Vinyl Blade: The Vinyl Arena

*More photos will be updated*

Artist Statement:
For this project we went through numerous ideas, from zoetropes, to walking sequences, and later on to a race track. After some thinking, someone came up with the idea to use BeyBlades, an anime series that aired in early 2000's, as a form of making the noise. At first we were set on the use of race cars, but we didn't know how to have it make the same sounds as "Vinyl Rally" by Lucas Abela. Not only that, but we were very short on money.

At one point we came up with a very detailed story about the BeyBlades and decided that it's better to stick with their intended purpose. Two kinetic objects that are no longer used. After some thinking into past technology, a lot of the equipment we used spun, and we would watch it spin. Now in this day and age, everything is hidden and we don't realize that things are still running in circles.

Sade Vs. Tina Turner

Artist Statement:
Tina has obviously won. I wanted to incorporate popular women of that time and I wanted to go towards a jazz/soul type of groove. After digging around in the bargain bin of Recycled Records, I came upon these two beauties and was excited to see what will happen. Originally I wanted to use Sade's Diamond Life record, but after some playing around with assembling the records Tina ended up winning the duel for being the main portion of the record.
I cut up the record so the middle portion will have a diamond shape and the whatever the outer portion was will be the opposite record. After some playing around with the records, I found out that they're actually more sturdy than a CD. I wish that I could have painted the outer surface and add some glitter on the record to give it a full diamond effect, but I'm actually happy with how the record came out.

Bumble BYOB Shit

Artist Statement:
The video that I used for this project was a little blooper from the YouTube Mixer project. The point of my video was the sound and if I knew that the presentation of this project was going to be chaotic, I would have made my video solely images and left out the sound. But the whole thing to this video was me doing a poor job at trying to animate this little bee. After making so many still frames for the YouTube Mixer, I decided to record my screen for this last one.

Live Performance Time!

Artist Statement:
For this performance, I was getting over a sickness and every time I would sing I felt like I couldn't breath.... So listening to the video made me cringe a bit because of how sick I sound. Thankfully I'm well and healthy now!
The song is from "Adventure Time," a cartoon series featured on Cartoon Network. In the original song, the singer directs it to a princess of the kingdom describing her thoughts and feelings about said princess, where she messes up the end of the song. We took that concept and changed the lyrics so we were going back and forward arguing with each other. Then later on, we messed up (purposely), forgetting why we were fighting.

Audio Tour

Artist Statement:

Hey all! The story for this audio tour is very personal and based off my experiences dealing with social anxiety. The tour is based off of an experience that has happened to me last Fall. I can't go into detail about names and the entire situation of what happened, but during that time I had to be social and I really had to "put myself out there."

Warning: There is a lot more to this story so it's extremely hard to understand, but I can't reveal too much. If you ever want to just sit down and have coffee I will gladly tell you the whole story.

     My story starts in high school where I had extreme social anxiety. At the time I wasn't aware that social anxiety was an actual thing. Whenever I would tell someone of my experiences I would be told, "You're just shy," "Put yourself out there more," "Don't worry too much about others, focus on yourself," "Just get over it and stop being such a baby." It was hard to get over it because I was in constant fear of judgement of my peers and family. I went through high school, being the quiet girl who draws pin ups instead of paying attention to the teacher. When I graduated, my social anxiety lessened. I was being more social and making friends with people that held the same values as myself. So when I started my first year of college I built up a confidence where I felt good about myself and I had confidence in building new friendships with others.
     Starting my second year, I really wanted to be part of an organization on campus. A chemistry buddy of mine suggested I go for organization x because she's heard really good things about them. Not only that, but she knew people in organization x who encouraged her to try and join them. I thought it wouldn't hurt and went to their first event. Right away, I clicked with people and I felt like this was the group for me. I really wanted to be part of them and even now I would still like to be part of them. I went to all their information events and eventually had my interview. A week later I found out I got in and I was so ecstatic. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I felt like this was a definite start to whatever I was looking for. But coming into the organization I also had to work with a group of people that I personally felt like we did not get along. There are also many perspectives to the story, but from my own I felt like I was just an assignment. At the beginning it was awkward because I was still getting to know people, but as time went on I felt like I was getting more distant to the group. Right now, this very moment I'm typing the story, it hurts to think of all the things I had to go through...but as you can imagine I built up my confidence that I felt no one can bring down and going into an organization that was supposed to be like a second family, it really hurt feeling like the outsider looking in. My confidence was definitely torn down and my social anxiety spiked.
     That entire semester, I avoided people like my life depended on it. I was afraid all the time and there were times I would go into a panic attack. Every night, I would come home and lock myself in my room only to break down into tears. I would hide myself from other people so they didn't see me in my states of distress. I was even afraid to talk about how I felt with the group I worked with because they would shut me down instead of trying to help me. I felt alone. Adding my social anxiety didn't help. I pretty much went into depression now that I thought of it. After a while, I grew tired of feeling afraid and I wanted a change. I realized that before wanting to be part of this organization I was perfectly happy and trying to be part of it at that time was not helping me in any way. So I dropped out. From there, I got my life back together and I learned a lot about myself from that experience.

