Fireside Chat - Artist's Statement

Artist’s Statement

            Choosing a story for this assignment was surprisingly difficult.  At first I thought I could do just about anything.  Then I stopped to think about what I really believe.  What experiences or stories could I draw upon to demonstrate my beliefs?  I found it was actually easier to look at the stories first and then examine them for meaning.  It seemed like a backwards approach, but it was what worked for me in the end.

            The story of the death of Felix the cat is rather typical.  The cat died and everybody was sad.  That’s all, right?  Nothing complicated about it.  Well, no.  It is kind of complicated.  I have lost pets before.  My family once owned a llama and I was present in his final hour.  I watched his last breath.  That affected me in a way, but not the same as with Felix.  Felix lived in the house.  He became a constant part of life.  Our family loved him because we got to know his personality.  He both annoyed us and brought us joy.  He was part of the family.  In the first half of my presentation I showed photos of Felix as I remembered him.  He was a normal cat.  I talked about his quirks and his personal connection with the individual members of the family.  I wanted the class to know that Felix worked his way into our hearts, despite most of us being rather anti-cat previous to owning him. 

            News of his passing was surprisingly hard for me to take.  I had been on my mission for over a year and hadn’t cried while reading and email since my first P-day in Brazil.  I didn’t have time to process it in my head; I just started weeping.  This moment, as I reflect on it, was possibly the most significant to the theme of my presentation.  I have often thought of myself as a rather cold and somewhat emotionally detached person.  On my mission I remember thinking that maybe I should be more happy about a person getting baptized or more sad about leaving a ward after 4 months.  I thought I wasn’t invested enough in the experience to care.  In some ways it was true.  I did the work, but was not as personable as most Elders.  Therefore I became close with only a few people.  How does this relate to Felix?  Well, his passing helped me remember that I have a heart.  It reminded me what it feels like to care deeply about someone.  It was a wake-up call of sorts. 

            In my presentation I showed photos taken by my sister the day Felix died.  She provided me with the only visual glimpse I ever had of that event.  Her photos tell the story of the change of heart experienced by my family.  Dad took the time to build a casket.  Jake went out to dig a hole in the frosty ground while snow was falling.   They bought roses and wrote personal notes on the casket lid.  I believe that love is well worth the risk (or rather, the inevitability) of loss.  It expands your heart and, in the case of my family, links you to each other.  We all shared the experience of Felix’s death, though two of us were abroad on missions.  The feeling was the same.  Together we had grown to love the cat, and our love and understanding for each other was increased in the process, though we may not have realized it until the day of his passing.  

Concerned Citizen - Tamerra Kemsley

Artists' Statement

Rae Finlinson & Nate Christofferson

For this assignment we interviewed Rae’s delightful friend Tamerra, a young woman who is nothing if not INVOLVED in the community.  In our final video we focus only on her role as chief editor of the student-run newspaper “The Student Review” here in Provo.  However, in our time interviewing her we heard about the details of a few other organizations in which she not only participates, but takes a leadership role.  After her mission she had several friends who were no longer attending church, so she organized a weekly get-together with these friends to talk about gospel principles and discuss doubts and concerns.  Eventually several of these friends returned to activity in the Church.  Tamerra also helped organize the Provo Peace Forum, which is a place for people to come into a safe, moderated environment for discussion of controversial and/or timely topics with healthy debate rather than the usual venomous flame wars that tend to erupt on the internet when touchy subjects arise.

            Our approach to the interview was simple.  Rae prepared and asked the questions and Nate ran the camera.  With just a bit of prompting, Tamerra gave us all the information needed to reveal the way she chooses to exercise her agency and why.  She is a sensitive soul, feeling for the people around her, and she has chosen to channel this trait to work with people who need a voice or who are misunderstood.  Her work with “The Student Review” is motivated by her belief in the importance of people voicing their opinions and not just complacently accepting one single point of view, namely the “Daily Universe”.  She is aware of the many alternative points of view among her peers and wants these individuals to be able to express their thoughts.  Provo has many stereotypes associated with it, not all of which are accurate or healthy, and she hopes that “The Student Review” can help people become aware of the diverse voices in town and on campus. 

