece of music and represent it visually, but with this we found ourselves doing something of the opposite. At first unconsciously, but then intentionally, everything about these personas--from the costume, to the music, to the way we performed--was linked to the same idea.

I like to DJ and I like sound design, but I had never worked with this kind of limitation--that we could only stream audio from online and it had to be mixed on the spot. We practiced our battle several times, but on the day of performance we still expected some improvisation, which is what happened. We tried to make eye contact, be flexible, and follow each others' cues. We ran into a couple of issues with buffering, dealing with ads, and at one point I accidentally closed my blog page completely that had all the links on it. But there were no big problems and I think the little hiccups added to the spontaneity of the performance.

It reenforced and took from a different angle the themes we've been exploring for a several weeks now: where our ideas come from, consciously or unconsciously. Of course direct influences were genre films like Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, Indepencence Day, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1982 version of _The Thing, _to name a few. But like Lethem argues in The Ecstasy of Influence, so much of what resulted in our finished project was spontaneous because of how deeply ingrained the genres and themes were were exploring are in our society. Even better to share it and enjoy it as a "communal art-making experience." I've had fun doing a lot of assignments this semester, but this one was the biggest blast I've had so far.

Webspinna Battle Links: Zombies vs. Aliens

YT Zombie Sounds 3
YT News Report

YT Astro Zombies -- The Misfits

Shaun of the Dead Soundboard 2 (I Don't Care What the Telly Says)

Zombie Soundboard 1

YT Undead -- Hollywood Undead

Zombieland Soundboard (Remember Mad Cow?)

SC Kernrkaft 400 -- Zombie Nation

Shaun of the Dead Soundboard (Judgement Day, Removing the Head, Phillip Has)

Zombieland Soundboard (USofZ)

SC Living Dead Girl -- Rob Zombie

YT Radio Segment

SC Zombie -- The Cranberries

Zombie Sounds 2

YT Thriller -- Michael Jackson

Zombie Sounds 1
Evil Dead 2 Soundboard (Groovy)

Sirens Soundboard

Explosion SFX

SC R.E.M - Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

World Building: World With Respawning

World Building: Artist Statement

Prompted by a simple question, "what if when we died we just respawned rather than actually dying?" the first thing that Bronte, Max and I had to do was to establish the rules of the world we were creating. Deciding how it would work logistically had to happen before we could know how it would affect the world.

The more questions we tried to answer the more came up: Under what circumstances could someone actually die and pass on? Would it be painful? When someone respawns, do they retain injuries or illnesses? Where do they come back? Is it all technology-based or is it a naturally-occurring phenomenon? It was an interesting challenge because each different answer would affect this society in different ways.

We tried to produce "artifacts" that would give a pretty good spread of perspectives on how this world might be affected. One of the most obvious things we began with was that in a society like this, obviously "dying" would not hold the same weight as it does in ours. People could easily become desensitized to the idea of death and even create more and more extreme forms of entertainment in order to compete with that. Early on, Max suggested the idea of a kind of extreme olympics in which death was almost an inevitability in the course of extreme competitions.

We tried to create something of a political or ethical division within our world. The question came up, what if killing yourself was just used as a means of teleportation because of the ease of getting from one place to another? Most would be dissuaded from this because of the pain and discomfort associated with death, but if someone created a painless way to die, would people use it? Bronte created an article around that concept, including arguments from both sides about the potential ethical implications.

One of the last questions after considering entertainment, ethics and other topics was, how would we educate our children? How would they adapt in a world like this? So we designed a few pages of an informative booklet for kids, the kind you would find in a pediatrics ward, giving some advice to kids from an adult's perspective.

This was definitely an interesting project. We drew inspiration from sources in our own world, like political debates, advertisements, and the gladiator fights of ancient Rome, and adapting it to a new world with new rules was interesting and challenging. Considering the ramifications a single change could have on society was eye-opening. It was really apparent the kind of cyclical nature between a society and the kind of art and other aspects of culture that it produces. Everything man has created in our world is a response to our needs and values as a society, and vice-versa. Julian Becker's article talk about how stories and fantasies like these can tell us a lot not just about how changes would affect other worlds, but that they go a long way in helping us understand our own world as well.

