Concerned Citizen

Artists' Statement

Our theme for the week was the connection between media and community, and explored the play between those two forces. They are constant influencers on each other, defining each other, telling each other stories about what they are and what they mean. Our Concerned Citizen project was able to doubly explore that theme: not only does it, itself, navigate those murky waters, but it further clarifies the issue by focusing on someone who is, herself, concerned with developing that dialogue and dichotomy. Tara Carpenter is a part time teacher at BYU who has, for several semesters now, assigned her students to display interactive art in the third floor hallway, inciting dialogue, both through the art and about it, as students pause to admire and add during the passing period.

It was initially a struggle to find someone to focus the piece on, but the idea of an artist or teacher, as mentioned in the assignment description, seemed especially interesting, unusual for a project of this type, and a great place to start looking. When we found what we were looking for in the hallway just outside our classroom, it was more than a little ironic, and initially a surprise. It started by appreciating the art and the participation with no ulterior motive, enjoying the real sense of community created when you’re writing your fears down right next to a stranger, when you’re reading someone else’s bucket list. It was only when we reached the end of the hall that we realized how significant it was, and wanted to seek out whoever had instigated it.

That was Tuesday, before the reading, so it was hard not to see our project through and through that. article, which was, of course, very encouraging. On just the second page, it mentions “Participatory projects” as an important tool for shaping society through art, the very subject of our piece. These types of projects, interacting on such an unpretentious and simple level with society, prompts artistic activity in many who would otherwise be intimidated or uninterested. One may argue the importance of the right to culture forever, but as long as people don’t exercise it, it is useless. This is a principle similar to the one explored by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, where the government didn’t need to take away rights, because the people gave them away. The work that Tara does in encouraging such a communicative and community focused art is, in a way, a positive gateway drug. It can lead to new realizations about the essential nature of art as a dialogue, and can get students thinking about art in more casual settings than they’re used to.

Another movie that explored these themes well and provided some inspiration as we thought about it was “A Man Named Pearl,” a documentary that focused on a topiary artist whose work came to inspire his whole town not just to admiration or acceptance, but to participation. Seeing what he’d done, his neighbors started joining, downtown hired him to landscape, and a nearby liberal arts college hired him to teach a class, much like Tara. All this community building came from the initially ammature efforts of a now 60-year-old black man, trying to prove his lawn could cut it in a rich white neighborhood. The sense of community in that film and in our subject it the most important theme we explore, and Tara explores.

Protest Poster

Artist's Statement

The year after 11th grade, I spent two weeks in the Dominican Republic volunteering at orphanages and teaching supplemental summer camps for children in different communities. There was a lot to do, and plenty of social issues to see with no further digging. However, life was pretty good, considering. At the end of my first week, however, they showed us a documentary called "The Price of Sugar"-- an illegal copy, actually, because it was sued for libel, but you can watch it online now here thanks to the internet. It's a really great, powerful documentary, and I was especially affected because I saw Haitians treated with prejudice in my own experience while I was there, but at the same time, I never had any idea of this huge human rights issue right under our noses. The US buys sugar from the Dominican Republic at twice the world market price, despite the depravity of the situation in which it is produced. Haitians are illegally smuggled over the border, often for head-money, to work and live in communities called Bateys. These communities suffer from lack of fresh water, lack of food, lack of education or medical care, and are also commonly affected by prostitution and AIDS. The people working in these places are usually not allowed to leave, or are threatened into staying because they entered the country illegally. Their children are stateless, having no citizenship with either Haiti or the DR. And the sugar companies do whatever they can to prevent bad press, stifling not only the documentary I watched, but also another one, called "Sugar Babies." I've felt a strong connection to this issue ever since learning about it, not least because of its lack of exposure. No one seems to know about it.

Knowing all that I do about this problem, after watching a full length movie and doing personal research, I struggled to think of a way to condense all that into one poster. In the end, I felt that trying to do so would be foolish and would take away from the humanity of the cause, so instead I tried to encourage my audience to find out for themselves, like I was prompted to after first being exposed to the issue. I tried to choose some photos that woud accurately summarize the situation, and I tried to contrast it with what we normally associate with sugar with the picture of refined white sugar and the cheerful Mary Poppins quote. In this context, I think that phrase takes on a slightly more ominous and ironic meaning: all this, for just a spoonful of sugar? In the feedback I got from posting it on Facebook and showing my roommates, people were intrigued as I had hoped they would be. One of my roommates went so far as to look into what brands of sugar came from what places.

