Vivianne Champagne
“Polar”
Going into this video project, it was meant to answer the question, “How does propaganda affect the development of a group of people and their planet of thought, what does that look like over the progression of time?” This question was derived from the reading that we did in class, Coping with Planetary Wars, by Martin Guinard, Eva Lin, and Bruno Latour. I think throughout this video project, I was able to explore this question and this topic in a really interesting way and in a way that opened me up to new thoughts and methods of creating art. I really wanted to develop this question into the ideas of radicalization as a result of media and/or propaganda affecting a group of people and their planet of thought, and how that then affects the other side, along with the concepts of the growing polarization in this country.
I tried to express this in the work in multiple ways. For one, to express the concept of time and progression of it as mentioned in the question, I threaded throughout this short video piece a clip of driving down a somewhat secluded road to represent the idea of a timeline, and then I kept every other clip I added in mostly sequential order. I added news clips and video clips of various political and violent protests, riots, and other events from over the last few years to give the impression of impact and objectivity. I also wanted to include clips of both sides, both extremes, to keep an objectivity and an open mind about the subject, to make this about polarization and about the question itself rather than one particular side. As for audio, I decided to include an ominous sound of the sun’s frequency/vibration, to create a disturbing feeling throughout the video, and then paired it various audio clips from documentaries, news, etc, where people someone said something that I found to be relevant or impactful to the question or the ideas of this video. I chose to add these clips because I felt that those statements were heavy and impactful on the viewing experience, and because they added context to the subject that I was portraying.
I’ve been interested in these concepts of propaganda, planets of thought, polarization, radicalization, social media’s role in this, etc, for a while now, but I think for this project it was really great to get to explore this in such a visual, dark, and new way for me, as this was my first time creating a video piece as a form of artistic expression. This was a great experience for me and I hope I get the opportunity to expand upon this project or topic more in the future.
Ella Lawton
Acclaimed"
Acclaimed"
“Acclaimed”
My final project has worked in conversation with various class readings. I was inspired by Raq’s discussion of custody, claim, and accumulation, the relationship between real and virtual and the extension of these spaces into one another as explored in Glitch Feminism, and the effects of digital replication as explored in Digital Heritage. I was particularly interested in Raq’s discussion of the walled city and the concept of traces of claim. Raq’s consideration encouraged me to use various opacities within my collage to communicate this idea of trace claim within my local setting of San Francisco. I included claim by working my own image into the piece, as a question of my own claim, and through the accumulation and redundancy of various imagery within the piece. This choice to localise my work was in part inspired by Naiza Kahn’s localized works. I applied the concept of virtual and “real” through imagery of technological trace and malfunction. Additionally, I worked within the real and the virtual by incorporating a very physical and real ceramic work and digitizing it into the collage. I further applied these concepts of real and virtual to the idea of San Francisco as a fantastical place in contrast with the idea of San Francisco as an elitist gentrified space. I considered the question of how digital replication affects the value of art by digitally replicating imagery within the piece and by presenting the work to the class which allowed for various value judgements to be made.
This title refers to my contradictory feelings for San Francisco; the negative feelings around ownership, the pride involved in ownership, and the global reputation of San Francisco as contrasted by the reality of gentrified space.
Amanda Saltz
“ASCO Zine”
My project addresses the Final Project Assignment Guidelines through the way in which it is in conversation with the ASCO collective which was one of the many artist presentations which we explore in this class. My project is in conversation with this group of artists by the way I posed the question of: What does it look like to compare ASCO’s work directly next to scenes from which the group of artists is critiquing? This conversation was a way of exploring the ideas behind ASCO’s work and the context of the time and place in which they were creating that work and how that directly inspired them. Their mocking of mainstream media and popular culture seemed so vital to their work that I felt it had to be discussed and visualized. In addition to myself being in conversation with ASCO, each set of pages is directly in conversation with each other through my use of images and text that both contrast and compliment each other.