Jeremiah Darais

This animation explores the influence of the cartoon world on its characters.  How might that world affect how a story gets told, and how might people within that world act?  There are many styles and subjects presented in cartoons and animations, however the medium itself both connects them and sets them apart from other mediums.  In my work, I have tried to find the unique ways that the cartoon medium might influence the outcome of a story and the interaction of the characters.

One of the most interesting aspects of the cartoon world is that the laws of physics don't apply.  Nothing has weight unless it is so animated.  People can carry objects much larger than themselves.  Their very physique is not restricted to normal proportions, and their tolerance for pain can be extremely high.  With these departures from normal expectations, I see a natural loss of the more serious realities of life in the animated medium.  Because of this, I have made no use of suspense in my cartoon.  The plot is developed and resolved within 2 ½ minutes.  It ends with a mishap that would be devastating if experienced in any other medium.  I was explaining to my brother that the story ends with a bomb exploding. He asked, “...And then everybody dies?” To which I replied, “Yes, and there's blood everywhere,” after which I was brought to think about the contrast between what one might expect in reality, and what is acceptable in a cartoon.

Although it has the apparent characteristics of a Flash-animated web-cartoon, such as characters being animated through the movement of rigid shapes, and sometimes lacking a significant amount of animation detail, my cartoon is intended to be a representation of the type of cartoon you might expect to see on TV.  The most challenging part of this project was to work toward the intended result with the limited time and resources I had, as well as discovering both the strengths and the limitations of Flash as an animation tool.

Matt Israel

As an avid rock climber and mountain guide, I often find myself in very beautiful, remote places. I originally used photography as a means of assisting me in remembering experiences. Shortly thereafter, I was encouraged to start sharing my photos, and experiences. This changed the purpose of my photography from something to jog my memory, to a tool to show people what our planet has to offer. Using a single photograph to convey a message is very common in photography. As my goals changed, I adapted by learning new styles of photography, specifically multi frame panoramas.

A panorama has the ability to completely immerse an individual. The viewer becomes part of the scene. A photograph with a single frame can only capture so much information. Similar to looking through a telescope, it excels at focusing on one subject. A panorama, on the other hand, does not focus on one subject, but rather uses an entire landscape or scene as its subject. This is not the norm in photography, and can create an interesting dynamic between the image and the viewer; they become more of a participant in the original photographic experience. This out of the ordinary dynamic is what interests me, and draws me to panoramic photograph.

Steve Doxey

People have always told stories. The thing that has changed is the mediums we use to communicate them. And that in turn has changed, not so much the content, but how our stories get told.

My project combines narration, written text, and digital technology.  It is a fusion of past and present. The story was modeled after the famous legend of Saint George and the Dragon, but in a contemporary context.  The narration is incomplete, and thus accelerated, because of the frenzied sense of time and the need for speed that has been developed in our society. The video portion was created to show that even the oldest forms of storytelling are connected to and belong with their modern successors.

Chauntelle “Opie” Janzer

My main goal for creating this comic book is to portray women as being equally as smart and powerful as men.  I wanted to explore the questions:  Why is it that women always have to be a damsel in distress?  Why does she always have to be saved?  Why is she always the prize to be won?

I started creating this comic book by photographing each scene. Using the computer, the images were converted into a simulation of drawings.  I then created a layout for each page using only the images to tell the story.  The final task was to create chat bubbles and add dialog to complete the story.

I was inspired by the Wonder Women comic books and created my characters based off of the new comic book Mercy Sparx.  When a person reads a comic, they become the characters for a time. Popular media can be used to shape expectations in the reader for how they see their own life. In my comic book, I deliberately created a main character who appears to be a “dumb blonde,” but is clearly tough and intelligent.  She really breaks away from female stereotypes.  The bold and colorful imagery in my comic is used to set a tone for the entire book.  I use it to convey the strength and energy of the characters. Most of my photography deals with women empowerment and I love to portray women in strong, sexy, and dominating roles.  In the end, I feel like a comic book is a great way to express a female hero and hopefully inspire women to be their own “Wonder Woman”.

