MEDIA STUDIES
MIXED MESSAGES
14TH ANNUAL GRADUATE STUDENT SHOWCASE
December 3–8, 2010
Opening Reception Friday, December 3, 7:00 p.m.
A week-long presentation of outstanding graduate student work selected by a panel of distinguished jurors, Mixed Messages celebrates the Media Studies Program’s focus on theory, design and practice across media.
Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium Sheila C. Johnson Design Center 66 Fifth Avenue New York City ADMISSION FREE Open to the public MORE INFORMATION 212.229.8903
www.newschool.edu/mediastudies
THE NEW SCHOOL
MIXED MESSAGES 2010 PROGRAM FEATURED WORKS Gated Communities—Stranger Danger Tanya Toft and Johanne Hesseldahl Larsen (intervention documentation)
Adhoori Kahani (Unfinished Stories) Sonia Chandra (video installation, 04:47)
Any-Space-Whatever Lukas Brasiskis
WELCOME Welcome to Mixed Messages, the 14th annual Media Studies graduate student showcase. Every December, we share with the New School community and the public some of the most exciting work from the past year in film, video, sound and multimedia. The program’s core commitment to the importance of the bond between theory and practice across all media platforms continues to provide our students a rich context for imagination, innovation, and social commentary. This year’s exhibition of experimental, documentary, and narrative media projects exemplifies the creative best of our students and faculty. Celebrate with us, and enjoy. Barry Salmon Chair, Department of Media Studies and Film
(3-channel video installation, 14:00)
Untitled No. 3 Kevyn Fairchild (video, 05:50)
SHEET Courtney Kranz (film, 14:38)
Desert of the Real Tal S. Shamir (video 02:34)
Marimba de Chonta José Barbeito
Honorable Mentions Jim Babb Socks, Inc. Julianna Maria Byck Unfolding the Whole Lori H. Ersolmaz A Failed System, 3
(video, 8:17)
Ryan Garretson Maximum Stache
Blackout Jun Oshima
Rachel Julkowski God's Square Mile
(video, 03:00)
Infinita Tristeza Julian Diaz Merino (video, 03:09)
Bleed Stefanie Sparks (film, 13:00)
Daniela Merino The Portrait Jun Oshima Cabbage Courtney Krantz Lost Collection Tanya Toft A Dream About a City Chris Turiello Unbroken Deepthi Welaratna Wood Pedro Vidal Kino-Made
Location
Lobby
Gated Communities— Stranger Danger (intervention documentation)
Fear is part of the urban space and the mental condition in New York City. Commercials talk to our fear, and encounters, threats, and alerts awaken our instincts of protection against the “stranger.” But what is it exactly that we fear, and is this fear reasonable? More than 4 million Americans live in gated communities. Through eight “initiatives” or urban performance experiments, Gated Communities—Stranger Danger investigates the anatomy of our fear, exploring different aspects and absurdities of the production of fear in urban areas. Under auspices of the Fear Promotion Initiative, we put ourselves in the position of the fearsome. We encourage New Yorkers to map their fears and put up alert signs to provoke and capture immediate reactions to possible threats. We investigate the metaphors of the city’s walls and gates. We place an outsider in a closed environment and study conditions that make people feel safe. These experiments help us understand the nuances of fear—eight simple lessons that make up this manual to a fearful life in a gated community and the creation of the perfect fenced community. The manual is an ironic celebration of the gated community as a solution for the well being of the affluent in the increasingly class segregated United States of America.
The experiments and the final form are the work of New School graduate students Tanya Toft and Johanne Hesseldahl Larsen. Tanya Toft is focusing her master’s degree in Media Studies on the media’s engagement in shaping the urban environment and people’s place-experience in the urban environment. She has worked in strategic communication planning at OMG Denmark and architecture research at Studio MDA, has experimented with art projects, and is currently a research assistant to Professor Shannon Mattern. Johanne is a journalist and a graduate student in her third semester of the master of arts in International Affairs program. She is interested in the important role played by new technologies and media in shaping cities, for example, mapping and rebuilding after major disasters. She has been an intern at the UN, working out ways to use social media to respond to the global food crisis.
