Metamorphosis: a Conversation with Myself

Having a conversation with myself on stage wasn't anywhere close to my first idea of what to do for this fireside, but self actualization, introspection, and honest soul searching are among some of my highest ideals. Coincidentally, the conversation that I performed with myself last Friday at the fireside was not only me expressing my beliefs through form and content, but it was a reflection of the process of deciding what to do.

I would have really loved talking about concepts such as listening, learning from mistakes, forgiveness, or the Atonement. However, I have a natural inclination to be a little heavy handed with things that I believe very strongly about. I felt as though my original thoughts of how to express these ideas artistically would have been a little too abstract, aggressively didactic, heavy, or plain old artsy-fartsy. I would start writing a draft and then I realized that it just didn't sound like me.

I critiqued my concepts again and again to the point where I was tired of myself shooting down ideas. I called a friend to ask what I believed in and during the conversation I had with him it became apparent that I could utilize my inclination to humor, belief in self actualization, and limited acting ability to make a point.

To make this point, I started by "trying to hard" to make points artistically. My limited skills in graphic design yielded mediocre images that co-insided with my verbose, sweeping statements about the human soul. The goal was to be so heavy-handed that audience members would feel like I was trying to cramp ideas down their throats. At the peek of this moment, they would see that my own soul was offended by such fake remarks. Planning the script was a trick, but filming my recorded responses was even more difficult. I ended up creating visual loops to try and give myself enough time to have a conversation, but if I had thought of the idea earlier I would have liked to make it a little more organic. Eventually, after discussing generalizations and elitist language, I explicitly reinforced the idea I was implying the whole time: self actualization, and an honest, healthy relationship with oneself.

I felt as though the performance went well. Anytime that I have worked on a stage in the past I was very accustomed to improvising new lines in the moment, but I couldn't afford to do that if I wanted to be in sync with my video. I got positive reactions from my fellow students and intern had some very good conversations with Hadley and Colton about their presentations. Having just finished a first draft for a short film about experiences in my family, I came was in a state of mind where I was especially inclined engage with them about some of the subtleties hidden in their performances. As it would turn out, Hadley's parents' divorced a few years ago. Although it made sense once she explained it, I initially thought she was merely portraying the difficulties that arise in marriage. We had an honest conversation about the blessings and drawbacks of our folks' divorces, in which we discovered that we had similar experiences and ideologies. We ended the conversation with a warm, heartfelt hug.

Thank you for initiating such an entertaining and lovely note to end the class on.

A Concerned Democrat

http://youtu.be/rmRzuIG5MLA

In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.”

For our subject we chose an acquaintance with whom we disagree politically. Melissa Kaufler is a young adult that has spent many years being actively involved with the democratic political party, and plans to continue doing so for many more.

Since Melissa lives in Santa Clarita, California, an in person look into her life was out of the question. We were able to connect with her over memories of campaigns and through sites like facebook, the Signal (our hometown newspaper), and good ole’ google we were able to pull together a reflectional documentary on different backgrounds of people that grew up in a similar environment. We also reconstructed some events through filming desk work here in Utah.

While there were so many things that we could have focused on to illustrate that Melissa was a concerned citizen, her desire to encourage others to register to vote was her way of bettering her community. Just because she works for an opposing political party does not discredit her service to her community in promoting the need to vote and have empathy for others.

When editing together this short documentary, we quickly realized that we had much more footage than was needed. We decided to focus our attention on actions she took towards a specific goal, and not so much on her political philosophies.

We also capitalized on Bryce’s personal knowledge of her personality. While conveying her pleasant message that promotes democracy and empathy (which our particular audience would likely see as admirable traits) we complicated her character by showing pictures of her “bleeding liberal heart”. In short, we used the audio from the interview to shine a bright light on her, and used the images to give her a gradient.

