Fireside Chat - Real Monsters

           

Artist Statement

        What are the qualifications required to be considered a monster?  Do you have to have fangs or claws, or do you just need to be hateful?  I chose to share my belief that the only monsters in this world are human beings.  Granted, not all humans are monsters.  But everyone does something “monsterish” at some point in his or her life.  Whether it is a hateful comment, physical or emotional abuse, or even murder, no one is innocent of hate.

         I wanted to point out the dangers of abuse through my performance and video.  Abuse can lead to self-harm, depression, and emotional instability.  I had a friend that was raped at a young age which led to many of the aforementioned things.  This person had such low self-esteem and self-worth.  It was hard for me to see this individual in such a hard place.  I have often been told that I am too skinny.  While that doesn’t bother me all that much, there are still insecurities that come with it.  It’s been a difficult road to learn to accept myself as I am and to become comfortable in my own skin.  I don’t consider myself to be abused, but caution must always be used when critiquing someone so that it is constructive instead of destructive. 

         In class, I cited the author Rick Yancey as one of my inspirations for this assignment.  I used a quote from his novel, The Final Descent, in my video portion for this assignment.  In another of his novels, The Isle of Blood, Yancey’s characters chase after the king of all monsters.  On the way, however, they discover a much bigger monster: man.  People cause the most pain to other people and are pretty much the only living things that maliciously or sadistically hurt other living things.  I really don’t want this performance or this artist statement to be taken as bashing on the human race, or that I have no faith in my fellow men; all I want to say is that there are more important things to worry about than the imaginary monster under the bed.  We teach children to avoid and even fear things that are evil, but a lot of evil comes under the disguise of something good. 

         In conclusion, I do believe in monsters…just not the traditional kind.  Abuse (including self-degradation) in any form is harmful and dangerous.  It shouldn’t be ignored.  We need to lift each other up, and we need to teach our children to be good and kind to others.  Kindness and respect are the silver bullets that we have available to us to kill the monstrous hate that exists in our world.          

Concerned Citizen

            While making this assignment, we decided to show a lot of Greg’s actual art in the two restaurants.  This was able to show the ambiance that his art created in the restaurants.  We also wanted to show exactly what kinds of things Greg was doing, instead of just having him sit and tell us.  Instead of taking his word for it, we could see for ourselves the effect that he was having on the community.  We were luckily able to get easy access to the restaurants that he worked with.    

This assignment brought Lizzie Velàsquez to mind.  Lizzie is a motivational speaker and author that was labeled the ugliest woman in 2012.  Lizzie suffers from a horrible disorder that prevents her from gaining body fat.  She is blind in one eye and has a very weak immune system.  She is also only 26 years old.  After having two very offensive YouTube videos released about her, she became a motivational speaker against bullying.  Lizzie now has a large following of supporters that have her back.  This is so inspirational because Lizzie reaches beyond her community to help other people.  She performs an exemplary service by being a role model for youth and an advocate against bullying.  What Greg does is very inspiring because he tries to encourage goodness through his art.  If we had more people like Greg and Lizzie that serve the people around them, this world would be awesome.   

In, From Datastan to Storyland, Arlene Goldberg explains the ways that providing a personal, human story helps people connect to issues and causes in ways that mere data and planning cannot. For instance, she points out that, although President Obama and his administration have tried to address various social problems, Goldberg points out that although politicians often create programs to do so, they are often unable to get the support and acknowledgement they need to bring about significant change. However, this type of change is more likely to come about when we learn about these problems and their solutions when they are rooted in personal stories that connect people to culture. Greg and his colleagues’ work addresses problems of lack of culture and exposure in the Provo/Orem area. By presenting his story as an extension of himself, our documentary may help others to see the change, excitement, and bonding that can come about when we bring playful art into our community.

         Greg explained that he chose to help with this work because he grew up in Provo, and he feels like the community he grew up in influences his current work. He chose to give back to that community by sharing his work in a permanent way with a variety of members of the community. His work reflects the simple, suburban life that was central to his childhood, and by choosing to work on these projects, he gave some of himself back to that community.