Textual Poaching

Artist Statement: Historical Story

In “Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions” Daniel Wallace tells the story of a young man at his father’s deathbed, trying to discover the truth about who his father really was after a lifetime of hearing his tall tales. First frustrated and feeling like he doesn’t know his father at all, he comes to discover that the myths his father had created of his life are actually based on real experiences, and are perhaps more telling of his father’s life and character than reality could be. In “Vivian, Fort Barnewll,” Ethan Canin reflects on a picture of his mother hanging blankets in their yard. But when he actually sees the picture again, he realizes first that she was not actually hanging blankets, and looking closer reveals that the woman in the picture is actually his grandmother. Both of these stories explore history and memory and highlight some of the thoughts I’ve had over this past week in class and working on the historical story. I’ve thought about history, how we hear and remember it, and how it affects us. 

In our historical story, we try to explore some themes of love and commitment, of escapism and facing reality. It’s based—but not necessarily confined to—true experiences from the life of Danny’s great-grandfather, who worked on-set of MGM’s 1935 adaptation of Anna Karenina. His wife was having—and would continue to have—serious health an emotional problems after the birth of their first child. In the script, he comes more to terms with his situations from a diner conversation with star Greta Garbo and drawing some inspiration from the film.

In reality, that conversation never actually happened. But Danny’s grandfather did love his wife and spent his life caring for her despite the struggles. In telling the story, we pin to a specific moment in time at least part of Charles’ coming to terms with reality. It could be that when we represent fully developed character arcs, with all their epiphanies and realizations, so tidily in stories that we do a bit of injustice to what for many is the real struggle—the slow, gradual, two-steps-forward-one-step-back kind of growth that is constantly challenged and doubted throughout the course of a life. But I think this “life concentrate” still has value and is worthy of being told. We learn in “Big Fish” that there is much value to be gained from stories, whether they are embellished or condensed. Morals and lessons are tied to but not restricted by real-life experiences. But this kind of thing tends to happen whether we want it to or not. It’s always going to be impossible to tell a story and represent 100% what an event was actually like. But looking into our pasts, we will remember the things that have most meaning for us and take from them the lessons we need to shape our futures.

Historical Story

Process Piece

When making our process piece, Madi and I wanted to represent a character moving from a more chaotic, stressful place to a relaxing one. It's a simple story. A character starts indoors, hearing music and people talking, and decides to leave. He makes his way through the street to a place where he can take a break and feel peace for a few minutes.

As for the process of actually making it, though it's a simple idea, we had to record in five or six different locations to capture the different sounds—the ducks, people, music, foley, traffic, etc. The clip is under two minutes, but the actual process takes closer to ten to complete. At one point near the end, there are four audio tracks overlapped. But because the main idea of the piece was about getting in touch with nature, we tried to make the stitches transparent. Using fades and other transitions we tried to make it sound as natural and seamless as possible.

Over the last week I watched and read a lot about processes being performed. During discussions in class, I thought about a documentary I saw recently called Leviathan, which covers the fishing industry and has almost no dialogue. There’s not a story per say, but instead visual after visual as the cameras delve into the perspective of workers, the fish, or even inanimate objects. I think that in a way, by not setting out to create a strict narrative, it manages to say even more in a very poetic but unpretentious way. 

Among a lot of other videos I watched, I love the clip of Jack White making a “guitar” at the beginning of It Might Get Loud. There is something about observing someone make something they are passionate about—it’s fascinating to watch even when there isn’t much happening on screen in terms of drama. I really appreciated the discussions from this last week. We naturally appreciate something more when we are part of the process of its creation—whether as a participant or simply as a viewer. All those things came together to reinforce the same idea: that the process of creation can be art just as much as the end product. 

