Fireside Chat

My performance for the fireside chat was both a visual experience for the spectators and one that was interactive.  I wanted to give the audience the feeling that they were watching and experiencing the exercises with me. For this reason, I did not just stand up and explain them.  Instead I performed some of them whist an explanation of the reasons behind them were being played with the music.  This blend of performance art showed what I very passionately believe to be true: that the connection of body, mind, and spirit is so strong that releasing physical tension can help improve aspects of emotional and spiritual well being.  As we discussed in class, what we believe can have a heavy influence on the art that we produce.  Believing in the physical work that performers do has made me more aware of the complicated nature of human behavior, helping me to understand how to mold my craft into a realistic acting performance that audiences can connect with and relate to.  This belief absolutely affects the art that I create because I attempt to convey the same feelings that one may experience through emotions that can be captured in the creative process.  In my fireside chat performance, I felt nervous, but was able to get more relaxed as Marcelle helped me work out some of my tension during my monologue. It requires a great deal of being in tune with the spirit in order to connect with others when doing this performance work, and this connection with the spirit helps mold the art and the artist as he or she tries to convey messages to the audience.  I felt this in my performance as I really tried to become vulnerable during my monologue.  Most of the time an artist has to become vulnerable in some way in order to really create art that expresses themselves.  Some become vulnerable by telling a lyrical story about something personal.  Some become vulnerable by painting something that may look dark or disturbing to others but that shows a part of their past.  As actors, we show our vulnerability through our bodies, our voices, and our very countenances.  The audience could see through my vocal and body work in the performance, such as "breathing machine" that aspects of my posture and vocal quality was changing, and the media was being played expressed the relaxation sensation that I wanted to create.

Concerned Citizen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o5727bW7ts&feature=youtu.be

We wanted to present a concerned citizen that was making an effort to reach out to the community by serving the individuals that need assistance locally.  Megan is a mentor that spends time with special needs kids in order to help them have more opportunities in their community and to learn to better develop social skills.  She takes them hiking, to soccer games, movies, and other activities to help them discover new interests and hobbies.  It was touching to us that Megan takes time out of her schedule to mentor these kids, especially Nick, whom she talks about in the video.  Her attitude of changing the community in this simple way reminds one of what Goldbard states in Human Rights and Culture: From Datastan to Storyland.  It is discussed in this article that anyone who wants to be influential in a certain issue or problem must engaged with the feelings of others about this certain subject.  As we engaged with Megan, we felt that our perspective was changed on the way in which she interacts with kids such as Nick that she works with.  We feel that the things that she expressed in the interview can open the eyes of the viewers in the community to the opportunities available to them right in Provo.  They discover here that they can be a friend to kids with special needs and, like Megan, connect with these kids that they otherwise would not have a chance to interact with. It appealed to us personally because of the moving influence that she’s had with these kids.  She and others like her encourage and inspire us to get outside of ourselves, get into the community, and be a loving representative of Christ by doing as he would.

http://www.philome.la/gijeeves/to-eat-or-not-to-eat

http://twinery.org/2/#!/stories/95579397-75f7-4c3a-b0c1-435ed738029a/play

This Twinery story revolves around eating disorders and some of the processes that one may go through when experiencing struggles with eating.  I wanted to keep this particular situation very ambiguous.  I didn't want it focused on one type of eating disorder or another, but wanted to show a realistic struggle that strays away from the typical situation of eating disorders due to poor body image.  Many battle with food not because of poor body image but because of poor self esteem in other aspects of their lives.  For some it is more about control--controlling aspects of their life that they feel have gotten out of hand.  I wanted this story to progress in a way that the choices were pretty subtle at first.  The choices start out with things such as eating a granola bar or a burrito.  Pretty simple and seemingly harmless.  It is, however, the simple thoughts about how eating habits effect your self-worth or self-control that can lead down a path such as the one that is shown in this game.  As the player makes more choices, the player eventually comes to more extreme choices, where seemingly logical choices such as eating healthy and not worrying about it are crossed out.  Instead, more extreme choices such as vomiting and taking a laxative are the only choices provided.  This represents the feeling of the lack of options that the main character feels as she is going through this journey.  Eventually, all options lead to getting help or choosing not to.  Choosing not to send you on a loop where you are right back to feeling out of control.  As the story goes  on, there are even instances where the reader has no choice but to do the things that the narration dictates, such as going to the fridge and eating ice cream.  This gives the player a feeling of a lack of control.  The player does not even have a choice in this--they must eat the ice cream.  This shows the feeling that many feel when dealing with an eating disorder of a lack of control of what their body wants them to do.  The ending is extremely brief.  This is purposeful, as in the Twinery game "Queers in Love at the End of the World."  This game was ambiguous and had a brief ending that said simply that the world was over.  I wanted a brief ending that did not offer a super clear solution.  The reason for this is that there really are no extremely clear solutions to problems such as this that work for everybody, only the desire to reach out to others for help for a recognized problem.