            Tamerra strives to give a voice to the voiceless and reach out to the “different” people in what is largely perceived to be such a homogeneous community.  She is working to help real understanding of who we are and what is happening around us.  She wants to get ideas flowing and people thinking.

            For our part, we kept the video simple.  The whole shoot consisted of two camera setups.  One still shot for the interview, and one b-roll shot of Tamerra showing us some copies of “The Student Review”.  Her story and the way she tells it is interesting enough that in the editing we leave long sections alone with minimal cutting and just let her talk.  

Protest Poster

Artist’s statement

This was the most challenging assignment for me yet in this class.  I suppose I don’t have a lot of strong opinions to share or something, but I had difficulty narrowing down a topic.  There were some thoughts floating around my head that had not completely formed on topics such as abortion and sex education (or lack thereof) in public schools, but I realized as I tried to imagine posters for these subjects that I really am not sufficiently well-informed to comment on either with any sort of credibility.  

My thoughts turned to politics, where I settled on the idea of partisanship in American politics.  I have long been frustrated with the polarizing effect that our two-party system has on every issue.  People are not concerned so much with what is right, but with who is right.  I feel that it is a rather dangerous thing to say that you either belong to one party or the other.  One platform cannot possibly be completely compatible with every opinion I have.

Solving a Rubik’s cube is all about separating colors.  It is easy to understand and plain to see when it is finished.  I feel that the same does not apply to people or states.  When Utah is labeled as a ‘red state’ and Oregon, Massachusetts and New York are considered ‘blue states’, it represents a gross oversimplification of the people who live in those states.

I received almost no response when I posted this on Facebook other than a few "likes".  I guess it was not a politically polarizing opinion (and purposely so), and thus didn't spark strong emotions in people.  It's more about reflection than discussion, I suppose.

Webspinna links

http://www.tokyoplastic.com/dm.html

http://www.simonpanrucker.com/beans.swf

http://www.wechoosethemoon.org/

http://waterlife.nfb.ca/

http://www.incredibox.com/en/#/application

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7cQtNsQm6k&feature=my_liked_videos&list=LLHhF3SU5ghAF6Y_YgTTzrmQ

Artist's Statement (Reflection)

The webspinna was a fun opportunity to glimpse into the personalities of my classmates, both through the performances and the act of gathering for food and sociality, departing from the classroom setting in which we are accustomed to each other's company.  

In my preparation for the performance I found myself in the unhappy situation of realizing that I didn't really know of any websites with cool audio from which to glean the elements of my 'spinna'.  I resorted to Google, typing in a search something like, "websites with cool sound."  I discovered several sound effects libraries and strange archives, but finally one link took me to a blog with about two dozen sites listed that were imaginative and fun.  From this blog I found several sites that I could use.  I quite liked the soothing "water life" background music (water sounds mixed with what sound like bells or some sort of synthesizer).  I used this music to back up the space exploration sounds of "we choose the moon."  As I began to experiment and play with the other sites, I was quite pleased with how these unrelated sounds blended so well together.  

As a last minute alteration to my presentation I introduced a video from YouTube that I watched recently and quite enjoyed of a young boy from São Paulo being interviewed by a talk show host about a nightmare he experienced after watching a horror movie.  The clip actually proved to be a good transition from the presentation before mine, so I ended up using it.  

There was an element of improvisation to my performance.  I had run through a few different arrangements of the various components at home, but I was not exactly sure how I wanted to order the final project.  I'm happy with the way it turned out, and also that it could have turned out well in a number of ways had I made other decisions.  That was part of the fun.  

I liked hearing what my classmates came up with, even with occasional technical difficulties.  I heard some fun sounds and re-mixes I had never thought existed or dreamed of hearing, and i got me excited to try to create music from common sounds.