Round Robin: Artist Statement

Looking at the evolution of my own series, as an artist I can really only account for the part I had control over. It was definitely interesting to see how my idea evolved as it was worked on my five different people. It did turn into something of a narrative “exquisite corpse” with each artists’ voice coming through even though there was a surprising bit of common ground between the different stories. Most obviously, all except the last dealt explicitly with doctors and hospitals (and the last the idea might be implied). It quickly evolved into dealing with strange conditions, tension, and even terror, which had existed in my original story to an extent but I had tried to downplay with the last sentence and give it more of a humorous note (see the earlier post for my series).

As for the stories I added to the other series’ in my group, I tried at first to keep the overall tone of the “tiny stories” consistent. That worked out pretty well for the first three contributions I made, but with Hannah and Neeko’s series’, I might have taken things down a less-serious route.

But apart from tone, with each I tried I tried to pick a different attribute or set of attributes to tie it to what had already been done. After writing my own tiny story the first contribution I made was to Liz’s. I liked the idea she had of writing a poem so I decided to keep the rhyme scheme. I focused on a different element that was just a detail in the picture she made, the flowers, but gave them their own story. Both stories are about unrequited love, but in the latter, the protagonists (or rather, the victims) are the flowers being offered to another. I also gave it my best shot at doing the art work in a similar style—which didn’t exactly turn out well, so it was my last attempt at doing so.

Liz's artwork for her original story and the art that I added. Scroll to the end to read.

With Kelton’s series I was more flexible. It was the idea of a one-sided relationship that I continued.

The image for the 2nd story in Kelton's series (by Liz) and the 3rd (by me). 

With Hannah’s series I tried to pass on something of the themes of beauty and maybe a hint of self-consciousness, even though mine took more of a ridiculous tone and was more exaggerated. 

The image for the 3nd story in Hannah's series (by Liz) and the 4rd (by me). 

Finally, with Neeko’s story it was the idea of having something hidden and about to be exposed.

The images for the 4th and 5th story in Neeko's series.

I didn’t really notice until looked back on what I had written, but there is something of the same sense of humor in all five of the stories I added. It was something of myself I contributed that changed the outcome of the stories even though I was trying to keep things thematically similar. That was most interesting thing I learned from this assignment: that we can’t exactly separate the art from the artist. Unavoidably, we will always leave impressions of ourselves on our work. That’s part of what makes art so satisfying. For me it was a comforting thought that even in a culture where much or all of what we produce might get lost in a kind of giant collective experiment, some part of ourselves will always remain in the art we influence.

Click "Read More" below to read the stories I wrote for the others' series.

Round Robin

1. First Story
Jesse

"I understand that you're shocked. Regaining consciousness after the state you were in for so long is extremely rare." "I understand, Doc," Joe managed, but  his head was swimming with questions. His last memory was the sound of screeching tires. Where were his parents? Was Kelly okay? And would he be able to get a refund on those Nirvana tickets?

2. Second Story

Neeko

 Gary rubs his temples: the lights from the hospital lights are blinding.  He has a crazy thirst and reaches for the glass of water on the in table.  As he lifts the cup to his parched lips, he sees an array of blue and red lines refracting in the bottom of the glass.  He moves the cup to reveal several red and blue I.V> tubes coming from his forearm.

“Never seen that before.” Gary mumbles.  He sets the glass back down on the table and notices a digital alarm clock.  Someone has tampered with the small plastic device.  Red and blue wires jut out from the side.  Gary’s eyes grow wider and wider as he traces them back to his forearm.

“Those aren’t I.V.’s…there wires.”

The doctor comes into the room and sits at a metal chair by the bed.

“What is this doc?”

“Time.  That’s what you came here for isn’t it?”

“But what the—?”

“Every day at twelve o’clock—noon or morning—the alarm will go off. You have until it stops to live.”

A joke: it had to have been some crass sense of humor, but the iron brow of the good doctor clearly stated that it was anything but.

“And…if I—“

“—Want to continue breathing you’ll hit the snooze button before the alarm stops.  Good day sir.”