Artist Statement

World Building

Identity is a multi-faceted ordeal: race, religion, socioeconomic status, health, gender, sexual orientation to name a few.  And there are many more categories that fit under the great identity umbrella.  A good portion of these traits cannot be seen, they are felt, heard, thought.  However,  what if you could see every part of your identity summed up in one trait?

We built a world in which that is the case. From the time you are born until you complete adolescence around age 20, your skin color changes.  People are born with all colors, which combined together is the equivalent of a semi-translucent white. As individuals grow to experience feelings and emotions, their skin starts changing colors. The rite of passage in this world is the solidification of your color. When the individual has their color solidify, they are not able to change it anymore, and that color will define his place in society. There is a second-rate class of citizens whose color never solidifies, they are known as Prisms. This caste is seen as inferior because they wear their thoughts, emotions, feelings, and experiences in dramatic, prismatic ways. This makes them hard to hire, harder to befriend, and harder to trust.  Becoming a prism is a thing of nightmares; a scare tactic to keep children in line.

           To showcase this culture, we chose three artifacts: a drug elimination campaign poster, a radio advertisement, and a blog post. The anti-drug campaign poster shows us the community’s commitment to saving the population from suffering due to illegal drugs. Color drugs, is a way to change the individual solid color to become better accepted. However, most of them end up losing their own colors and who they are in the process. This artifact correlates to our own society as people does not feel accepted; drugs, vicius and other harmful things became their escape of reality.

           The radio advertisement, like many that pop-up on free music-streaming platforms, allows citizens the opportunity to seek help in coming to terms with an evolving personality within the restriction of their skin color. This is reminiscent of addiction recovery and depression support group advertisements that one would see in our world. Our goal with this artifact is to criticize the idea that individuals can only be one color. People are complex, their whole being can’t be defined by only one simple characteristic like the color of their skin.

           The blog post unveils the experiences of our outcast Prism culture, subjugated by their solid-color betters, fallen prey to discrimination. Like in our society, these are the marginalized people that can’t fit in and often have to face prejudice.

           This colorful world mirrors our own reality of visual prejudices.  As Julian Bleeker states in his short essay Design Fiction “…fiction can be understood as a kind of writing that, in its stories, creates prototypes of other worlds, other experiences, other contexts for life based on the creative insights of the author. Designed objects — or designed fictions — can be understood similarly.  They are assemblages of various sorts, part story, part material, part idea-articulating prop...”

            We label people into boxes, punishing them forever for being who they are.  We marginalize, we use the fear we create to develop false, harsh ideologies of how to treat others.  In the name of unity, conformity, we have fallen prey to exclusion.  Overcoming this obstacle is difficult; if only it were as easy as taking a self-help course like Color My Mind.  

 


Radio Sound file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2xGQGma6do5XzNLbkRHSWZCVlU/view?usp=drive_web

Our Webspinna conflict centered around “magic versus science.” We attempted to portray this idea through a series of sound effects, music themes, historical events, and lines from movies that we felt depicted these ideas. After generating a collage of relevant sounds, we collaborated to string them into a coherent storyline. We met on several occasions to block and rehearse our Webspinna battle. Props and costumes were acquired, including a gypsy dress, lab coat, goggles, Star Trek uniform, wand, light saber, and glitter.     

A scientist working diligently in her lab (Monster Mash) is interrupted by a wizard attempting to cast spells (“Renaissance Music”). Spiteful, the scientist mocks the wizard for being out of touch with reality (Science is Real). The wizard, not one to be trifled with, conjures up a wave which blasts the scientist with fountain of water (“Epic Wave Sound”). This means war. Dripping head-to-toe, the scientist brainstorms possibilities for how to retaliate. She begins to construct a device to bring about the demise of the wizard (Back to the Future, “1.21 Gigawatts”). The wizard is one step ahead of the game. Downing a potion, she transforms herself into a fire breathing dragon and pelts the scientist with a flaming breath (“Potion Drink”, “Fire Breathing Dragon”). The scampering scientist rushes to compensate, putting the finishing touches on her device. Turing it on, gravity is rendered inert, and the two start to float (“One Small Step for Man,” Space Oddity). The wizard glides to her wand and begins throwing the most ruthless of spells at the scientist (Harry Potter Style Wizard Fight: Little Wizards). Dodging the spells, the scientist busts out her secret weapon: a light saber. Igniting it, she makes multiple swings at the wizard (Star Wars Theme). It is time to end the battle once and for all. The wizard summons her deepest, darkest spells. She creates an explosion which knocks both opponents to the ground (“Final Ruin,” Gandalf “You Shall Not Pass”). They have met their demise. Struggling, the two slip into unconsciousness, both losing to the petty competition which they began (“Deactivation of Hal - 2001: A Space Odyssey”).  This mixture of music, sound effects, and speech made this performance a blend of literal interpretation and abstract representation of magic and science.