Location
Aronson Gallery
Adhoori Kahani (Unfinished Stories) (video installation, 04:47)
Music by Brooklyn Raga Association This is an exploration of personal history as a singular moment within and apart from historical narrative—the story of two people who come together across religious barriers and cultural divides. Against an intangible fabric of historical pasts and nascent of a new history that their union will create, it is also a singular moment contained within its own universe and shaped and affected by the moment's sight, sound, and texture. Like all true stories, has no true ending or beginning. The artist explores the union of her Indian-Hindu father and Pakistani-Muslim mother, which took place during a time of India-Pakistan conflict among abstractions of their separate cultural pasts and elements of this past reflected in our time. It transposes footage of their 1973 wedding (both had left their native countries and found one another in the U.S.) with footage captured by the artist during her own travels in India and Pakistan seeking to recapture her parents’ stories of their past. Projecting these images on traditional materials of Indian and Pakistani culture, she creates an architectural space that engages the artifact with the present, reflecting differing perspectives against materials that have traveled through time. The audio of the installation comprises an English translation of an Urdu journal entry by the bride, dated during wartime, accompanied by a Raga, Indian classical music designed to elevate consciousness by aiding the listener’s transcendence from space and time. Music is the vibration of molecules resonating at different
frequencies. It is said that different vibrations have different effects on the mind, body, and soul. As the invisible counterpart to our visual perception, it is the element that draws us within and apart from narrative. Adhoori Kahani is the human condition: our stories are unfinished in our own lives as they take place within the narrative of those among us. To search for the beginning is to find that there is no ending. In beginnings are the span and duration of moments. Sonia Chandra is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker
and installation artist whose work explores our ways of perceiving our environment, including our cognitive responses to visual and auditory stimuli and how these affect our construction of the reality of our universe. Her current work is inspired by her experiences growing up in three countries as an Indian-Pakistani-American and exploring the differing influences of community within a global culture. It focuses on the role of culture and identity within the hybrid of Eastern and Western influences. Sonia is completing her master’s degree in Media Studies with a focus on experimental media for social advocacy and the intersection of art and science. Sonia has filmed in over 12 countries and often collaborates with experimental musicians, sound practitioners, performance artists, and scientists.
Any-Space-Whatever
Untitled No. 3
(3-channel video installation, 14:00)
(video, 05:50)
This installation is devoted to cinematic studies of abandoned spaces in New York City. A series of visual studies loop simultaneously, creating an embracing image and sound of a city that does not belong to the trajectories of everyday life and does not exist for purposes of everyday consumption. None of the abandoned and fragmented places presented has a stable identity. Rather, they are in transition between a striated past, which is already over, and a future identity still unknown. All these sites are in constant change from the striated to the smooth, revealing the impressive traces of both conditions.
Untitled No. 3 examines the possibility of montage in sequence and simultaneity. By dividing the single screen into multiple frames, the artist asks the viewer to see them at once as individual images and as a cohesive whole. The noise and grain of the film combines with the altered natural soundtrack to create a vision of the world that is both organic and constructed, much like the seashore at which it was filmed.
For the last five years Lukas Brasiskis has worked in film education, criticism, and production. After earning his bachelor’s degree at Vilnius University, he was among the founders of the first non-government Film and Media Education Centres (www.menoavilys.org) in Lithuania. There he worked on implementation of a number of film education projects and reviewed films in Lithuanian journals and on Lithuanian National TV. At The New School, Lukas continues to focus his attention on the aesthetic dimension of cinema and creative examinations of visual media as he produces his theory-and-practice-based master's thesis on “Cinematic Realism beyond Representation.�
Self described as a lens-based artist, Kevyn Fairchild draws inspiration from many filmmakers, artists, and photographers. He is very interested in exploring the intersections of reality/imagination, indexical/potential, dream/ wake, and nature/construct. He always looks for the chance to find new modes of vision. He is currently working on a short film that expands on his desire to break apart cinematic space into multiple frames and extend the possibilities of montage in sequence and simultaneity into the narrative form. More of his work can be seen at www.kevynfairchild.com.
Location
Kellen Auditorium
SHEET
Desert of the Real
(film, 14:38)
(video 02:34)
SHEET is about the potentials of the human body as a subject of the precursors and aftermaths of media production. Realized through repetitive layering of super-8 film and video, SHEET is a composite of image and sound on multiple surfaces and through multiple devices that record and re-record a moving body.