Erik Monson

There is a fine line between a world of order and a world of chaos. We believe we use communication technology to simplify our lives. Most of the time that is true. But these technologies link us into a bigger world.  All communication runs the risk of miscommunication, which is the seed of chaos. New technologies have the potential to interrupt and intrude on our lives that we are just beginning to experience. In my section of this project I tried to convey this theme of order to chaos visually.

At the beginning of the film, the man in the striped shirt is in a very orderly world. This is shown by having the speed of these establishing shots slowed down slightly. People’s actions are in unison. Everyone is carefree. Everything is perfect. Into this orderly world comes the man in the trench coat, who represents chaos. This is shown, by having the shots involving the man in the Trench coat playing at an accelerated speed. He is in a hurry and runs through people, breaking up the order.

Through a simple mix up of phones, the very devices they rely on to help maintain order in their lives, both of these men’s worlds are turned upside down as each is thrown into chaos.

Mickey Schwarz

When photographs first appeared in the mid-1800s, they fascinated and amazed the world. Since then, photography has become an integral part of everyday life. Images of people and places have enveloped everyday life in a way that everyone experiences. We face an onslaught of captured images with every step we take. And it defines how we see our world. It is this immersion that fascinates my as an artist. Another aspect of photography I find interesting is the use of still images to convey a story or motion.

My work may appear to be video, but is really created from a sequence of still images.  A lot of what I love to shoot is what I consider “motion” photography. A person or an object has the potential of movement and I wait to shoot what occurs over a period of time. You can get a sense of the mood of the person just by viewing the sequence of shots that that they help create.

The secondary focus of my work is to show the idea of stolen souls. I respect the concept that many cultures have about how a photograph of a person can steal his or her soul.  Although this idea might seem to be simple superstition, many of us have had the experience of becoming lost in various media, whether it is a movie, a good book, or a compelling image. We talk about these things “capturing” our attention. This is a very interesting idea, one in which I try to convey with my piece, “Behind the Glass.”

I try to “buck the trend” or “go off the beaten path,” as you will, when it come to my approach to photography. Why settle for ordinary when your imagination can send you off to find new and interesting ways to photograph a subject?

Nikolai Langlois

The idea for me behind this project is that a whole is made of pieces- and further that one cannot understand the whole without first understanding the pieces.  So the development of the website focused on displaying the parts of the whole- the individual images, the characters of the various pieces, the story behind it all which helps give context and meaning to the individual pieces.

The web, as its name indicates, has changed the way media is ingested- all forms of it.  No longer is media a linear, serial experience, it is a parallel one.  In this way this project mirrors the very nature of the web- there are a variety of multiple media experiences that are used here to tell a single story.  All of the mediums come together for one common purpose.  A website is very similar- it is assembled of pieces of different types of media with it all working together to create the whole experience.  In this way the sum is greater than the parts used to assemble the whole.

This concept can be extended to the idea of what the purpose of a media presentation, or this or in fact any website, actually is.  A website, while comprised of a number of parts, is itself one part of a single goal- that goal perhaps being to communicate an idea to a visitor, much as this project, while comprised of a number of pieces, is intended as communicate many of the ideas delineated in these artists’ statements.

Ultimately for me the true meaning of this artwork is to foster discussion about the idea of the relationship chaos and order that influences nearly every construct of human society.  the idea being that it is the common goal of a number of disparate parts that gives purpose to a larger idea.  Individually, these pieces have no system, no direction.  but applied towards an idea, this chaos coalesces into a meaningful system of order.

Bryce buchanan

Video games as an art form have opened up new forms of storytelling. They present entirely different worlds and allow players to interact within those worlds. Interactivity is a major aspect of games. As in life, the choices we make in games affect the outcomes. Some games offer different story lines. Decisions made by the player will decide how, for their character,  events will unfold.

Video games allow players to be two people at the same time; themselves and the characters they control. It is easy to say ‘I found the fifth power wand!’ when really, the character you played accomplished this task. The dividing line between player and character can become blurred - but is always significant. Games allow us to have experiences that we may not wish to have in our everyday lives. Death is also relative in the video game world. We often say while playing a game that ‘I just died,’ when in fact nobody really died.

In my work, I have merged this duality. The person playing the game suddenly finds himself in the place of the character he was playing. Rather than controlling his characters moves from a safe distance, he is left to act freely in this new world.  Does this destroy his experience of the game world completely or does it enhance it?