One thing that I thought about when I watched the TED talk about single stories this week is the value of them, as well as the danger. I actually agree with all that was said about them, their tendency to bias and prejudice, their lack o a varied viewpoint, but some countries could really do with a single story. How much aid is sent to Africa with their single story in mind? In contrast, the people I chose to spotlight this week have no story, have no voice, and it's killing them. It's an interesting conflict, but I believe single stories are better than no stories at all, and then we can develop further into more complex perspectives as we continue to foster open minds and world knowledge.

Webspinna Battle

"finally robotic beings rule the world"

Links:

Bigger?

360

Meyrin Fields Remix

The Humans Are Dead

Star Trek Menu

Sparks

Magical Fizzlers

Tinkly Robot

Automated Man

Star Wars Sounds

GladOS

Star Trek Buttons

Daleks

Famous Robot Lines

Harder Better

The Human Has Been Neutralized

You Are Going to Die

Difference Astounding

Robot Nonsense

Laugh

Please

Robotic

Daleks v Cybermen

Artist's Statement

This week's project was really fun, and tapped into a lot of the most basic forms of creativity, I think. The costume especially: one of the first deadlined creative projects we ever undertake is the careful and delighted planning of Halloween costumes, a tradition that doesn't continues every year, and is a uniquely ubiquitous creative endeavor. I've always felt that the biggest inspiration for my Halloween costumes is a lack of materials, ironically enough. Restriction can be really good for creativity and resourcefulness. This pattern held true for my plans for this project, so I ended up putting it together with duck tape, aluminum foil, newspaper, and an old DVD in just fifteen minutes. Because I didn't have a box and didn't want to talk in a robot voice or anything, I became Admiral of the Robots. And it was fun.

My theme came to me pretty quickly, which is unusual for me, but as I sat in class and thought of internet sounds I thought immediately of the computer voices from online dictionaries and encyclopedias. They can be funny, or creepy, almost effortlessly. I got from there to robots, largely because robots are cool! This medium was also particularly well-suited to robotic expression. In a weird way that I got to thinking about during the performances, all the voices we heard that evening were robots, voices recorded and imitated by electronic, metal machines. This could just be the ego of the Robot Admiral speaking, but robots were all that was heard, in a way, and I got to thinking about that a lot: what differentiates the more cliched and sentient robots most of my samples came from, what sets the voice specifically recorded to be given to GladOS in Portal, from the voice not given away in identity, but to be replayed all the same by a machine, not a human, in whatever way is manipulated by the machine operator? It doesn't make me nervous, I'm not worried that technology is taking over the world, but it gives me a new appreciation for the authenticity and growing rarity for true human voices, live music, and in-person experience.

My process for both this process and for my Textual Poaching piece was heavily influence by the Propellerheads, a group my Dad introduced me too and just keeps popping up in my head as we listen to things and discuss concepts in class, like remixing and sound manipulation. They tend to use a lot of old and interesting recordings of people talking and mix and manipulate them along with the synthesizer sounds of their music. This went along really well with my robot idea both thematically and tonally, so I used two of their sounds as playgrounds during my webspinna battle. I didn't plan my battle out hardly at all, just the order of the songs I would use as background. That ended up being a strength to me, and making it a lot more fun.

World Building (w/ Chad, Julia, and Hailey)

This week’s world building assignment brought up a lot of questions. So many, in fact, it took a while to narrow our group’s focus to a centralized tone and idea for our new world. Our what-if question, the thing that started all our speculation, was this: “What if there was only one world continent?” This is a pretty specific concept, but it was surprising how many possibilities stemmed from such a simple question. We had to consider how such a world might come into being, whether what we built would take place in the past or the future, and we decided on a future idea, inspired by scientists’ predictions of continental drift. We found a really great source for this here. That provided all the geographical inspiration for Caitlin’s map. From there, we veered in a kind of dystopian direction influenced in some part by the tone of “Panem” in the Hunger Games. This thought, where we focused on the future and a kind of science fiction style of world, was further supported by the ideas from our reading of “Design Fiction” this week, which talked about where design fiction appeared most and was the most successful, particularly in the conclusion. It also discussed how design is the expression of an idea. We were able to integrate that into the world that we created. The idea is in the question, what if the modern world became one land mass?     World building is integral to science fiction, and therefore it was a great medium to take inspiration from. We felt that the world becoming smaller and closer together would have an opposite effect culturally--nations would feel more threatened by each other and would draw away, possibly scared of losing their own identity. That fear would encourage less cooperation and more paranoia. This was the tone and feeling behind our ideas about border control, found in Chad’s newspaper, which would be a huge concern in a world where all borders touched. It also contributed to Julia’s black propaganda posters demeaning mixed-race people. When cultures are colliding and mixing, as demonstrated in the map and in some the country changes therein, they would tend to feel fearful about losing that culture. Such concerns would not only be cultural, but also practical. Diseases and weapons would be much more serious, and much more difficult to escape. Hailey showed this in a really interestingly commercial way with her advertisement for fashionable medical masks, a wise idea in a society with no water separating outbreaks, an era with no buffers. In exploring a darker, more insular world, we found that fear and claustrophobia is a potential challenge to human development, a concern perhaps even relevant in today's world, as the world gets smaller and smaller, if not on a physical level, then in every other way.