In the article that we read for this project, entitled “Human Rights and Culture: From Datastan to Storyland”, it argues that paying attention to the art pieces in certain communities is a way to become aware of societal issues that aren’t necessarily showing up in the stats. Art is a beneficiary to society, for the world cannot be run by those who only know math and science. We should pay attention to the artists we have now, for they are more attune to the social issues around them due to their seeking for inspiration in all corners of the world, and we should not limit the creativity of our young people. For someone to become a well-rounded citizen it takes exposure to multiple aspects of our complicated world: science, math, art, issues, etc.

Many create documentaries, such as the one we created, about someone who shows their desire to change something in their community that they see as an issue, or someone who simply participates in something they see as beneficial. In this way does art raise awareness to a particular aspect of society that many should be aware about. Even though we, the filmmakers, vary in political views from Melissa, she did share some powerful statements about the importance of voting. It was a healthy experience for us. Hopefully others, will get to know their political opponents a little better, and exercise their right to vote as a result of watching this film.

Recovery Game

Recovery Game download

In the words of Elder Russell M. Nelson:

“Addiction surrenders later freedom to choose. Through chemical means, one can literally become disconnected from his or her own will" (in Conference Report, Oct. 1988, 7; or Ensign, Nov. 1988,7)

All too often there is just “one story” that is told about people in the Church who are trying to recover from addiction. That story goes something like: “So-and-so was addicted to such-and-such and did it nineteen times a day for seventeen years straight. Then they saw the light and stopped cold turkey and never looked back!”

As awesome and true some of those stories are, as someone who taught people who were chain smokers and porn addicts the gospel, I found that “one story” to not be helpful to many people in giving up addictive patterns. As someone who has struggled with addiction for many years, I have found that “one story” has caused a lot of misunderstanding towards my situation.

The point of the game is to help cultivate understanding for how the battle with addiction is fought--not necessarily how it’s won. In doing so I wanted to emphasize couple of things: 

Although one is not clinically insane, addiction is madness. Logic is sometimes abandoned to satisfy the cravings you feel. What seems like a great idea, not bad idea, or a flat out awful idea will fluctuate  and change from one moment to another.

I reflected this in deceptively named options. One may have thought that their choice would lead to not relapsing, but indeed they were unaware of what that particular choice would result in, and would have to try to remember where they went wrong, and make corrections in the future. As they progressed further and further into recovery, there would be fewer deceptive choices, reflecting that the addict was learning his or her addictive patterns better.

 

No matter how overpowering the feelings may be, relapsing is always a choice. Gordon S. Bruin M.A., L.P.C. explains this in his book, The Language of Recovery by describing the functions of the prefrontal (the portion which houses the moral center of the brain) and limbic system (which houses the survival and sex drive of the organism). While the limbic system takes up a far more massive portion of the brain than the prefrontal cortex, the motor commands of the limbs reside in the prefrontal cortex. No matter how strong the urge is the limbic system can never control the body without first getting permission from the moral center of the brain.  

I reflected this in my game by making the player choose options. The choice to avoid a relapse may not have been on the page where the only relapse choices were available, but somewhere in the line of choices you made a choice that cornered yourself into a relapse. 

Addiction sucks. Recovery from addictions is possible, but it requires a lot of consistency, perseverance, and self examination.

World Building Project

Our world: a world where batteries were invented but technology inhibited their ability to become pocket sized.

In other words, all batteries are car battery sized.

Technological advancement still occurs, due to the electrical grid. Devices such as laptops and smart phones still exist, but portable capability, due to battery size, have not been achieved.

This is manifest in many ways:

Personal Devices

Few people in this world carry around electronic devices without some sort of plug to “hook in” cable to the power grid. People usually carry one or two of these “hook in” cables along with their personal device. Additionally, there’s a plethora of electrical sockets in most fixed structures.

The average amount of sockets in most homes.

Most schools discourage laptops due to the massive quantities of outlets needed to support thousands of students.

Portable photography and videography is entirely analog. Even many film cameras are not used due to the need for a large, cumbersome battery. Analog cameras are relatively large and expensive.

