Fine Arts

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http://hdl.handle.net/10066/7373

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Browsing Fine Arts by Subject "motion pictures (visual works)"

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    Embodiment
    (2014) Pierce, Hilary
    Spirituality comes to me most easily through music. This project is a representation of how music has inspired me to move as a performing artist, and how that movement in turn has inspired me to create forms that complement and enrich those performances. I think of my work as belonging to a particular landscape, to a time and place or to a particular someone, as if I interpret an obscure and intense mysticism by giving it tangible form. All of my work is designed with the intent that a human should be its context, embodying and being embodied by all of the little constituent parts that build the ensemble. The human presence has always been an intuitive necessity for me—without a sentient face and meaningful, expressive movement to contextualize my pieces I tend to lose interest. By adorning myself with my work when I perform I convey a very specific meaning to my audiences—and my movement in turn influences how viewers perceive the pieces I’ve made. To display my smaller work in the stationary gallery setting I thought to substitute mass for movement, to create a monolith that would demonstrate how the pieces could be used to create a presence. But once I made the massive cloak, I knew I must try to dance in it—and once I danced in it I knew I needed a headdress. One idea spawned another, and what had once been a collection of only very little things changed drastically. When I had this new ensemble I decided to create the face and gesture of the mythological figure whom I would normally be using these vestments to embody on stage.
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    Grace Xie Fine Arts Senior Thesis Project
    (2014) Xie, Grace
    Candles, once the most reliable source for light, are now popular as memorials, religious and romantic decorations, or as symbols of the past. The real candle I made lost its light due to the presence of the wax—the very source of its light— more specifically, due to the wax’s liquification and liquidity. Its structure creates an irony: its result contradicts the intention that a candle serves as a steady light source. The documentary of the burning process is projected as a moving image onto a part of the candle, which is the original site for the candlelight. To me, the projection presents to viewers the candlelight that you have never seen—a history that was not in your memory. Yet the infinite loop—the eternal return of the ghostly light—can create a fake memory, and therefore, a fake witness. The film does not simply tell you the past, it also reminds you of the past, while the reflection captures everyone coming towards the candle and traps you in the loop. In my college years, I have taken a number of courses and conducted my own research on the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Middle Eastern politics, and the Holocaust. Through hearing stories about all kinds of turmoil and their representations, judgments, and justifications, I began to feel and experience—rather than just seeing—our human history, its complexity, construction, and repetition. I read history; I stare at images; I watch documentaries; I go to museums. At the end of the day, what I perceive forms part of my memory, my history, which becomes an essential element that constructs my identity and myself.
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    The Story of Frank
    (2012) Appel, Jonathan G.; Goodrich, John
    My short film “The Story of Frank” is an adaptation and alteration of a story that I wrote in the spring of 2010. I was a beginner in animation, so the production of this project was a process of constant learning, trial, and error. While viewing “Frank,” one can observe different stages of my adeptness at animation. I wrote the original story during a semester of study in Kathmandu. As an outsider in a new place, I had a lot of time to slow down, mull about, think, and look around. I think this is reflected in Frank’s introspections and mannerisms, which are full of a sense of wonder, and which may defamiliarize some of life’s simplest occurrences and sensuous experiences. The procedure that I used to create Frank is classified as “hand-drawn digital animation.” I drew every frame directly into the computer using a pressure sensitive tablet and its accompanying pen.