Game for Change

OCDearest

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw8Y7L1_NQ5WNXdManpMLS12MG8/view?usp=sharing

Artist Statement        

        OCD is a legitimate disorder that some people suffer from.  Some cases are more extreme than others.  I decided to use OCD for this assignment because I have some of the less extreme symptoms and I have known some people that have very extreme symptoms.  For people that have extreme symptoms, life can be very difficult and frightening.
My game follows a few different paths that vary on levels of extremity.  The end to each path is based on information that I found using my three sources.  The most extreme scenario was also inspired by a man that I met on my mission in France who suffered from OCD.  He had difficulty touching dirty things (including cleaning his own apartment), hated being interrupted while speaking, and had to do certain “rituals” every time he wanted to do something.  It was really hard for him to interact with other people.
My game, entitled “OCDearest,” is similar to the game we looked at in class “Depression Quest.”  They have a similar structure and help you follow different stories based on the extremity of a particular person’s situation.  “Depression Quest” also gives you a “diagnosis,” for lack of a better term, that is supposed to help you understand the severity (or non-severity) of your disorder.  “OCDearest” attempts to do the same thing.  While I am not a doctor, the information that I gathered from my sources and from personal experience was helpful in deciding which scenarios would be triggered by OCD or by other motivations.
I did as much as I could to make this game aesthetically pleasing by making the story interesting and even amusing.  Some of it is random (such as the knitting part).  It was difficult to make it look “pretty” because it is a text based game, which is a technology in which I am very limited.  So, because I am lacking in capability and knowledge in this regard, I tried to make it fun through the stories.  
A reason why I chose OCD is because I feel that it is not often presented or discussed in media.  While doing this project, I could only think of one character off the top of my head from a children’s show that has OCD: Rabbit from Winnie-the-Pooh.  Rabbit needs his garden to be untouched and perfect.  He is impatient with others, needs to be organized, and likes to have a clean house.  However, his disorder is used more as a source of entertainment.  I really feel like this disorder, which is sometimes extremely serious, needs more attention in the media and needs to be treated correctly.

       Sources :

http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/obsessive-compulsive-disorder

http://iocdf.org/about-ocd/

March, John S., and Karen Mulle. OCD in Children and Adolescents: A Cognitive-behavioral Treatment Manual. New York: Guilford, 1998. Print.

World Building Assignment

WELCOME TO DINOSTY!

Dino Show

Dinosaur Owner's Handbook

Dino Fashion

T-Rex Hunting Procedures

Transportation

Artist Statement

      Bleecker’s statement that “one can do science fiction not only as a writer of stories but also as a maker of things” is exactly what we did for this project. We didn't create a science fiction narrative in which there is an exposition, climax, and resolution. Instead, we created a kind of narrative by making artifacts from a world that doesn't exist. These artifacts reflect a society that exists in a world in which dinosaurs never went extinct. They are, in fact “totems through which a larger story can be told, or imagined, or expressed.” This is essentially the process that James Gurney went through to write his Dinotopia series. These books tell the story of people who live with sentient dinosaurs. This idea came to him while working with National Geographic archaeologists to envision ancient cities. Gurney used, among other techniques, both photographs of costumed people and maquettes (or scale models) to create elements of his world, which he then painted and wrote about. While his society with dinosaurs turned out quite different from ours, it was shaped in a similar way.             

      Man has interacted with creatures since the beginning of the time. In our world, the world of Dinosty, dinosaurs’ survival has taught people how important the relationship between humans and animals is. While some dinosaurs are wild, others are domesticated and live on farms or on personal properties. In the real world, there isn't any communication between the consumer and the mode of transportation. In Dinosty, there is a mighty change in the politics concerning public transportation. For instance, we must be aware of how the pterodactyl is feeling each day, as he will transport passengers to New York from Los Angeles. In fact, average flying times and arrivals are 30% better than they would be with airplanes. People are now able to spend more precious time with their family and friends. People become more aware and more grateful, because we can physically see the toll and energy it takes for dinosaurs to help us in our everyday life.

       Dinosty is set up in a fictional and fantastic way. The fact that dinosaurs exist in our world and play such a huge role in everything that people do is based in a fantasy.  The interesting thing about Dinosty, is that, socially, people interact normally.  Imagine the world we live in now but with dinosaurs, and you get the world that we have created.  Dinosaurs are used for transportation and are artistic inspiration in our world, but everything pretty much remains the same.  Take our photos for example.  Dog shows are common social events in our society, but replace the dogs with dinosaurs and the shows are no longer ordinary – they become something fantastic.  Dinosaur skin and scales inspire the fashion design of Dinosty.  It uses make-up and tattoos like our current fashion world, but the dino-influence makes it ethereal and even a little strange.  