Advances Towards Greater Electronic Portability

Stylish backpacks, briefcases, and handbags to lug around batteries have hit the market, but aren’t widely popular. Many luxury cars have a “hook in” slot so that laptops are able to charge.

    An ad for a sleeker looking computer.

Consumer Market Changes

Since batteries are large and expensive, almost all the batteries that are sold are rechargeable ones. Batteries’ infrequent use led to the emergence of battery recharging businesses that perform the task at a decent price. Most customers don’t know much about recharging batteries, and view the task as getting an oil-change.

An ad for a recharge business.

It’s common practice for restaurants or coffee shops that expose their outlets to only allow paying customers to access them. Some will competitively offer free “hook ins” to anyone.

A sticker in a competitive restaurant's window.

Social Impact

When compared to a world where people whimsically communicate over 4 or 5 time zones, the methods of electronic communication are far less frequent, and much more deliberate. It’s rude to not check one’s answering machine.

The grid and “hook ins” allow for text messaging, use forms of social media, and play video games, but the limited portability cuts these communications down severely.

As alluded to earlier, social photography (such as texting images to friends, or using snapchat) is very different than it is in our world. Many people do not have the physical strength to take selfie after selfie when their camera is tethered to a 25lb weight.

As a result of not being able to capture a moment, send it electronically to someone else, and then forget about it, people have better memories in social arena. On average, they remember names better, phone numbers, birthdays, and events. It’s easier for them ignore other perspectives, feel left out in their society, or become hermits in front of their fixed electronics.

Ideology

These people live where they are through their own lens, not through an artificial lens, making images with others in mind. Many connect with Sean O’Connell from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’s quote: “If I like a moment...I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just stay in it.”

Objects have meaning because personal interaction is crucial.

A third party experience (an individual, a camera, then a viewer) becomes obsolete and the world is viewed through the first person. The world is not a construct of pixels and code, but a physical, tangible, powerfully meaningful experience.

In Design Fiction, Julian Bleeker states, “Objects 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.”

But in the end, as is often times concluded, human ingenuity is the motivating factor in all things. Systems are human, and humans are systems.

The Webspina Battle Artist's Statement and Review

The Tree and the Bird

Helen Butcher and I had worked together on almost all of the group projects so far this semester, and we both really enjoyed working together. So naturally, if I were to be performing with and playing off of anyone from the class, it was going to be someone with whom I had good collaborative chemistry.

We talked about our resources (namely the internet and a big bird costume) and tried forming a few ideas around that. While we struggled to find a good theme, we eventually decided that we could go more of an elemental route and go for Plants vs. Animals. Before discussing the different tracks we would use to construct this piece we decided that we would have a story arch to the battle that started and ended happily, but had some tension in the middle.

Our execution of the idea twisted and reshaped itself as we tested our links and realized that some tracks that we had our hearts set on were suddenly contextually out of place. We would not have been able to make that discovery had we not worked our idea a few times.

Our greatest struggles in forming such a battle was the mono-thematic nature of the audio tracks that were associated with plants and animals respectively. Songs about animals were usually more aggressive and sexual, while those about plants seemed to be more passive and peaceful. Helen and I were further frustrated when we came to the determination that birds don’t really eat trees, and even if the did, trees couldn’t really do much to fight back. We considered relying solely on the harsh contrast between songs like Welcome to the Jungle and The Green Grass Grew All Around and just had the bird pick on the tree the whole time, but that would have been less dynamic, less interesting.  Much like Phil Hansen was faced with limitation in his Ted Talk “Embrace the Shake”, our creative juices started to stir with the limitations of our theme.

Eventually, we had the idea to bring in a faceless hunter to shoot Helen! Yes, the bird was the aggressor during the battle, and was exerting her dominance over an inanimate tree, but nature is a dog-eat-dog world and to bad so sad for organisms that can’t move or defend themselves. However, there is something harmonious and beautiful about nature.

