Fireside Chat: Artist Statement

Fireside Chat: Artist’s Statement

            I chose to recite the poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee” for my presentation. I first heard this story from my oldest brother many years ago and which I have always remembered because of the visual richness, the comedy, and overall great experience. I have always been able to remember certain images that have come to my mind when certain stanzas were said. This story considers what it means to keep a promise. This moral has always stayed with me because of what the storyteller goes through to keep his promise. Because I first heard this story from my oldest brother and is something that has resurfaced from time to time, it has become something sentimental or nostalgic for me to remember and recite and so has a special place in my heart.

            I also enjoy this poem a great deal because it comes off being a serious poem about a guy dying and having to haul a body around on a sleigh pulled by dogs but turns into a comedic ending – a good mixture and representation of what our lives consist of. Because the poem has such poetic language, it’s sometimes easy to get caught up in the way it’s told rather than what’s actually being said. But once you understand what’s happening the language creates such vivid imagery it’s hard to forget. To ensure that people could follow the story to at least some degree, I compiled some images that met a certain aesthetic. The images were mostly painted, and were vibrantly colored except for the image of Sam McGee. I chose images that were representative of a stanza or two. This way, when I would recite those stanzas I would have the images projected on the screen that would help people follow along and get the most out of the experience.

A Concerned Citizen

 Artistic Statement: A Concerned Citizen

Being a concerned citizen does not have to mean just giving stuff to people. Sometimes it is just as important to know HOW to give or how we can improve how we help. This wasn’t the concept we expected going into the interview, but it was just right for making a compelling and insightful little documentary. It is having things develop naturally like this that makes developing our artistic vision more interesting.
One thing we wanted to do with our presentation is invite a calm and reflective environment for the audience and the speaker. Thankfully, the speaker had such an environment in the house she was staying at. Partly this served us because it was easy to access, but we felt it really served the tone of the narrative. When we think of someone who does service for communities, we picture a humble home and lifestyle that reflects their work. Complimented by the unflashy lighting and leisure flow of the editing, we hoped that the setting of the piece set the tone well.
However, this does not mean we just wanted to do a “gather around for story time” video either. As sweet and calm as the speaker and environment are, there is still a sense of fun to the things she does to help in Bolivia and the other countries they did work for. To reflect this, we added a few creative choices into the mix. One of those choices was the Latin music in the background. It is just subtle enough to not be distracting, but light hearted enough to add some enthusiasm. The other big choice was the inclusion of some lighter moments from the taping. Jordan’s hands serving as a clapper, some of the speaker’s comments, some moments where she can just laugh, etc. It not only rounds her as a character, but it adds depth and personality to the narrative.
Ultimately, all of these decisions and manipulations of the film are to portray an honest picture of the speaker. She is a very humble person. She is a funny and lighthearted person. She is informative. Through the way we assembled it, we wanted to give respect not only to the advice she gives on how to do service well, but respect to her as a concerned citizen.

Protest Poster - Medicinal Marijuana

 

Artist Statement

            This is a protest poster against legalizing medicinal marijuana. This is hot topic for some states as the elections are taking place and the option to legalize marijuana is an option for states like Oregon, Colorado and Washington. 17 states have already legalized it. Colorado is actually the number one producer of legalized medicinal marijuana in the country and are looking to completely legalize it – medicinal or not. Within the city there are 204 places that sell it using a green cross as the symbol of where you can find it. This is 3 times more places than there are McDonalds and Starbucks combined. This is an interesting topic because the states are legalizing it but it is still illegal with the federal government. So, technically the federal government could come into these states that have legalized it and lock everybody up. But, they’re not doing that – their focus is on the drug lords, not the medicinal marijuana providers.

            I don’t think we should legalize marijuana because of its implications. Anytime something becomes legalized, immediately the use of the drug across the country skyrockets. This is because now its “ok” according to the law. When prohibition was revoked and people could drink alcohol legally again, the use of alcohol by citizens shot up drastically and created all sorts of problems that we still deal with. The same thing would happen with marijuana and we don’t want a bunch of people walking around on marijuana. It’s addictive and doesn’t put people in a very cognitive state that allows them to function like a normal human being. I also don’t think that it’s ok to legalize it because if the country were to legalize it, it would be telling everyone that it’s alright, and I don’t believe it is because of the negative effects it has on people and the dangers it presents.

