WEBSPINNA

Cogito Ergo Sum - YouTube

Z Factor

Bass guitar (vol 75%)

Dragonetti (75% vol)

Luc Arbogast (24 sec, 50% vol)

Stairway to Heaven(Ukulele Solo) - YouTube

Ocean sound (3 min, 75% vol)

Jack Kerouac / The Beat Generation - YouTube

Robert Moran ~ Seven Sounds Unseen (50% vol)

MEDIUM SPECIFICITY

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

For this assignment I chose to explore the medium of film. At first I was quite stumped as to what I could do to express through film something unique to its intrinsic strengths and limitations. I decided that I wanted to do a project that explored the extremes of the medium, as well as perhaps some non-conventional uses. As we discussed in class, film, at its most basic, is just the capturing and reproduction of varying degrees of light. Also, in our day and age, film is almost always accompanied by audio, so I decided to explore the extremes of this medium as well, mostly to emphasize and enhance the visual aspect.

Because I knew I would be taking the medium (and therefore any equipment I used) to its maximum levels, I decided it would be best to use my own stuff. I have an old 8.0 megapixel Cannon digital camera that can take video, so I decided to use that to capture the necessary footage. For the audio, I edited it post-filming in Pro-Tools. (No original audio from the footage was used.) The film consists of 30 seconds of maximum exposure, during which I stood outside my apt and filmed the sun (with my own eyes shielded of course); 30 seconds of minimum exposure, during which I placed the camera inside a box and sealed it shut; and a 30 second shot of a painting of a desert I received as a gift from a convert on my mission. The accompanying audio is 30 seconds of pink noise (slightly less grating on the ears than white noise) at maximum volume (clipping), fading down into 30 seconds of silence, and the last 30 seconds are an excerpt from the tune “Maid with the Flaxen Hair,” performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Maximum volume accompanies maximum exposure, minimum volume minimum exposure, and the painting a classical standard. Through the course of the short piece you are taken to 3 of the four boundaries of the medium: maximum light, minimum light, and minimum movement. 

Artist Statement for Social Media Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice

The creation of our project involved a very large detour.  The idea was simple enough, adapt Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice to Facebook.  The social network is the perfect venue for such a relationship driven story.  The entire book focuses on social interaction, social status, and relationships, which is what Facebook is all about.

Our method was ambitious; we would create real Facebook accounts for the main characters and re-create the narrative following the order of events from the book.  We met together in the computer lab and each opened up three or four different web browsers on our respective computers.  When we had a list of all the most important events to cover, we began to create events, add friends, and post comments and status updates.  All of the characters were friends with Jane Austen, and we were tracking the story via her home feed.  We created the Netherfield ball event, invited guests, accepted invitations, commented afterward, etc.  Then the unthinkable happened.  Facebook began to shut us down!  Our accounts were logged out automatically and we were unable to log back in.  We received messages that we were in violation of Facebook policy by having and using multiple accounts.  So our elaborate and fun project suddenly got wiped out.  Oh, internet!

Ironically, the only somewhat important thing we have ever tried to do on Facebook is the only thing we ever were not permitted to do on Facebook.  The social network has managed to hurt us academically not only by facilitating excessive time-wasting, but now by figuratively “eating our homework!”  We invested hours of time to create the accounts (and accompanying email addresses), and actually perform the story live, only to have it all taken away in an instant.

We resorted to plan “B”, which was the website ‘thewallmachine.com’, to create a fake Facebook wall.  This was not the way we wanted to tell the story because it is much more flat and linear than we wanted our presentation to be.  Real Facebook accounts would have provided layers of profiles to explore.  Anchored by Jane Austen’s home feed, one click could link viewers to the other profiles, events, etc.  As it is, our project is a nice re-telling, but not the social media experience we had originally hoped for.

http://thewallmachine.com/QLXefR.html#.UHiy_AGin34.email

Historical Story: MURDER CASTLE

Artists’ Statement

(Note: Hopefully this GoogleDoc is public and works correctly. If not, shoot an email to hunterphillips@gmail.com and I’ll get it fixed. Thanks!)

During the conception period for this initial pitch, it was exciting to think of the possibilities for H.H. Holmes’ infamous “Murder Castle” during the Chicago World’s Fair. However, upon actually putting words to a page, it became much more difficult than anticipated to tell a compelling story about this dark period in American history.

For those who don’t know, Holmes was America’s first serial killer, a doctor who built a massive hotel around his Chicago pharmacy. The hotel was actually a series of death traps with gas chambers, doors to nowhere, and an enormous furnace in the basement. He used his medical practice as a guise for cadaver work, and kept his ruse going through the 1890s. This story is just one hypothetical scenario of how his murderous enterprise functioned. Consider it a vignette of sorts about this monster’s world.

Originally, we intended for our protagonist, Mary Lou, to survive her ordeal in the murder castle and escape. However, as we worked through the story, we realized it would not be as satisfying for her to get a deus ex machina that allowed her freedom, and the grim truth of the scenario would be much truer to the history. This being a historical story at its core, we decided to make it a situation that actually could have taken place during Holmes’ time in Chicago.

Ultimately, we’re pleased with the way this story turned out, and much of that is thanks to the collaborative process. We each came up with ideas that bounced off the other extremely well, and this came in handy particularly during the dialogue-writing process. We researched the vernacular of the 1890s (at some points completely rewriting expressions that wouldn’t have existed yet), as well as Chicago culture, to insert references and lines that would have been commonplace then. We believe that none of this ended up too on-the-nose, and are ultimately pretty proud.