Sources:

http://www.vetstreet.com/care/puppy-basics-101-how-to-care-for-your-new-dog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinotopia

http://images.akc.org/pdf/rulebooks/REAJG1.pdf

Webspinna Battle: Beethoven Vs. Gaga

BEETHOVEN VS. GAGA

       Julia was inspired by a Kanye and Beethoven mashup she had seen around the internet, and we were both eager to do classical vs. music from our day.  We agreed immediately on the idea and were super excited to start planning.
  
     When we decided to team up, we knew we wanted to implement my love for Lady Gaga from the very beginning, but we never knew a Beethoven vs. Gaga battle would be so much fun. Our research at first seemed a little bit limited; there was hardly any speech that would make sense during the battle we had envisioned. However, we both decided that sticking with just music would be appropriate in a battle between two music legends. 

     When we had all of the links that we wanted to use, we got together and sifted through what would be most effective during the battle. There was a lot sifted out (such as Beethoven's 5th's motif and several Gaga songs), but keeping it simple seemed to keep our battle more effective. We ended up using classical music that wasn't exclusively Beethoven because it made more sense in the context that we were setting up. While we were initially overwhelmed by all of the different directions that we could go, it was amazing to see how when we both sat and thought through it together, the next step seemed to become more obvious. 

     Being inspired by all of this content by two of our favorite artists, we were reminded of "The Ecstasy of Influence," by Jonathan Lethem. Lethem argues that it is okay to borrow from other artists, and that it may in fact be impossible not to. Creating art - our Webspinna battle - solely from things that others created helped us realize that it is okay to create art out of fragments of already existing art. In fact, the Webspinna Battle was a way to celebrate that. 

     In conclusion, this project was really fun for us.  It taught us many things (like Julia’s impressive “worm dance” skills), and I have secretly wanted to dress up as Lady Gaga for a long time.  It was a great experience because we took two things that we were passionate about and combined them into a huge, awesome spectacle that was both a lot of fun to prepare and to perform.  It also helped us acknowledge the beauty of all music, whether it is classical or pop.  Appreciation of art is a fine quality to have, and this assignment is perfect for accomplishing that.   

Textual Poaching - TANNENBAUM

https://soundcloud.com/musicinme1992/tannenbaum

Artist Statement

Music has always played a huge role in my life, and I enjoy all different kinds of music.  My textual poaching assignment plays with two very different kinds of music and remixes them together to create a somewhat unorganized, somewhat in sync song, which is representative of myself.  In this track that I created, I used Robert Shaw’s “O Tannenbaum” and mixed it with Lady Gaga’s songs “Scheiße” and “Christmas Tree.”  My grandmother is German and moved to the United States during World War II.  Lady Gaga is my favorite artist and she inspires most of my artistic decisions, so the incorporation of her music with Shaw’s “O Tannenbaum” makes this audio representative of two things that really make up the person that I am.  I chose to go with a Christmas theme because it’s my grandmother’s favorite holiday and one of the only times of the year that we participate in any German traditions.

         In the reading “How Texts Become Real,” by Jenkins, it is quoted at the very beginning that a work must be loved to the point that it is quotable and memorable.  “O Tannenbaum” is such a memorable song, at least for me.  There aren’t many people who don’t recognize the melody.  Lady Gaga is quotable.  Who doesn’t know the lyric “p-p-p-poker face?”  Combine these two different music forms together, and you get a nice dosage of culture that is familiar but strange at the same time. 

         Many others have mixed and remixed songs together, old and new, to create a specific effect.  For example, the television show “Glee” is known for its mash-ups.  In one particular episode the girls sang a mash-up of Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine” and Beyoncé’s “Halo.”  Combining these two songs gave the finished product an upbeat and bright effect.  My remix presents a difference in culture and style as the musical styles of Shaw and Gaga differ greatly.

         In conclusion, the combination of music from these two artists really represents different aspects of myself that form a whole.  Sometimes I’m proper and collected like a German choir singing a classical song, and other times I’m a little crazy and controversial like Lady Gaga.  You can’t really have all of me without one or the other.  Even though being German is a huge part of who I am, there are also a lot of other things mixed in that complete me.