The Pat Show

For my final project for New Media, I made a fake talk show based off of the Maury Show about a paternity test with the painting.  I played all of the roles, based on the idea of identity being created through costumes we wear, except for this it is based on the roles we play.  Identity to me is shaped on the actions that we have to complete, and how we view ourselves in a space with others.  I also wanted to highlight the idea of space and medium impact the audience differently.  For my performance part, the audience was forced to experience what I was doing as I was trying to directly engage everyone in the audience.  The video that I showed onscreen was a stock footage of an audience that I found on the internet archive.  I wanted to have the video of the audience to be the only professional part of the experience, and clash that with a very amateur show.  The amateur aesthetic has a more authentic feel to it and is more flexible for expression.  I had a lot of fun making this project and I enjoyed the class.

swag

Something is Happening Gallery

Something was definitely happening at this art show.  In this gallery presentation, our class displayed two prints and our books in the Mudd Gallery.  This show was special to me as it was my first time ever presenting photo prints in a public setting.  My prints, missing frames, were placed on the book shelf, which added to the whole pop-up art gallery experience in my mind (and they even stayed there till we took down the whole exhibit.  I really enjoyed the fact that a good amount of people showed up to the gallery and were really interested in all of the works and were just awesome.  Overall I had a really good experience at the show and would really like to do another.

Bob Dylan

McCluhan quotes Bob Dylan in his text The Medium is the Message from the song The Ballad of a Thin Man "Because something is happening but you don't know do you Mr. Jones?"  Ever since he started performing, Bob Dylan has always been about authenticity.  Besides his first performance in which he tried to imitate Little Richard, he has striven to represent an authentic American experience.  As a folk performer in the early 60's, he was heavily inspired by Woody Guthrie and his attempt to capture the spirit of America.  Dylan moved from the Twin Cities to Greenwich Village.  It was here that he became the performer that he is today, shaping folk music into social and protest songs.  In 1965, he changed the face of folk music and nearly got booed of the stage of the Newport Folk Festival by playing an electric guitar rather than an acoustic guitar.  From this he injected the idea of the mythical machine into a genre of music known for its attention to authenticity.  Not only did he change the face of folk music, but inspired many artists to perform his songs.  In fact, he has yet to stop performing, a clear commitment to his craft and the message behind it. 

Me and the Devil Blues is a traditional blues song composed by Robert Johnson that I have updated to give the song a more sinister feeling.  This version of the song looks to encompass the traditional blues form of the song while adding some track layering to bring the song more into the present.  The original version of this song is a very simple blues song performed by one person.  To keep the spirit of the blues in this version I also only used guitar and vocals like in the original.  This version looks to change the aesthetic of the song, from folk to electronic.  This change has brought some alterations to this version of the song as the emphasis is on the total sound rather than the simplicity of the lyrics and guitar.   With the layering and pitch shifting of the voices, I was able to give a very eerie feeling throughout the song and made it creepier and less about the singer and more about the evil feeling as described in the song.

Here is my version of Me and the Devil Blues

Lyrics:

Early this morning
When you knocked upon my door
Early this morning, ooh
When you knocked upon my door
And I said "hello Satan
I believe it's time to go"

Me and the Devil
Was walkin' side-by-side
Me and the Devil, ooh
Was walking side-by-side
I'm going to beat my woman
Until I get satisfied

She said "you don't see why
That I will dog her 'round"
Now baby you know you ain't doin' me right, now
She say "you don't see why, hoo
That I would dog her 'round"
It must-a been that old evil spirit
So deep down in the ground
You may bury my body
Down by the highway side

Baby, I don't care where you bury my body when I'm dead and gone
You may bury my body, hoo
Down by the highway side
So my old evil spirit
Can get a Greyhound bus and ride

Photo Project

This is my house.  I live here for 33 weeks out of the year for the past 3 years.  I wanted to capture the small details about the actual house itself rather than the people in it.  For me, some of these things have been around since I first moved in, and even before that.  When you live in a house with trinkets for so long, you notice all the little things that really make this house have the feeling that it does.  This album is my way of looking at this house we live in.  It can be empty, it can be relaxing, and it can be creepy.  The thing that I love most about this house is that a lot of that it stays still.  My whole idea with this album is to capture this house in these scenes that haven't changed.  This house is always changing, and it always stays the same. 

Here is a link to the full album.

Pig Swap is all about swapping pigs.  I was inspired by the way early cinema was edited like as if it were a magic trick, and also by security camera footage.  For this project, I set up my camera on a tripod and hit record and did my thing.  The goal of this project is to show the "magic" of editing in a silly way.  Back in the day when when film editors were more magicians than storytellers, films would use cuts to create magic tricks that could not be performed in real life.  Such is the structure of this film as the pigs seemingly (but really its not seamless at all).  I also wanted to highlight the different spaces that exist in my room.  The sound in the video presents the activity that I was doing while filming them, which was watching Bob's Burgers and eating some chips.  It is clear through the pigs that their space exists in my room even when I am there and not paying attention to them. Our spaces are separate, but that does not mean that they do not intersect. 

This is the first movie in the Majesty series that me and my friend Nate created.  This is the first movie; it was made for an editing class as a "how to" video.