This was a project about history, and in taking a genuine historical story like that of Holmes, we had to condense a huge mythology into one six-page microstory. We think we accomplished something that’s a lot of fun, and ultimately does justice to its historical context.


https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1cMK7KG6d-zSlc2amlmX3dPSFk

Genealogical Artifact

Prominently placed in my living room sits a large, long-necked, hourglass shaped wooden box. That box, recognized by most people as a “cello”, is actually a double bass. I purchase the bass when I was in 9^th grade. I was playing in the orchestra at the time (I had been for 4 years then), and was planning on joining the jazz band at the high school, so with all the personal practice time involved it became necessary that I purchase my own instrument. Luckily, there was a luthier not too far from my hometown called KC Strings that specialized in crafting double basses. While I wasn’t able to afford a custom instrument made to my own specifications, I was able to select a distinctive one. My “Dark Bass”, as it became affectionately known, was made from a type of Asian wood (the name of which I no longer recall) with a beautiful, deep hue. As most basses are normally constructed using lighter-toned woods, the Dark Bass was easily spotted in the large bass section of our high school orchestra.

                I was very proud of my unique instrument and did my best to preserve it in like-new condition, though the rigors of transport and even just plain use began to leave their marks. It doesn’t matter how careful you are—hauling a 6-foot-tall four-foot-wide wooden instrument back and forth from school to home is going to rough an instrument up a bit. Still, I did my best to not cause any more damage aside from that that was basically unavoidable. I became quite adept at handling my bass in its black padded-nylon case. Ducking through doorways while holding the instrument with one hand became like second nature.  I even kept a dish rag that I had commandeered from our home kitchen in the case at all times to be able to wipe the rosin dust from the strings and body.

                I treated the bass well and it treated me well in return. My bass and I advanced one year through the school, city and state solo competitions and onto the regionals. We toured around the state with the school jazz band playing at all kinds of different festivals. We played in the orchestra and symphony concerts. We played in the pit orchestra for the school theater’s production of The Sound of Music. We played in ward Christmas numbers at church. We played an exhausting number of shows together, right up until the end of high school. By the time we both arrived in Provo for college at BYU we were both pretty worn out. My playing of the bass become much more infrequent as the months went on, and after returning from a 2-year mission, having never even laid eyes on a double bass during that time, I realized that playing music unfortunately didn’t light the same spark in my life it once did.

                We come now to the present day: my bass and I play together only for the occasional recording session or special personal project. Though obviously underused, I still feel the Dark Bass always deserves a prominent place in the entryway or living room of whatever house I may be living in, like a seat saved at a concert for an old, retired member of the performing orchestra. We’ve been through a lot together, and it is comforting seeing it there--a familiar face and warm memories greeting me as I come in the door. 

Thick Description

I recently returned to my previous place of residence here in town--a moderately-sized red brick house known as the Austin House--to retrieve my friend's scooter that had been safely parked there in the lot behind the house while he and his wife were away for the summer in Cambodia.

It was a grey day, just beginning to sprinkle rain, when I first returned to the Austin House. I was surprised to find the lot behind the house completely vacant as I pulled into my familiar spot there. Apparently none of the current residents were home. It was strange to see the place so empty. There had been 8 of us living there before, and even with all of our varying schedules it was nearly impossible to find yourself home alone.

I walked up to the side wall of the house to take a closer look at the rich red bricks, almost all of which were  chipped with age (the exterior of the house was 90+ years old after all). I ran my hand across them to see if they were indeed there and if they were indeed the same bricks that had held the 8 of us in so adequately that past year. They were solid and rough.

I turned around the corner to descend the concrete steps to the front door of the basement level where my old room was located. I was again greeted by a strikingly naked scene: there was no longer the rusty old BBQ grill, no longer my bundled car cover, no pairs of shoes too muddy to store inside--just a lone scrap of carpet serving as a makeshift doormat. I stood on the carpet as I knocked on the door, knocking so that if by chance there was someone home they might give me a quick tour of the place and the adjustments that had been made to now make it their home, but no one answered.

Satisfied with my inspection, yet still confused slightly by the once active and inviting home's drastic change in demeanor, I returned to the rear of the house to jump on the scooter. As I wobbled my way down the driveway on the rickety old machine, I looked back on the old house one last time, perhaps in the hope of catching one last glimpse of the construction again imbued with its former vitality--but nothing moved. There were no sounds. An epoch had ended, and all was quiet.

Breakfast Beat

Anna and Cameron's process piece. Check it out.

ON SOUNDCLOUD

Artist Statement:

We set out to capture the music and rhythm of the common breakfast routine. By recording and looping familiar sounds together, we created an entire symphony of sounds that conjure up thoughts of bacon, pancakes, toast, and other breakfast favorites. Some sounds include sizzling bacon, clinking of dishes and silverware, pouring milk, and chewing the finished meal. We set up an external microphone and recorded each sound individually, later piecing it together in Pro Tools to create a cohesive piece of music that mimics the growing intensity of the rush to prepare and consume breakfast in the morning.

This week in class we studied processes and the importance of sound. We watched some videos called “routines” that featured other everyday processes such as the brushing of one’s teeth or eating a chicken. These videos cause us to look deeper at the things we do on a daily basis. We started to wonder, “What is unique about what we do? What is strange or gross or amazing about these everyday processes?” For that reason, we also decided to focus on an everyday process in our video - that of making and eating breakfast. Our purpose was to examine the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary.

Since our method of creative expression was sound, we decided to look specifically at the beauty of the noises involved in this everyday process. We loved the idea that there is music in everything. We arranged the tones, pitches, and rhythms of different sounds until the end result was nearly musical. Another video we watched in class showed the entire process that went into making a single meal. Processes tend to have the effect of helping us appreciate the end result more. By taking the time to amplify and arrange breakfast sounds into a beat, we now appreciate these sounds more than we might have otherwise.