To first establish sympathy for the shot bird, we decided to play In the Arms of the Angels, a song that is often used in conjunction with abused puppies. Then to show the sad majesty of nature we played the lyrics of a hopeful, yet earth-bound creature (I Believe I Can Fly) as the bird tried to fly with a broken wing. In the end, sad, violent, majestic, and hopeful scenes occur constantly in nature, and is all just part of “the circle of life”.

The final element that Helen and I made was that we had to be fully committed to our performance. I thought of the sad scene from the first season of Community where Brita is sadly performing a tap dance alone on stage. The tides of the performance changed when Troy sprung to her aid in a passionate modern dance. Since I don’t consider myself to be a strong dancer, it helped me to dance away some of my inhibitions before we performed. If we hadn’t been willing look like idiots up on stage, then our insecurities would have shown, and we would have created a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Webspina Battle Links

Peacefully growing plant - http://youtu.be/mv4cx3C3SZ4?t=17s

Welcome to the jungle! - http://youtu.be/7I49rprKbhY?t=45s to 1:09

Green Grass - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izsFt76fNfw

I’m an animal - http://youtu.be/LLa4_2wacBM?t=8s

It’s a hardknock life

http://youtu.be/Qt0EBb4PjoI?t=23s

MURDER!!! - http://youtu.be/Gnj3F7-DcQY?t=7s

HALP. - http://youtu.be/5Q20QuQaMYI?t=3s

Tweedly tweedly tweedly deet! - http://youtu.be/C3AC9ape88c?t=11s

Duck Hunt shoot - http://youtu.be/xFEw5Xcq4uM?t=9m16s

luke sky walker - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XyMePUidzs

Li’l kid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rHMJ5r1ZvI

I believe I can fly - http://youtu.be/LbUpPVOEkdA?t=1m24s

circle of life ADVERTISEMENT- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr3LssKNm8w=3m11s

A Girl Left the Building and Cried

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xac2qsXnl9YucyAhYR7ubGHxTPlMONYzdBrv3CgDKag/edit

As I was wasting time on imgur.com, I came across a seven word sentence with an admonition to read it aloud seven times and emphasize a different word every time: I never said she stole my money. (Try it. It is fun!)

http://imgur.com/gallery/LsbOFpm

In trying it out, I was impressed by the power to change the readers perception of the same seven words by emphasizing different ones.  Although I used different tools, and changed the original words a little, I found different ways to emphasize certain words in my short literary narrative.

As I pondered what tools I could use to make these emphasises, I figured it was probably best to come up with a working definition of what a literary narrative:

A literary narrative is a written text that tells a story through the use of context and a preconceived language, and needs no assistance from sounds (including a human voice), meters, rhyming schemes, or images (aside from that of the letters) to be considered whole.  

Because the there aren’t any supporting elements required for a literary narrative to be relay its story, and the order of the letters don’t change whether or not they are being observed, one can pause and ponder in between reading words and not risk missing a part of the story.  The space that the letters take up on the canvas is a fixed element of a literary narrative, while the time of consumption is not.

In making “A Girl Left the Building and Cried”, I considered and played with the elements of word image and spacing.  

As Scott McCloud pointed out in Understanding Comics, “Letters are static images...when they’re arranged in a deliberate sequence placed next to each other, we call them words!” The size, font, repetition and slight variations of the images helped me emphasize where I wanted the readers’ attention at certain times of the story.

However, images are not always compilations of positive space.  Often, negative space is used to help draw the eye to where it needs to be.  The decreasing amount of negative space was used with the intention of increasing reading rate, and the breaks after certain phrases were supposed to be cues to the reader to stop and contemplate the words’ meanings.

In speaking to form, content, and objective, they were all trying to help the reader stop and contemplate the complexity of the surface actions of others, and recognize that first judgments are not always accurate.

Miner Tragedy. Enduring Love.

In an excerpt from the Salt Lake Tribune May 31st, 1999 we got a glimpse into the setting of the day before the explosion.

“May 1, 1900, was supposed to have been a happy event for the people of Pleasant Valley….Valley residents were planning a big May Day celebration that night, with music, dancing and food from the many ethnic groups that worked the mines.