Webspinna

 Webspinna link:

http://soundcloud.com/kartchner-films/webspinna-jordan-kartchner

 

Artist Statement: Webspinna

            This was a really fun process to go through. I thought it would be really neat to take a walk through some big events in American History all provided by the Internet. I thought the first soundtrack provided a good ambient feel for many of the sound clips but eventually transitioned into a sound used for a skydiving video in French. The sound clips used started out with Martin Luther King giving his famous “I have a Dream” speech – this was mostly to capture people’s interest and give them an idea of what the theme of the whole piece was going to be. I wanted to make the rest of the presentation chronological as we moved through American History so I next went into a reading of the Declaration of Independence by celebrities. Next was the bombing of Pearl Harbor report by the president Franklin Roosevelt, then the recording of Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, Nixon’s resignation speech, Reagan’s call to Gorbachev to tear down the wall, and last the live report of the 9/11 attack on the twin towers as the second plane hit.

            Because much of my sound clips were people talking, I had to make sure to fade one audio clip out as the other one was played. I set this up by setting the volume of each clip at a fairly high volume. When I felt it was time to play that clip, I would hit play, then go back to the previous sound clip and fade that down. This provided for some interesting mixes of music, sounds, and dialogue. Before I live mixed the audio clips, I found the clips that interested me, then had to watch through much of them to find the right place that I wanted to start recording. This way, all the sound clips were cued so I could just hit play and fade the previous audio out. I felt it was important to get the first two sound clips fairly well synced to encourage some emotion between the song being played and the sound clip of Martin Luther King. I practiced this a couple times until I felt fairly confident of the timing – but when it came time to record it was all done impromptu.

Links to audio Sources:

1.)   Ghostwriter: rjd2

a.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKJeLG8-M5I

2.)   Martin luther king Jr. : “I have a dream” speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

3.)   Declaration of Independence

a.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYyttEu_NLU

4.)   Nixon Resigning

a.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEOGJJ7UKF

 

5.)   Landing on the Moon

a.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMINSD7MmT4

6.)   Reagan – Tear down this wall

a.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjWDrTXMgF8

7.)   Pearl Harbor Presidential address

a.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VqQAf74fsE

8.)   911

a.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhhu5OjMf8

Medium Specificity

Artist Statement: Medium Specificity

I chose to explore the medium of digital video. There are many things that are specific to photography that are similar to film or video, but one of the major things film does have is motion. I think some of the simple processes and details of life are so beautiful, but go unnoticed because they happen so fast.

            A perfect example of this is water. Because water changes shape so fast, there are so many details that go on in that process that we never see. This could be like when water comes out of a faucet into a glass, and the initial impact it has in the glass and the shapes it creates. Because of technology and the ability we have to capture movement and slow it down, we can now see the tiny details and processes that happen really fast that go unnoticed but are so beautiful. To show this, I played with the various speeds of the film in post-production. The original footage is waves, which was shot at 120 fps. When played back at 24 fps, the new amount of video gives me 5 seconds of footage. So what took one second to shoot the water – when played back is stretched out to 5 seconds giving me beautiful detail in slow motion. To play this back at a normal speed I would have to increase the raw footage (120 fps footage) by 500% to make it look normal. I instead increased the footage by various degrees of speed – like 200% and others as well. One of the issues I ran into, was that because the original footage was shot at such a high resolution, it was somewhat difficult to work with the raw footage without it being transcoded to 422 – so this particular footage is an export of the proxy files created rather than an export of a nearly uncompressed codec.

