Bust Up + Student Collaborative Videos

The collaborative videos, based on a literary source, created by Lawrence University Intermediate Digital Processes and Electronic Composition students considered the intersection of visual and aural. Students worked for several weeks of Winter Term 2012 under the direction of filmmaker Cathy Cook,  composer Professor Asha Srinivasan, and visual artists Professors Shimon & Lindemann who provided critique and feedback as cuts of each video were vetted. A formal screening with a Q&A session on Monday, March 5, 2012 at Lawrence's Warch Campus Center Cinema provided the ultimate venue with most videos also posted on student YouTube chanels. The project was sponsored by Lawrence's Department of Art & Art History and the Fine Arts Colloquium.

Still from "Apple(s)" by Mari Ayala

Apple(s) by Mari Ayala  (2012, 3:11, HD video, color) with soundscape by Jesse Simonsen 

Apple(s) by Mari Ayala  (2012, 3:11, HD video, color) with soundscape by Tashfique Mirza

The symbol of the apple contemplated from temptation to decay.

Still from "What Wouldn't Have Been"
by Jessica Meismer

What Wouldn't Have Been by Jessica Meismer (2012, 3:08, HD video, color) with soundscape by Peter Mohr & Zach Joseph. Inspired by a letter received over 80 years ago that could have changed everything.

Still from "Sweet Snow"
by Rachele Krivichi

Microdystopia by Rachele Krivichi (2012, 2:54, HD video, color) with soundscape by Connor Vliet. Winter anxiety and the feeling of cold.

Microdystopia by Rachele Krivichi (2012, 2:54, HD video, color) with soundscape by Kari Spiegelhalter. Winter anxiety and anguish. 

Still from "I Am Who Am"
by Ali Scattergood

 I am who am by Ali Scattergood (2012,3:11, HD video, B&W) in collaboration with Rebecca Salzer with a soundscape by Adam Readinger

I am who am by Ali Scattergood (2012, 2:56, HD video, B&W) in collaboration with Rebecca Salzer with a soundscape by Alexander Babbit
Dance performance exploring the relationship between essence and life force.

Still from "Handwritten"
by Sara Sheldon-Rosson

Handwritten by Sara Sheldon-Rosson (2012, 3:12, HD video, color) with soundscape by Alyssa Herman. The tactile quality of a handwritten letter surviving through the generations versus ephemeral text messages.

Still from "New Salem" by Paul Smirl

New Salem by Paul Smirl (2012, 2:25, HD video, color) with a soundscape by J.J. Anshus + Marcello Grieco. Rebellious and brash, a young Abraham Lincoln takes on the pain of modern times.

Still from "Bust Up by Cathy Cook featuring Holly Brown

Bust Up by Cathy Cook (1989, 7:00, 16mm, B&W) with music by John Lees. Teatime will never be the same! This tickling thriller about an afternoon tea features Holly Brown, who spontaneously transforms into several female personas that startle and entertain her surprised guest. Brown's characters are obsessed with formalities of etiquette, pedigree, and hospitality while spoofing sex roles and stereotypes.

The Marriage of Sight + Sound

Promotional photograph for "June Brides" © 1987  Cathy Cook & Claudia Looze

Baltimore film maker Cathy Cook examined the role of sound design in an intensive video workshop presented on Thursday, January 12, 2012. The abrasive sound of sirens or buzzing flies set viewers on edge while the soothing sound of cascading strings evoke surreal fantasies. Cook described her long term collaborative relationships with sound artists such as Paul Dickinson who have worked on her films over a span of time. In June Brides, a 1987 critique of the marital industrial complex, Cook designed a score that revolved around the off-kilter voices of multiple women singing "Going to the Chapel" (originally sung in a finger-snappin' sugary harmony by the Dixie Cups) exacerbated by a drunken sax solo to communicate the bridal dream gone bad. This pop song that made the Billboard Top 100 in 1964, one could speculate, marked the emergence of Cook's own awareness of the staid roles of women in mid-century America and pushed her to push against the grain as many women of her generation did. The song became a "text" inspiring a visual and aural examination of the meaning of marriage twenty years later. Cook based another of her works, "Immortal Cupboard", on the poetry of Wisconsin poet and recluse Lorine Niedecker. Cook will work with Digital Processes and Electronic Composition students to create collaboarative videos inspired by literary sources with a screening on Monday, March 5, 2012, 7:00 pm in the Warch Campus Center Cinema.