A short visual manifestation of the “Desert of the Real”—a critical note raised by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard in his Simulacra and Simulation.
Courtney Kranz was born in Hamilton, Bermuda. Her educational background includes Interlochen Arts Academy and Sarah Lawrence College. At The New School, her interest centers on the discursiveness of the human body in film studies and documentary genres. Her current research includes active collaborations between the film camera and the dance artist. She is completing a thesis project on internal anatomies.
Tal S. Shamir is a PhD candidate in Media and Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. He recently completed his masters degree in Media Studies at The New School, where he received the Media Studies Award for an Outstanding Thesis for “A Methodological Inquiry Concerning the Cinematic Potential to Screen Philosophy.” As an undergraduate at Haifa University in Israel, Tal was awarded the Pikarsky Prize by the philosophy department for best undergraduate seminar paper (titled “Scientific Explanation”). While serving in the Israeli Navy for six years, Tal created and headed the Video Photography Team to improve naval training activities through videography. This involved creation of unconventional ways of utilizing video photography in order to work under extreme operational conditions.
Tal’s recent five short films have been shown at over 20 international film festivals including Fantasia International Film Festival and Dragon*Con Film Festival.
Infinita Tristeza
Marimba de ChontA
(video, 03:09)
(video, 8:17)
This experimental video portrays one day in a woman’s life. She wakes up in an unknown place. She is confused, lost, but her surroundings are familiar in a strange way. It seems like she is dreaming of imaginary sceneries, abysms, and reptiles. All the ways out are blocked; she seeks desperately for a way out. She doesn’t know why she wants to leave the place, but the feeling that she can’t get out makes her fight for “survival.” It could be a dream where anything is possible and the inexplicable becomes explicable and the unbelievable becomes frustratingly common. Finally, she just wants to rest. She gives up…it’s a dream; it will be over…right?
This short documentary reveals the life of an amazing Colombian musician in living in New York City, focusing on his efforts to keep his passion for music alive and his fascinating connection with the marimba, a musical instrument that he first learned how to build and only after learned how to play.
Julian Diaz Merino was born in Little Rock,
Arkansas but raised in Colombia, He has worked as a writer, editor, and director of narrative films and documentaries. He majored in communications and video production at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, and then came to New York. He earned his master of arts in Media Studies at The New School, where he wrote and directed Infinite Sadness as his thesis. In New York, he had an opportunity to work with Michel Gondry on various projects; he has also worked as a videographer for many events. Julian has directed three short films and a documentary about the life of a “Mariachi” in Bogota. He is currently based in Brooklyn and continues to create audiovisual projects.
Argentine native José Barbeito has a bachelor's degree in law and is now in his fourth semester in graduate Media Studies at The New School. His academic and professional interests include documentary theory and production and the use of media for advocacy purposes. José has worked as a researcher for human rights groups focused on Latin America. He has interned at the Buenos Aires-based newspaper La Nacion and at CNN en Español.
BLACKOUT
Bleed
(video, 03:00)
(film, 13:00)
An experimental narrative short film about a forgotten memory. Everyone has beautiful memories and bad ones, which can be triggered suddenly whether we want them recalled or not Montage techniques consisting of video images and sounds are used in this piece to create a perception of different time and space between the man and the woman. Fragments of visual images and sounds are assembled to represent the man’s recollection of his lost memories. Tensions and emotions are created through editing and music that deliver hints of mysteries within the storytelling.
Sloan Hawkes, a 14-year-old midwestern violinist, is struggling through puberty. From fake fingernails to curly hair, Sloan will do anything to look more like a grown woman. Maggie, Sloan’s mother, is going through changes of her own of the kind that cause Maggie to disappear into empty classrooms and dark hallways on the college campus where Sloan goes to her violin lessons. Sloan is desperate to break free from her mother, and, when she does, the cost will be far greater than she realizes.
Jun Oshima is a film director and Student Academy Award winning cinematographer. He specializes in commercials, narratives, and documentaries. Jun currently works for Google and PBS projects and also teaches DSLR filmmaking workshops at The New School. See more of his work at www.junoshima.com.