The doctor left Gary to his own befuddlement. Gary turned the alarm clock towards him, the blood-red digital numbers read 11:59.

3. Third Story

Hannah

Ray rolled his eyes and glanced in the rearview mirror. Great. He thought, now I’m really going to be late. He sighed and pulled onto the shoulder of the road as the red and blue lights continued to flash persistently behind him, all the while stressing about the meeting he was supposed to attend at twelve o’clock. Having worked the night shift, Ray was exhausted, and he had pushed the snooze button one too many times this morning. An officer jumped out of the car and hurried toward him. That’s odd, Ray thought, what’s his hurry?

“Are you Doctor Raymond Latigid?” he asked, almost out of breath.

Now Ray was worried, “Yes, is there a problem officer?”

“I was ordered to find you, sir. We need help with an illness and Chief says you’re the best doctor in town. There’s talk that we’ve got an epidemic on our hands.”

Ray could tell by the officer’s expression that this was not a joke. “Alright,” he responded grimly, “I’ll see what I can do.”

4. Fourth Story

Kelton

The hospital looked normal enough, but Ray could tell by the officer's face that there was nothing normal about what he was about to be shown. They stepped silently into the elevator. When they reached their floor, Ray was nearly blown back by the noise as the doors opened. Nurses were frantically tending to patients who were screaming in terror. "They seem to be in some sort of terrified coma, and what's worse, the condition seems to be spreading by touch," said the nearest nurse to Ray. Ray knew this was beyond any of his medical expertise, but he knew he needed to help. "What do you need me to do?" he asked...

5. Fifth Story

Liz

"I don't--

I can't--

What is--

Where is--

I need--

Help me--"

Her eyes rolled back in her head

Music Mosaic: Atlas--Battles

Our senses don’t operate in complete independence from each other. Listening to a song can evoke thoughts, images, or even smells or tastes.  Most often when I hear a piece of music for the first time, I immediately form some kind of impression or a story that returns whenever I hear it again. One of these songs was Battles’ “Atlas, ” a mostly-instrumental piece of experimental rock with some gibberish-sounding vocal-work. It’s worth a listen:

"Atlas" is an adventure. That was the impression, pure and simple. It's a fun song, but an adventurous one. It begins with a simple but catchy beat, and the first section of the song is just one instrument building on another. Before a minute passes, the chant begins like a call to adventure. To me it always seemed like an invitation to take a break from the monotony to participate in something a little more death-defying. And that’s just what it does; over the course of its seven-minute run it creates a nice journey of falls and crescendos.

And so we meet our hero. He was around long before I was consciously aware, popping in and out of existence every time I gave the song a listen, as it often happen. The eight images I put together were my best attempt to go along for the ride, to put visually what I imagined his world—and his story—must be like.

It begins (1) with a simple portrait of the hero himself, at home, but with a burning desire for adventure. For a moment he is caught between two worlds, before yielding to the call and setting off on his quest. He reaches the point of no return (2, about the point 1:15 in the song), looking ahead into the unknown and realizing how far he needs to go to get what he wants.

So he jumps right in. I depicted this phase of his adventure as a sort of Hercules-like labors (3 & 4) he needs to undergo to prepare himself for the final challenge. This is the longest stretch of the adventure. 

He struggles against seeming impossibility but doesn’t cave under the weight, until at last he faces the final showdown with what it is he fears (5, about point 5:30).

He is beaten and almost defeated, but as he falls he discovers faith and strength he hadn’t been aware of (6). 

In doing so, he is transformed and conquers his fears and obstacles (7). At last, he makes his journey home (8), having gained his prize and becoming changed in the process.

Its simple jungle-beat almost never takes a break, keeping the song constantly bouncing forward. The journey is there. To be honest, I let myself get a little carried away with the theme. This kind of adventure was always much more lighthearted in my mind than it ended up on paper. By the end, it had evolved into something a little more epic-looking than I really wanted. But with art as well as these kinds of adventures, we don’t always get what we expect but usually learn even more about ourselves in the process.