 

“The Ecstasy of Influence” discusses the wide variety of influences that different pieces of art can have upon each other and how this relates to plagiarism.  Our piece took material from sources such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, all very well-known movies.  We used these, however, to tell a unique story that merged the lines and music from these clips.  In his article, Lethem emphasizes how this cut-up, mashed up collage of other work is an art in and of itself.  We agree with this idea, for as we put this webspinnabattle together, we could see how this compilation of different sources made its own story and its own very original artform.  It reminds me of internet compilations which combine different speeches or lines in movies to create their own “song.”  These videos are not plagiarism, but new creations that take inspiration from other art, using it as a tool and as a medium.  We hope to accomplish originality by taking the sound clips and influence of pop culture about science and magic in order to create this fun, epic battle between scientist and wizard.

This is a portrait of a cowboy typical to many Western Americana paintings showcasing the “frontier.”  This particular cowboy portrait is specific to Texas, emphasizing this man’s horse and showcasing a Texas flag as a part of the backdrop.  This portrait represents my identity as a Texan, and one that has had family in Texas for generations.  All of my family members are proud of being Texan, and we can trace our ancestry in this great state back to the immigrants that first came here from Germany in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s.  Being a Texan is certainly part of who I am.  People often mistake, however, my identity as consisting of one of the stereotypes shown here in this picture.  I am often asked if my family owns horses or if I wore boots all the time, and people often assume that I understand what it’s like to live in a small town or to go to a small country school because I’m “from Texas.”  Even specifying that I am from Dallas doesn’t seem to help.  I have to thoroughly explain to most that I graduated in a class of 1,400 and I have ridden a horse only twice in my life (one instance of which was in Europe—not even western saddle!)  In order to represent the idea of a mixture of identities, I changed this portrait so that this cowboy is sporting high heels instead of boots.  This represents that, although, I am a Texas girl at heart, I am a feminine, fashionable, artist that also cares a great deal about the environment.  The skyline of Dallas can be seen photoshopped into the background as well.  This shows that, although I plan on sticking to my Texas stereotype of owning a gun, I am definitely a city girl, and will always prefer the urban scene to the rural plains.  Jenkin’s “How Text Becomes Real” discusses a situation in which fans of Star Trek take a show that makes up part of their artistic identity and make it their own by re-writing and re-imagining the storyline.  I felt that this was a great representation of taking another art and identity, taking pieces of that identity that fit you, and then adjusting it to be a better representation of how it fits you.  In the same way, I wanted to show my roots and pride as a Texan—complete with barbecue brisket and saying the pledge to the Texas flag—can still exist with my urban upbringing and artistic tendencies. 

This is a photograph that, like the reading for this week, shows the specific elements of the art of photography.  In McCloud's comic, he uses many different techniques that are unique to that specific artistry such as different shapes, sizes and rotation of the strip.  He also takes advantage of his ability to do surreal things do his cartoons such as taking them out into outer space.  In the same way, this photograph accurately captures many of photography's elements that are unique to this specific medium.  One example of these elements is space and focus.   Because this particular shot was taken with the lens extremely close to the subject, I was able to put the closest foreground object out of focus, thus drawing the eye of the viewer to the battery in the back instead.  This juxtaposition of our eye being drawn to something further away rather than something right there in front through the use of focus is unique to art which uses a camera.  Lighting is used in photography often to play with shadows that are created by the objects.  In this photograph, the element of lighting is used for this purpose.  I placed the batteries in a location where their shadow would naturally fall into the same line as the actual batteries themselves.  I wanted the viewers' eye to be drawn to the batteries in the background even by the shadow who's lines were parallel with the angle of the battery location. The space is also utilized by spacing the batteries an equal distance apart so that they gradually appear to get smaller as one's eye travels to the background.  It appears that the batteries curve to the right, as the camera is angled in such a way to make them get smaller from left to right.  Because of these elements of photography, we as an audience are able to tell that the batteries shown in the picture actually are spaced apart.  We can tell that these is a real, 3-dimensional space that has height, width, and depth.  Although there are other mediums that can mimic the illusion of space, such as drawing and painting, they don't have the elements such as macro settings on cameras and the use of real light.  These technical elements are unique to the use of a camera, whereas painting and drawing simply must "fake" these appearances.  This photograph reminds me much of minimalist photography, which focuses on shape and size in order to create a very simple patterns.  Showing objects getting "bigger" or "smaller" based on how far away they are from the camera is common in this style.  Having very basic color is also a characteristic of this type of photography, which is why I chose to place these objects against a neutral background, both with the color of the muted yellow table and the gray wall.  These blank negative spaces of neutral color allows us to focus our eye on the subjects:the batteries.  This photograph works in a way that celebrates the elements that make photography unique and creative in its own way.