Stefanie Sparks started working in film and television production in 2000. She has held positions from P.A. to art department coordinator on films that include The Ring, Life or Something Like It and CBS’s short-lived television version of The Fugitive. In 2004, Stefanie landed in Los Angeles working on a reality show. Realizing that the downfall of modern society would be caused by its dependence on this form of entertainment, she made her way to New York and The New School and swore off all things “reality” from that point on. Bleed is Stefanie’s second short film.
JURORS Koan Jeff Baysa , MD, is a physician, curator,
designer, writer, Whitney Museum ISP Curatorial Fellow alumnus, and a member of AICA (Association of International Art Critics). He has curated exhibitions internationally, including for the Whitney Museum, Canon Corporation, and the United Nations. He serves on the boards of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School and the Omi International Arts Center. He has lectured at MoMA, the Whitney, NextMed, the Phillips Collection, and the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. He received a Ford Foundation grant to lecture at the Hanoi University of Culture in Vietnam. Born and raised in Hawaii, Dr. Baysha completed his medical education as a fellow at UCSF and has segued from a clinical practice in allergy and clinical immunology to research investigating neuroplasticity, olfactory stimuli, and memory disorders. His medical and curatorial practices bring the cultures of science, design, technology, and art together.
Laurie Collyer is an independent filmmaker and an associate professor at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts. She grew up in Mountainside, New Jersey and attended Oberlin College. She is best known for writing and directing Sherrybaby, for which actress Maggie Gyllenhaal received a Golden Globe nomination. She also directed the film Nuyorican Dream in 1999. She is currently in development to direct a film based on the story of Julia Butterfly Hill and Luna, expected to star Rachel Weisz. Michelle Handelman is an interdisciplinary artist
living in New York City whose work explores the sublime in various forms of excess and nothingness. Her videos and live performances have been exhibited internationally, including MIT’s List Visual Arts Center; the Pompidou Centre, Paris; American Film Institute; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; PERFORMA 05, the first biennial of visual performance; 3LD Art & Technology Center; the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and many film and video festivals. She is a 2010 fellow in video of the New York Foundation for the Arts and has garnered many other awards including the Sony Visions Award and the Bravo Award for her feature-length documentary BloodSisters (available at www.reframecollection.org). Her
latest commission, Beware the Lily Law, will go on permanent display next year at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, and her four-channel video installation, Dorian, a cinematic perfume, will be at Arthouse at the Jones Center in Austin, Texas. Her fiction and critical writing have been published in Inappropriate Behaviour (Serpents Tail, London 2001); Apocalypse Culture 2, (Feral House Press, LA 1990); Coming Up: the World’s Best Erotic Writing (Kasak Books, NY 1995), and Herotica 3 edited by Susie Bright (Plume Books, SF 1994). She is an associate professor in video at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Carol Parkinson has been executive director
of Harvestworks, Digital since 1987 and has been involved in the programming and development of the organization since 1982. Prior to this, she was employed by the Dia Art Foundation as assistant to composer LaMonte Young and worked at 112 Workshop when it was at 112 Greene Street. She is founding member of TELLUS, the experimental audio series, and continues to support and distribute experimental and innovative work in the digital media arts. Her primary interest is in supporting the development of new technological tools for making art and the cultivation of a new aesthetic involving sound and image in the electronic arts. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison with supplemental education at Skidmore College and the Whitney Museum of Art’s Independent Studio program in New York City. She has been active as a composer in the New York downtown music and art scene since the late 70’s, performing her own work at the Kitchen, White Columns, Tier 3, the MUDD Club, and ABC No Rio, as well as several international venues. She has written for Ear Magazine, the Village Voice, and High Performance Magazine and has been a guest on WKCR and WFMU radio.
Executive Producer Dawnja Burris Producer and Curator Christiane Paul Assistant Curator Sam Ishii-Gonzales Student Production Assistants Emma Zakarevicius, Pedro Vidal First Round Faculty Judges Dawnja Burris, Melissa Grey, Ernesto Klar, Brian McCormick Special thanks to all the students who submitted projects for consideration and the faculty members who guided their work.
INFORMATION media@newschool.edu
THANKS TO TONIGHT’S SPONSORS
The Paley Center for Media
The Lab-Postworks
Café Loup
Film/Video Arts
Museum of the Moving Image
The Strand