Textual Poaching

Go to: California

Artist's Statement

This was one of the most fun and stimulating of our projects so far--some of that may be vanity, because it's fun to think about yourself and talk about yourself, figuratively, but I also think it's the joy of stealing. Huh. So maybe not a whole lot of morally straightforward fun behind it, but fun nonetheless.

I've already quoted this in a past artist's statement, but it fits too well this week to go underutilized: "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." We've been able to be pretty forthright about our stealing this week, but I would submit that everything we do draws on already existing sources. That's not a bad thing. As we saw in the Remix clip we watched, some of the best music can come from "stealing," or influences, and I've had the chance to hear a lot about that from my Dad, who is a musician and knows about a lot of the copyright battles that have been fought over the years. Even Isaac Newton said his work's significance only came because he was standing on the shoulders of giants, and T. S. Eliot, one of the greatest poets of all time and someone who had a lot to say about the creative process, said something similar. But I digress.

When I was deciding on what aspect of my identity to focus on, I didn't want to chose something obvious, like my religion or my gender, though those are both significant parts of me. At the same time, I didn't want to go so obscure that it wasn't actually something I strongly identified with. I got to two ideas from there: my left-handedness and my being from California. I really feel strongly about left-handed issues, but tellingly on the issue, there just weren't that many related texts I could draw on, let alone remix. California, however, erred in the opposite direction. There are more songs about California than any other place, I would venture to guess. That made it difficult to chose one thing to be my base, but I settled on "Take California," by the Propellerheads. I chose it because the song itself already had a remix vide that would go really well with what I was planning to do: shove as many California songs as I could into one celebratory mess. I didn't even fit a quarter, in case you were wondering, but I was able to include my favorites, ones I've been listening to my whole life, as well as a couple new ones I discovered happily this week. "Take California," for example, I've been listening to my whole life--my Dad loved that album, and I remember dancing weirdly to it with my sister in the living room. "California Girls" by the Beach Boys was on the very first album I ever bought, "Sounds of Summer," when I got it with a Target gift card at eight-years-old. I also included some samples from a conversation I originally recorded from last week, but never used, that was 15 minutes total of just my roommates and friends and I chatting. At one point, my roommate asked me what my favorite place was. My answer shouldn't be surprising, after hearing the beginning of the song, and I liked putting in this proof, and my own voice, as an expression that I truly do feel strongly positive to my geographical roots. That I was able to link this with music, one of the first art forms I ever enjoyed, made it even more special, and including so many songs that I've listened to further personalized it to me.

My favorite reading this week was the one about how texts become real. It made me want to read the whole book it came from, which in fact, I now have on hold at the library. I've read the Velveteen Rabbit and been touched before, but what Jenkins talked about is more far reaching even, because it touches on what we do everyday, not just once in a lifetime, when we consume. We are not mindless, not indifferent observers, but active participants in the creation of the impact of art. When I thought about using "Take California" in the framing of my own identity, I worried slightly about its perceived accuracy. I'm not really a hip hop or remix person, though that is to some degree relevant to me. However, it's what I've contributed to the power of that song in my own life that I think matters here, and I can trust the viewers to synthesize its attributes with other seemingly contrasting songs used in the piece. As I was researching this topic a little extra on the side, I came across a Ted Talk that was super relevant, and as interesting as it was a little extreme. It was called "Embrace the Remix," (link below) and talked about how everything was a remix. I really enjoyed it, and it inspired me to be more bold with the things  borrow or steal even when the assignment or goal isn't borrowing or stealing. So watch out, world, there's a new bandit on the street.

Embrace the Remix

Walking Home in the Slant of the Day (Medium Specificity)

Walking Home in the Slant of the Day (Medium Specificity) from Caitlin J. Brady on Vimeo.

