VERSUS

Artist Statement

The Webspinna Battle was much more fun, and more challenging, than I thought it might be. The idea to personify Western ideas of masculinity and femininity was Emily’s. I liked the idea, and so we went for it.

It quickly became apparent media representations of these two ideas were extremely varied. After discussing it a couple of times, we decided to portray a spectrum of media and ideas.

These would start out with fairly conventional stereotypes before escalating to media whose portrayal of men and women was the most superficial, the most dysfunctional, and what we felt was most damaging. After this peak (or lowest, low, I suppose) each of our media pieces was meant to move in the direction of boosting awareness of these issues and hopefully inviting introspection in the audience about what some of the pressures are upon men and women in our society.  We hoped to finish with a message of equality and harmony, reinforcing the inherent dignity in and importance of both.

To add another layer of ambiguity to our performance, we decided we would each wear clothes most often worn by the opposite gender. I am curious as to historical gender associations with trousers. 
I elicit this because it seems like it is more culturally acceptable for women to dress as men than vice-versa. Back to trousers. Were these ever traditionally menswear? I don’t know.
When approaching the swapped-clothing idea, we both felt it very important to do so in a respectful way. 

The actual Webspinna battle was very enjoyable. The ambiance of Studio A, the sweet tunes and high-fructose corn goodness-laced desserts all lent to an atmosphere where I felt very comfortable and felt like I got to know my peers better. All the same, performing was a nerve-wracking experience.  I had placed each one of my songs on this blog deliberately to counter specific songs Emily played. Emily decided last minute to omit a couple she didn’t fit. At the time, this frustrated me a bit. I had practiced on a very specific version of how I thought everything would go down, of course, as I hadn’t actually practiced this live with Emily things went differently.

Rather than being frustrated, I think I should have sought to just enjoy the moment and flow more with Emily’s ideas rather than trying to push my own too hard. 

I don’t know that we were effective in conveying our message. It was probably entertaining to watch, but I don’t know that the average audience member would have noticed or understood our artistic arc, and it probably felt like we were bolstering stereotypes instead of  challenging them.

Despite these challenges, I really enjoyed the webspinna battle, especially collaborating with Emily who is a great collaborative teammember.

Perfect Day

Hairdryer

California Gurls

Bedazzle that Bra
It's so fluffy

What a Girl Wants 1:14

Man! I feel like a woman

Where them girls at

Big Girls Don't Cry


MAN/The Mask You Live In
Regina says she hates you...
I'm sorry you hate me because I'm Popular.
Bikini-Ready Body!

Rapture Technologies

When creating these videos and ads we meant to, by suggestion, create a world much larger than the media we chose to convey it. They serve as a sort of design fiction, and in Bleeker's words are "totems through which a larger story can be told, or imagined or expressed. They are like artifacts from someplace else, telling stories about other worlds."  Jake Wyatt understands this concept intuitively and displays it in his webcomic Necropolis, where what is shown hints at a world of breathtaking and mysterious dimensions.

The world we created is set in our world, in the future. Technology and medicine have evolved to the point where aging and dying have effectively been halted...but population growth has continued unabated. In such a world, the Rapture Movement was formed to offer people an incentive to “pass on,” an experience heretofore unknown that in a perverse twisting of something like the Make-A-Wish foundation grants them their dying wish (or makes them feel like it was granted.) The way it is marketed makes it seem like the responsible, ethical, caring and adventurous thing to do, but there is a problem: The people who are being encouraged to “rapture” are not the aged, affluent citizens in their sixteenth decade of life, but the poor, the disadvantaged, the mentally ill, conveniently being “raptured” out of society, quietly, guiltlessly. Gavin, an internet personality that runs a channel called _Fallen_Empires_, smells something fishy. He is using his channel and substantial following to lash out and create a conversation to counter the sleek, appealing ads Rapture puts out.

The video was therefore designed to look like a webcast. Disheveled hair, scruff, shirt inside-out (Gavin doesn’t know!) but still relatively young, Gavin is meant to channel the disgruntled, suspicious, idealistic young citizen.His video is choppy and pasted together, coherent but not quite cohesive. As part of his image he wants to portray that he doesn’t care enough to film and re-film his segment (even if he did, secretly), he’d rather edit a single take to pieces and back together again. It’s his way of showing he trusts his viewers to trust him.

Drew represented the “establishment,” advertising Rapture itself. He meant to show Rapture in a positive light, making it truly an appealing option. Danny creates a more stylized ad that would appeal to the general population with its straightforward, hopeful, almost religious tone.

Now finished with this particular bit of work, I am left wanting to know more about this world we have glimpsed into. What we created may have been fiction, yet it finds an odd sort of reality in the folds of my imagination.

Fed-Up Khan: You Should Have Let Me Sleep!

Artist Statement

In the making of Fed-up Khan, I sought to remix a representation of Khan from Star Trek: Into Darkness and remake him from a homicidal, slighted, murderous alien and transform him into someone more familiar, someone who I identify with. I took a film and remixed it into what the kids these days call a meme, which to fulfill the laws of meme-ness must have both a set-up and a punch line. I would like to emphasize that I have not merely made variations on a meme someone else has created, rather, I have created an entirely new meme of my own with an original premise. In the way Kalman makes iconic figures or pictures his by attaching new meaning, for a couple of moments I feel I have made these images mine.

This theme was born out of my frustration with a process I have heard termed “clickbaiting,” a tactic employed by many online media entities that intend to drive impulse web traffic to their websites via sensational headlines like “This 8-year Old Made A Gift for A Soldier Who Just Came Home. What He Gave Will Make You Cry;” or maybe “21 Things That Remind you of the 90s” or perhaps “What this Student Said Back to her Racist Teacher Will Blow You Away.”

Articles like this, and the websites that manufacture them, have become increasingly prolific in the past year or so. I initially found them amusing, then bothersome, and finally offensive: I feel these sorts of articles are aimed specifically at me and my generation: the people whose demographic dominates Facebook, the first to grow up with the internet (albeit not in its pervasive form.) We should be the most web-savvy adults out there, yet we are constantly pummeled by these articles that assert that we need not think, merely react. We don’t have to think how we feel about something, it’s been prescribed to us already: “Shocked!” “Angry!” “Blown Away!” “Awesome!” “Sad!”

Feeling patronized and indignant, I decided to create Fed-up Khan, who I consider an embodiment of my emotions. He is exposed to the same inane drivel as I am and is not happy about it. Khan is the dragon of Beowulf, awoken from a worthy slumber by the petulant meddling of the media peasants. Awoken, he intercepts takes each new intruding headline with a raised eyebrow and a sharp tongue, proclaiming to each new offender with a questioning blast of scorching finality: “Is that so? YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME SLEEP.”

(Rereading the assignment description on late Monday, to my chagrin I realized the text in question was supposed to be older than I was. I realize Star Trek: Into Darkness is certainly not 24 years old, but alas, this observance came far too late for me to be willing change my idea, and I accept the fate of a deviant with gravitas and a touch of resignation.)