But the holiday was no occasion for a day off work. An estimated 300-plus men, ages 14 and older, headed for the mines at daybreak.

About 10:15 a.m., an explosion reverberated through the valley. At first, most residents believed the noise to be cannon fire or fireworks, part of the the day's festivities.

Within a few minutes, though, they saw billows of gray smoke and heard the frantic screams of victims and witnesses.”

The line “the holiday was no occasion for a day off of work” seemed to be a good point of conflict. The Father clearly would see the holiday in that light, while the son would see himself being jipped of a day off. Sure, they would be off for the main festivities, but Thomas Jr. knew that other kids would not being going in to work today.

We also read that the grandfather of one Melba Erkkila didn’t go into the mine that day because his wife "’had a premonition that morning and wouldn't let him go to work’".  While we could have incorporated this information into the story as foreshadowing, we decided that such revelations aren’t appreciated as much until after the reason for them is made relevant. Thus, the news of such a premonition was a point of scoffing by the miners and a further annoyance to Thomas Jr.

Researches concluded that the explosion was most likely due to excessive coal dust in the air. It is likely the coal dust was not wet down properly, so when miners lit a stick of dynamite, it ignited all the particles in the air. We decided to use this likelihood as the root of the father’s remorse after he ignores his son’s adamant demand for water and the mine explodes.

Satrapi’s “The Veil” revolves around a woman’s cultural and familial devotion, and we incorporated both of these elements into our script. Because our story predates our memory, we felt we needed to ground our story in familiar values. Tension between father and son, duty to one’s family, and one’s devotion to one’s community are universal sources of conflict. By including these elements, we lent our screenplay’s characters a greater degree of authenticity.

This writing exercise helped us turn a couple of headlines from century-old newspapers into dynamic, breathing stories. Victims in tragedies of this magnitude are often lumped into a literary mass grave when journalists run their stories; there are too many individuals with their own unique stories to give adequate exclusive time to. However, as we seek inspiration from our personal histories, we should pay particular attention to those whose stories we’ve buried with their bodies.

*****

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Dd133eFsPOR2dtQUk4a1JObTA/edit

Frickin' Dishes

https://soundcloud.com/sam-woodruff-3/frickin-dishes-mash-up
by Bryce Bolick and Sam Woodruff

“Frickin’ Dishes” manipulates and repeats fewer than 20 audio recordings to illustrate the never-ending task of cleaning dishes.  Much like a song, its auditory theme cycles often enough to be recognizable and represents the mechanical routine of taking dishes out of the sink, scraping off caked food, rinsing, and throwing them into the dish washer.

To add a common human sentiment towards the chore, moans and complaints of the one washing the dishes are heard. The tempo and volume of the repeated noises intensify as the frustration and annoyance towards the task increases.  Ultimately, the audience can appreciate the great amount of monotony of this ever present task.

Upon capturing all the isolated noises, we couldn’t help but notice the musicality of some of the noises. Although it wasn’t in the original plan, a musical hip-hop beat (compliments of Garageband) was added to the machine. The up-beat tone it adds may have appeared contradictory to the more obvious agenda of the work, but does it?

First, a quote from Thomas C. Foster in his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor.  Here Foster is talking about symbols in literature.  

“Is that a symbol? Sure it is…. Seriously, what do you think it stands for, because that’s probably what it does. At least for you….Here is the problem with symbols: people expect them to mean...something in particular. Exactly. Maximum. You know what? It doesn’t work like that… in general a symbol can’t be reduced to standing for only one thing.”

As our piece becomes more noisy and abstract, it gives more room for interpretation.  It doesn’t have to mean the same thing to everyone and thus our change in overall tone of our piece was part of what came out in our creative process. We have found it meaningful as an added layer of emotion to our piece on dishes.

