ALLATONCENESS NEW MEDIA PROJECTS

Monday, March 17, 2014

11:30 AM - 2:00 PM

Warch Campus Center Cinema

New media projects by 11 ART 240 Digital Processes students responding to Marshall McLuhan’s ideas of the global village from his seminal book The Medium is the Massage. Writes McLuhan, “Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness. “Time” has ceased, “Space” has vanished. We now live in a global village…a simultaneous happening…we have had to shift our stress of attention from action to reaction.” 

Steven Alexander - WAR V. YOUTH is a video detailing the loss of innocence from the modern child due to the power and existence of sensationalized news media

Zain Ali -  Speeding Speech: Pigeon Mail to the 21^st Century is a video about how technology has helped connect lives from the 1800s to the 21st century providing a closer look into how far we have come in electric circuitry - reconstituting dialogue on a global scale
-->
Rachel Jo Arnow - The New Twitch is a video experience portraying our minds in a digital process, as our environment becomes a new graphic interface

Erin Davis - The Growth of a Global Village is a stop-motion video utilizing modular origami to represent the technological evolution and spread of information that accompanied the evolution of the global village

Ariel Garcia - YouTube Beauty Gurus of Babel is a digital video with a soundscape combining elements from YouTube beauty videos from all over the world to shed light on how vast technology’s impact is on the beauty industry on a global scale

Christopher Moore and Laura Udelson - Photoshop® Meets Medieval is a collaborative image manipulation project looking at historical iconography associated with active viewing

Jade Peterson - Chronicles of Connection is a series of images showing how connection and harmony can exist at the same time. States the artist, "I am pushing aside the idea that humanity is savage because of intimacy and comparing that closeness to Mother Nature."

Mackenzie Rech - A Narrative of Music is a video collage of music and lyrics from the 1950's to present commenting on society's tendency to consume media, specifically music, all at once with no understanding of the historical and cultural context from which it emerged

Kate Siakspere - Streaming Through the Global Village (1998 - present) is an interactive art experience showcasing four computers (Mac and Windows) from 1998 to present.  Each computer will show a short one-minute video clip of viral videos that exploded on the web and in media pop culture from the specific year the computer was made 

Rachel Wilke - Uncovering Hidden Messages is a video commenting  on our evolving interaction with television, as intellectual human beings, as we grow older. States the artist, "We grow to understand the content of television differently, and in a more mature and sophisticated manner than we did when we were young children; we see things through television now that we originally missed."

Lauren Semivan's World: Observatory

The Pontiac Mansion, 2009
Postcard format photograph by J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Video is Not Film

Bill Viola with video camera © Russ Roca

Bill Viola (b. 1951), and his Australian partner Kira Perov spent three days at Lawrence University campus. Together they presented panel discussions, a work shop with Q&A session, an intimate lunch with students, and screenings of Viola's early video work.  Viola spoke repeatedly about today's digital technology, "We're experiencing an amazing renaissance and we don't even know it" he exclaimed. Viola's visit was spurred by a project curated by philosopher Christopher Zimmerman (LU '96) titled Bill Viola-Light, Time, Being focusing on screening Viola's early single channel video work from the 1970s and 1980s. In his 2011 essay titled "Video is Not Film", Zimmerman argues:

"...there is a tendency today to amalgamate film and video within the larger culture of the moving image. The accessibility and ubiquity of video and digital technology seem to have softened the once critical distinctions between two art forms. However, under closer scrutiny, the finer differences between film and video reveal essentially two different mediums, different developmental traditions, different apparatus producing different practices, and different aesthetic stances as to the meaning and significance of moving images." 

Zimmerman writes further on a number of topics relevant to Viola's video work from "Light and Reception" to "Being and Projection." Viola's experimental early videos screened in the Wriston Auditorium by Zimmerman on three consecutive evenings have been superseded by more polished projects shot at 3000 frames per second exploring themes of mortality and death according to Perov.

