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