Social Media Adaptation

An adaptation of the novel The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Follow Jonas' journey on Instagram! @ReceiverJonas

OR click the links in the order below:

http://instagram.com/p/Q019MvOpOY/ 

http://instagram.com/p/Q04XLKOpAX/
http://instagram.com/p/Q06h4pupB7/
http://instagram.com/p/Q06pmCOpCE/
http://instagram.com/p/Q061x_OpCO/
http://instagram.com/p/Q0697nupCX/
http://instagram.com/p/Q0--Q-upFc/
http://instagram.com/p/Q0_HdgOpFi/
http://instagram.com/p/Q0_NUsupFq/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1AOpsOpGS/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1AmfSOpGg/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1A1_ZupGs/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1DvwoOpIq/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1D-eoOpIz/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1EPtvupI-/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1EaRuupJD/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1Ek86OpJF/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1HvMpOpKy/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1H3xxOpK4/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1IB-cOpLB/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1IJBmOpLG/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1IR4POpLJ/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1LYvNOpMl/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1LjXmOpMq/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1LvNPOpMz/
http://instagram.com/p/Q1MfbsOpNJ/


Artists' Statement:

For our social media adaption, we chose to portray The Giver through Instagram. Because this book focuses heavily on visual elements and is written from Jonas' perspective, we felt pictures would be a great way to tell such a story.  We chose to use Instagram because it allows Jonas to take spontaneous snapshots of the world around him. We never see his face because the book is told through his perspective, and so too are the pictures. This point of view allows for us to show how Jonas' world changes as the story progresses, because if it was from anyone else's perspective, nothing would change.

This first person view of the story is similar to the interactive artistic collaboration known as The Infinite Oz. The Infinite Oz leads us through several landscapes as if we are seeing them through Dorothy’s eyes. Each new artistic landscape considers something different in her journey, just as each picture in Jonas’s Instagram account tells us something new about what he is experiencing. Furthermore, all the characters in both Jonas's and Dorothy's stories are stuck in their respective areas of the world except Jonas and Dorothy who move beyond what's considered normal. So although the media methods differ, there are some definite parallels between the two, which allow us to experience the journey as if we are alongside them.

Perhaps the most important element for adapting our pictures dealt with the portrayal of color. In the beginning of the book, the reader realizes that the society in which they live is black and white, and all color has been removed. We chose to use black and white photos early on because Jonas also saw in black and white.  However, he begins to see glimpses of red as the story progresses. We used photos of specific events, like when Jonas saw his friend Fiona's hair change and turn red.  As the story progresses, the Giver gives Jonas memories with color, and this is also reflected in our images.

Similarly to our use of color, we wanted to reflect how we felt society would look.  Our adaption shows the sterile society they live in.  The pictures in the beginning are completely clear and shallow.  They highlight structure to emphasize that there is little depth and excitement to life. As time goes on, and Jonas learns more about the world he is living in, he sees more depth of field and more angles.  

In Harper's Magazine, Jonathan Lether wrote the article, "The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism."  He speaks of Bob Dylan and the influence his music has had on society.  He says how "Dylan's art offers a paradox: while it famously urges us not to look back, it also encodes a knowledge of past sources that might otherwise have little home in contemporary culture."  This is very characteristic of The Giver because the entire society is created to avoid and forget the past.  The society relies upon a single person to hold the burdens of the past.

The Hitchhiker: Textual Poaching

Artist Statement: Textual Poaching

            I think when people first look at hitchhikers, they see less of a person. I’m a hitchhiker, and I’m not less of a person. There’s been so many times when I sit at a corner waiting for a ride – because I really need one, and people won’t stop. I think people won’t stop because they’re afraid of the unknown, they’re afraid from the stories they’ve heard about hitchhikers getting picked up and killing everyone in the car. In 2005 a statistic was released stating that 459 people have been killed on interstates in the past 40 years – that’s not many compared to just about anything else that’s happened in the last 40 years but it is still 459 people. So it is minimally understandable why and how people could completely avoid becoming another statistic by just not stopping. But compared to the amount of rides given each year to hitchhikers in the United States, picking up a hitchhiker is not too much of a risk. You could do more good by picking somebody up and giving them a ride.

            This picture was taken in 1971 of a guy who looks somewhat like a hippie. When people see somebody like this they might think “homeless” or “might kill me”. In reality many hitchhikers have homes, they’re just traveling to a job, or a new home and are harmless – they just need a little help. There is much more to a hitchhiker than our initial reactions. I added pictures to the original so as to suggest the depth to a human being – who happens to be hitchhiking. These people usually have families, interests, hopes, and dreams just like everybody else. This image more accurately represents me.