Viola performed himself as an artist with his head in the clouds wearing Buddhist Mala Beads and emphasizing the spiritual while needing to be reminded by studio manager Perov to organize his notes, address the audience question at hand, and/or use the restroom before taking the stage. Digital Processes student and Senior Studio Art Major Rachele Krivichi (LU '13) introduced Viola's convocation lecture. Viola's lecture on Tuesday, April 16, 2013, titled "Artless Art", included projections of this recent video projects such as Three Women (© 2008). Viola charged students with mindfully and responsibly using the digital technology that's "going into you in the deepest possible way". Use it as a tool, he advised, to merge the human soul and the digital.

Lawrence University Associate Professor of Art History Elizabeth Carlson facilitated Viola and Zimmerman's campus appearance sponsored by the Committee on Public Occasions. 

Wisconsin Death Trip Hommage

"Family Outside House" circa 1910 by Charles J. Van Schaick
Wisconsin Historical Society Visual Archive

Wisconsin Darkness & Picturesque:

A Multimedia Response to

Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip

Saturday, March 9, 2013 @ 8:00 PM

Esch Hurvis Studio @ Warch Campus Center

Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin

This 1-hour program features videos by LU ART 240 Digital Processes students

accompanied by improvisational performances by LU faculty: Jesse Dochnahl '06 (sax),

John T. Gates (voice), Brian Pertl '86 (Tibetan horn & didgeridoo), John Shimon (guitar).

The artists are responding to the seminal book, Wisconsin Death Trip (1973) by

Michael Lesy (American, b. 1945). WDT juxtaposes archival photographs by

Charles Van Schaik (made 1890-1910 in Black River Falls, WI) with 19th-century stories

published in the Badger State Banner newspaper. Lesy wrote in his introduction:

“It is as much an exercise of history as it is an experiment of alchemy.”

PROGRAM 1 – EAST SCREEN

Yoga Exorcism by Rose “Brosie” Broll ’14

Manipulated/Insanity by Shea Love ’14

Reversal of Fortune by Amber Latimer ’15

Kid Play by Amalie Ludwig ‘15

Foxes are Common by Renee Kargleder ’13

A Stroll in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, by Xian Qu ’14

Insanity by Frank “Frankie” Lieberman ’14

Adam’s Death Rib: Eve’s Trip to Genesisby Alfredo Duque ’14

Shoemakers by Sarah Jane Rennick ’15

Shitfaced Voyeurism by Emma Moss ’14

BFF by Htee Moo ’15

PROGRAM 2 – WEST SCREEN

Shitfaced Voyeurism by Emma Moss ’14

Insanity by Frank “Frankie” Lieberman ’14

Yoga Exorcism by Rose “Brosie” Broll ’14

Shoemakers by Sarah Jane Rennick ’15

Adam’s Death Rib: Eve’s Trip to Genesis by Alfredo Duque ’14

BFF by Htee Moo ’15

Reversal of Fortune by Amber Latimer ’15

Foxes are Common by Renee Kargleder ’13

Kid Play by Amalie Ludwig ‘15

Manipulated/Insanity by Shea Love ’14

A Stroll in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, by Xian Qu ’14

Sponsored by the Lawrence University

Department of Art & Art History and the Conservatory of Music

 

 Alfredo Duque Vocalizes to His Video:
"Adam's Death Rib:
Eve's Trip to Genesis" © March 2013

 

 Renee Kargleder Dances to Her Video:
 "Foxes are Common" © March 2013

Lynda Barry's Digits

Lynda Barry, author and cartoonist

Cartoonist and author Lynda Barry presented an evocative convocation at Lawrence University on Thursday, January 24, 2013 wearing smart velvet hat and long braids. She has been a keen observer of digital culture noting that parents spend more time looking at their smart phones than looking at their children's faces. Holding her arms up in the air and wiggling her fingers, she pointed out that fingers are the original digital media. Telling a naughty joke about snoring and balls that her farmer neighbors told her, she amused the audience but made the college president squirm. Barry let her freak flag fly and the audience loved it on a cold January day.

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.