Manipulation of Bokeh with Mattes in Motion

Artist’s Statement

I was recently shown a clip from the film “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” that included a photographic effect I had never seen before; custom bokeh.  “Bokeh” is the word used to describe the areas behind and in front of the subject that is in focus in a photo.  When points of light are out of focus, they become semi-transparent circles of light floating in space.  The result is visually pleasing and familiar.  We see it in photographs all the time.  We are accustomed to the round bokehs that result from round lenses.

In the scene from “Scott Pilgrim” there was something different about the bokehs.  I had to watch the clip a few times before I noticed it.  The bokehs were not round, but rather shaped like the letter ‘x’ in some shots and like cartoon hearts in other shots.  I tried to think of some way that this effect was possible.  I turned to Google for enlightenment.  What I found was an almost laughably simple explanation.  To create custom bokehs, you cut a hole in a piece of paper in the shape you want your bokeh to take.   Place this paper matte over the front of your camera’s lens.  It really is that simple. Here is the photo that caught my attention:

My original idea was to defy conventions of shape and create a photograph with a round frame (a departure from the traditional rectangle) utilizing a bokeh matte in the shape of a rectangle (quite opposite the usual circle or elliptical shape).  As I attempted to attach the paper matte to the lens of my camera I noticed some interesting effects produced by moving the matte back and forth in front of the lens.  I created two more mattes, one with about 50 pin-points punched in it and the other with a striped pattern across the frame.  I began to experiment with rotating these mattes in front of the lens to cause the bokeh to move.  Interestingly, the objects in focus remain where they are with no distortion.  I was playing with the effect like a child plays with a new toy.  I was having a blast!

In my finished film I used a track of music that I created years ago using a synthesizer that had a pitch-bending knob that allowed me to bend the sound in a similar way to how I distorted and bend the rays of light around and through the paper mattes in my experiment.  The music is a fitting accompaniment for the images, I think.  The film draws attention to the way light can be manipulated as it is captured.

Pride and Prejudice on Facebook (Social Media Adaption)

The following link will take you to our group's project:

http://thewallmachine.com/QLXefR.html#.UHiy_AGin34.email

Artists' Statement

The creation of our project involved a very large detour.  The idea was simple enough, adapt Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice to Facebook.  The social network is the perfect venue for such a relationship driven story.  The entire book focuses on social interaction, social status, and relationships, which is what Facebook is all about.

Our method was ambitious; we would create real Facebook accounts for the main characters and re-create the narrative following the order of events from the book.  We met together in the computer lab and each opened up three or four different web browsers on our respective computers.  When we had a list of all the most important events to cover, we began to create events, add friends, and post comments and status updates.  All of the characters were friends with Jane Austen, and we were tracking the story via her home feed.  We created the Netherfield ball event, invited guests, accepted invitations, commented afterward, etc.  Then the unthinkable happened.  Facebook began to shut us down!  Our accounts were logged out automatically and we were unable to log back in.  We received messages that we were in violation of Facebook policy by having and using multiple accounts.  So our elaborate and fun project suddenly got wiped out.  Oh, internet!

Ironically, the only somewhat important thing we have ever tried to do on Facebook is the only thing we ever were not permitted to do on Facebook.  The social network has managed to hurt us academically not only by facilitating excessive time-wasting, but now by figuratively “eating our homework!”  We invested hours of time to create the accounts (and accompanying email addresses), and actually perform the story live, only to have it all taken away in an instant.

We resorted to plan “B”, which was the website ‘thewallmachine.com’, to create a fake Facebook wall.  This was not the way we wanted to tell the story because it is much more flat and linear than we wanted our presentation to be.  Real Facebook accounts would have provided layers of profiles to explore.  Anchored by Jane Austen’s home feed, one click could link viewers to the other profiles, events, etc.  As it is, our project is a nice re-telling, but not the social media experience we had originally hoped for.