So is this abstraction appropriate?  The Mercandante’s Routines 09 answers this question.  The process of getting a haircut is documented in an abstract way.  The abstraction sends the film through the kaleidoscope of human emotion making it more internal and unique for each individual.  When we watched the video we noticed the noise of the weed wacker and it made us think of haircutting as a violent process stripping one of their identity. Was this the artists intention? Quite possibly, but maybe not and that is okay because the experience was symbolic and individual.   

Abstraction represents realities of emotion.  Most people hate dishes.  This is what we showed first.  Monotony is pressed upon us but the abstraction brings room for interpretation.  As the clinks and scratches repeat themselves frustration can sometimes give way to fun through the little hip hop melody.  Possibly on the other side of that, the emotion invoked is how much I hate it when people try to make a process fun when it isn’t. The point is it can mean different things to different people. We tried to express emotions we feel and realities of the process with noises that invoke memories of doing dishes. What people get from it is up to the listener.  

Sources:

http://vimeo.com/12552164  Routines 09

Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines. New York: Quill, 2003. Print.

https://soundcloud.com/sam-woodruff-3

The Tale of Geoffrey the Confuzzled Gnome: A TMA 112 Compilation

The Tale of Geoffrey the Confuzzled Gnome

by Bryce Bolick, Helen Butcher

Moran Akana, Jess Baird, and Steven Bills

"Geoffery was a bright little gnome, but was

 not quite sure how to pronounce his name."

Geoffrey realized he was having a hard time 

remembering how to articulate a lot of things. 

He decided to drop by his doctor’s office and 

nip his hereditary dementia in the bud.

After the completely successful and universally 

known surgical procedure, Geoffrey’s doctor 

prescribed him a diet of asparagus and sage

banana smoothies, exclusively.

The latest fad diet it in: asparagus, sage and 

banana smoothies. People rushed to the store get 

the ingredients for their new health drinks, hoping 

to finally lose the extra weight.

The Michaels family celebrated each time there 

was a waning moon, which annoyed the family who 

lived below greatly.

From the Exquisite corpse, “The remix, as always, is what you make of it. Juxtapose, fragment, flip the script — anything else, simply put, would be boring.” It seemed as if everybody was “flipping the script” as we continued the last person’s story, sometimes taking it in a whole new direction. On the flip side of that, there are some stories where a thread is woven finely throughout all five of the mini-stories, making a (more or less) complete narrative, with each story complementing the last.

This technique of starting a story and then passing it on to another to complete is nothing new: there is a game called “Photoshop Tennis” where one person introduces a photograph, and then sends it off to another person to add an element to it, who then passes it on to another person to edit. This goes on indefinitely, unless a specified  number of edits has been pre-agreed upon. Examples of this include:

“The “text” is never inanimate — it’s the human imagination that gives shape and meaning, the elixir that breathes life into the golem.” In some ways, pieces of art that we create and “finish” are never really done. Unbeknownst to us, somebody could pick up that piece of work that we created, and add to it, etc…, until, along down the road, it is unrecognizable from the work that we created initially.

Another art form that can be remixed is music. Famous artists create and release music that then gets into the hands of the remixers, who then make the music their own by adding and taking things away, but re-structuring the song in a way that was never meant by its original author.

In our Round Robin storytelling experience, each of the tiny stories exist by themselves as a stand alone. However, combining five of them together to create a collage of different ideas that all sprang from the same seed. Each contributor used a different vocabulary to try to make sense of the unusual and limited information they were given. In a way, one artist’s choice to use “the hardiest of folk” to describe a group of people that a previous artist described as “notoriously rowdy bunch” differed in verbal texture as much as water colors and oil paints do. Thus, even if all of us tried to preserve the tone and content of the story, it would inevitably change over time.

Our individual pictures added an extra element of expression, and another opportunity to leave our mark on the story. We had varying styles and a wide variety of framing to suggest plot. As mentioned earlier “The remix, as always, is what you make of it. Juxtapose, fragment, flip the script”. On occasion, an author would create a juxtaposition, fragmentation, or script flipping between the picture and the text, thus creating an odd precedence in the mind of the next author. Close ups versus wide shots, color versus monochrome all added something different to the mix.