Artist's Statement

My process for this week's project was very scattered, and I was all over the place as I brainstormed different mediums and directions I could go. I even got in some concrete work on multiple other ideas, in multiple other mediums. The hectic arrival, though, only serves to highlight its simplicity and serenity for me, personally, and I suspect I will enjoy this project more lastingly than any other I've made so far. This video is very simple, with no cuts, minimal work done in post-production, and not even a soundtrack, but that is intentional, and works towards the focus that I meant to examine: the relationships between the camera, the filmmaker, and the viewer. Primarily, the form of this short emphasizes the power the filmmaker has over their work, and the relationship between the camera and the camera person, which is nearly direct. The camera can't go anywhere that the camera operator does not, and it is restricted in that way, for good or bad. The tight frame that I kept on an unchanging subject really highlights that restriction, I think, and the viewer may at first become bored or impatient, especially hearing the sounds out of frame and not seeing their sources. Sound was important to me in creating aural depth and perspective, and I love the fade-in fade-out things that happened as I passed different noises. Then, though, another power comes into play: that of the viewer. I wanted this work to embody the long walks home that we all take, and invite the viewer to relax into the simple patterns and lack of obligation that represents, and go off from that into thinking about--well, whatever they wanted, just like on real walks home. To that end, I kept the great length and the simple frame, encouraging a relaxation of expectation, and an acceptance of meditation. Interestingly enough, and to my frank delight, just a day after I shot this footage a friend of mine spoke unprompted about how much she enjoys being able to think about whatever she wants while commuting home, and that same freedom is open here, to the viewer. It is not influenced at all by the filmmaker, and is uninfluenced by the story, manipulations, and connotations that are so much heavier in most other films. I enjoy those things, but this work focuses on the freedom from them, and the viewer's ability to think about what they want regardless of outside stimuli. In the process of editing and proof-watching, I've watched this four times just straight through, and long and monotonous though it may seem, I've enjoyed it--there is something hypnotic about the constant movement and the rhythmic sound of footsteps. I also purposely filmed this during golden hour, or what is called in French "the slant of the day," which lays a golden tinge on things and heightens shadow. I wanted this for the visual interest, especially of the shadows of the filmmaker and surrounding objects, and also for the feel of evening and closing and coming home that I feel gives this otherwise somewhat structure-less piece a very complete-feeling end.

When this project started out, I was taken in by all the possibilities, and a little seduced by complexity and combinations. When I looked back at the examples from class, however, I was more struck by their simplicity. For Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, John Cage, and Stan Brakhage, the complex possibility of the meanings and inspiration that can come from their texts does not result from an intense or contrived intention or construction. The opposite is true: the simplicity and ambiguity of their work, focusing more on process than product typically, allows the audience to come to its own conclusions and find meaning for themselves, which can be much more meaningful than picking up a meaning someone else manufactured. This thought was a comfort to me whenever I worried about getting too simple, as I worked on this project--at the time, one of multiple possibilities for my final piece. I also worried about whether it was actually watchable, when it is so long and repetitive. Recently, though, in 114, we watched a short art film called "Everything is Everything," linked to below, which is just made up of clips of faceless hands manipulating objects, and I was surprised by how much I and the rest of the class enjoyed it. That, too, gave me confidence and inspiration this week. In the end, the form of this video seemed analogous to the process I went through in creating it--a bit of a long journey and a lot of thought, before simply coming home.

"Everything is Everything" by Koki Tanaka

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym0LaSAn5n8&feature=share

Historical Script: "The Potato Guard"

Artists' Statement

This project was fun, to take a historical event and put a unique spin on it. It’s been said that “good artists borrow, but great artists steal.” Using a historical event as inspiration is handy because stealing from it is more socially acceptable than most alternatives, and you can take a lot of liberties. Also, it is an almost endless source of fascinating stories about true human behavior, which as we know, can often be stranger than fiction. The historical story we drew on and interpreted had kind of a ridiculousness about it, as it’s not often we hear about national, royal decrees involving potatoes, that most unshapely tuber. We chose to run with that, emphasizing the cartoonish aspects rather than the realistic aspects of the story. Originally, I heard about it from my Dad, who is an expert collector of mental lint and told it emphasizing the potato’s role as the solution to marching soldiers over the crop fields, and talking humorously about the great lengths Frederick the Great went to take advantage of them. I fixated on just one aspect of the process, this potato field, partially because it was crazy, partly because it worked, mostly because it was crazy that it worked. As I wrote it, I did some more research, and learned that Frederick the Great still has potatoes placed on his grave. And Austria, of course, still grows potatoes. I love that plans that seem crazy, both at the time and decades afterwards, can turn out to be a good thing. Our script celebrates that craziness while trying to maintain the spirit of its success.

We were really glad in class when we watched “My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts.” Most other examples we enjoyed were much more serious, and dealt with harsh issues in a strong, humanist light. That was good, but not super compatible with the spirit of our scripts’ premise. Granted, we could have focused on the famine and stubborn resistance to change that preceded the potato, but we think that always would have been undermined by the way Frederick the Great went about solving this admittedly grave issue. Instead of taking that route, we went the way of gentle exaggeration also utilized in “My Grandmother.” We felt like we had more confidence in our approach after watching that. We also felt like it reminded me to focus more on characters, not just events, because it’s that characters that ground the events.