     That is part of the story and during that whole entire experience I found places that I could have solitude. During that Fall semester I was still a biochem major and I would hang around the DMS, Dela Mare, Engineering, and Orvis Nursing a lot. I avoided places like the Joe and KC because they were high traffic areas. Which is why the audio tour takes place along that string of buildings. In the audio tour I used the sound of a heartbeat to show which stage of distress I was in. Everyone knows what stage fright feels like and when your heart really starts to thud in your chest, you feel extremely rattled. I also mentioned a person in the dialogue. I didn't include them in the story, but during the process of joining organization x everyone in my group had a mentor. I would always hang out with my mentor and try to laugh around them all the time. Being caught in so much negativity, I was glad to have someone to help me and be the positive one. The organization and others like it felt like it was built on titles, so when I dropped out I lost a title that I had with that person and everyone else in the organization. Every time I would see a member of it, it feels a bit awkward to be around them. Anyway, that person has moved away to Hawaii but sometimes I feel like I still see them and I feel like I can't ever face them in person again. Besides my audio tour having a whole fluster cluck of things, I hope that in a way people can relate to the feeling of being scared and needing solitude.

Recorded Sounds

Artist Statement: The sounds you hear were collected at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. What I noticed about them, was that there was a lot of repetition as to what was being said. I called them "parent phrases." I heard a lot of, "Don't run away!" "Wait for me," "I told you not to run off," and so on. I even caught myself saying some of these parent phrases while I was watching my brother.

Aquatic Triptych

Artist Statement:
Wow, it has been forever since I've posted on this blog!  So to start off this artist statement I should mention that I never realized how much parents need to deal with when they have to supervise their kids at public attractions like the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  I went with my family, but somehow we were separated and I was stuck with the little one.  I didn't really have a problem with it because my first initial response to recording the audio was, "I'm going to record my brother! Because he's three and small and does crazy things!"  But after a good fifteen minutes of not being able to see the fish and otters, my brother would zip off to do something else because he lost interest from staring at people's backs.
The direction I wanted to go with for this project was the experience I had while looking at the jellyfish.  They were absolutely beautiful and walking through the exhibit had this ethereal feel.  When viewing the video I suggest being able to be in an extremely dark room and just looking at your surroundings.  Everything is touched by the blue, which gives the jellyfish a bright pop of color, and it feels like time has slowed down.  The audio is muffled and layered, but it's also loud.  There's something about looking at the animals that helps you to tune everyone out.
The sounds you hear in the video were collected at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  What I noticed about them, was that there was a lot of repetition as to what was being said.  I called them "parent phrases."  I heard a lot of, "Don't run away!" "Wait for me," "I told you not to run off," and so on.  I even caught myself saying some of these parent phrases while I was watching my brother.   At the start of this project I was working with flash to make the imagery, but I couldn't grasp the concept of the keyframes and how to make my images move smoothly.  So I reverted back to what I did best, creating digital paintings and animating them from there.  The Jellyfish doesn't move across the screen like I planned, but instead stays suspended in that one moment of time.