NYSCC SOAD
Teaching
Project/Assignment Descriptions and Outcomes + Experiential Learning & Outcomes
Examples from Introduction to New Media Assignments, multi semesters
12 5 1
Your first assignment is to create three 12 5 1's. Record an action from a human or nonhuman for 12 seconds. Then in Adobe Premiere Pro create 3 edits on for 12 seconds, one for 5 seconds, and one for 1 second, placing one second of black in between each shot. For one of the 12 5 1's try capturing different camera angles for each of the three shots 12 5 & 1.
Learning how to compress time and feel time in the duration of the edit is key to learning how to edit & shoot video in the field. As your reading Art as Experience: The Live Creature by John Dewy also think about what experience your capturing in these small works.
Constructing Experience: The textual and the wordless
Your next assignment is to construct a 1 min non-linear experience in the broadest sense, a montage of imagery. You should capture a plethora of shots that suggest/contain textual or wordless meaning. Experiment with the types of shots, movement, and angles. It's best not to be consistent with these, meaning you should move your viewer's perspective around by gathering close-ups, extreme close-ups, medium shots, and long-shots. Shoot more than you think you need. Ask yourself and feel out how short your edits can be to convey a meaning or feeling. Even nothing conveys something. Feel free to experiment with the blend-modes and create your own dissolves. Make sure you give your work a title and position it at the front of your video with your name.
“I use chance operations instead of operating according to my likes and dislikes. I use my work to change myself and I accept what the chance operations say. The I Ching says that if you don’t accept the chance operations you have no right to use them. Which is very clear, so that’s what I do…” – ‘Conversing with Cage’
Texture, Layering, & Performance
You next assignment focuses on building depth both conceptually and technically utilizing the idea/process of layering or sedimentation to build a 1-2 min video. You need to gather and play with two ways of capturing footage. The first is using your camera lens to investigate texture, material, and pattern in a performative and gestural way. The second is to use a stationary camera and perform texture/pattern moment in front of the camera.
Look the artists listed here The Importance of Real-Time and Performance, specifically the work Taking Shape by Monica Duncan, the behind the scenes look at Monica's process provides an excellent example of playing/performing texture in front of the camera.
Once you have a collection of textures you are working with ways to layer these to build depth, but also consider conceptually what is hidden? what is seen? What is in or out of the Frame? How are the textures & materials interacting with one another via content or color? This layering should utilize keying (lumakeying or chromakeying). You can also play with masking & scale to layer and construct various compositions.
Visual Vocabularies Towards Non-Existence
(This assignment builds into the next assignment below)
Your assignment is to create 2-3 visual vocabularies (videos) ranging from 10-15 seconds. To get to the level of non-existence (reference: On Game Art, Circuit Bending, and Speedrunning as Counter Practice: 'Hard' and 'Soft' Nonexistence) we will explore the boundaries or syntax of the tools available to you. To accomplish this, you need to explore layering multiple effects within Adobe Premiere Pro to find a visual that is not the "default settings", but a new visual vocabulary.
How you get to your images should not be traceable, this comment speaks to the visual literacy we've discussed in class when decoding visual processes. An example of a process not pushed past the default would be, it looks like you used these three effects twist, blur, and emboss... Vs finding a new phenomenon between the layering of effects that cannot be easily decoded.
New Ways of Seeing: Signal Processing
Your next assignment is to utilize one or more of your visual vocabularies in the construction of a 2-3 min video. The conceptual premise of your piece should arise out of describing what the visual process elicits, you then need to provide 3-4 references of artists, texts, as research for the project that furthers ideas that emerged from the images. A 2-3 paragraph artist statement should accompany the work (10/100 points).
Remember it matters what images make other images
~ let representation ebb and flow into abstraction ~
Signal processing has a long history of developing new ways of seeing the world around us, what does this new way of seeing teach us? My suggestion is to try different types of footage: panning, zooming, stills, shots of nature, people, texture, extra. To do this easily you can copy the video with the effect layers, and then click on other clips and paste attributes. You will find that exposure and different types of footage will respond differently, so you may need to fine-tune and further change the parameters in your effects to get somewhere interesting.
Remember anything with a stopwatch ===>>> can be animated to make changes over time.
Sound for your work should utilize either the euro-rack modules in the studio or VCV RACK, (Links to an external site.) or experimenting with effects in Audition. These are great tools for sound generation, you may of course augment them after you gather several recordings or performances. Remember to think about what is happening visually and look for sonic metaphors that match.
Appropriation & Remix
Your final assignment is to create a 3-6 min video that utilizes appropriation and remix. Your final piece should not reinforce the appropriated materials message but subvert and critique it. Form, bend, glitch, cut, hack images to construct you message. If the material is copyrighted make sure they are short clips. Your overall piece should not depend on any one piece to convey your message, your meaning should emerge out of the collection of clips and their juxtapositions.
You should create your own sound work that can utilize any of the skills we've discussed this semester. You need to choose at least one of the video processes we've discovered this semester which includes more than just montage editing > signal processing, multi-channel, or 3D Animation.
Copyright & Appropriation LAW:
Video Vessels
Your final video should be a 1 min animation that utilizes one of the form or forms from your collaborator. The forms need to be wrapped with a "video glaze". Your video should be designed for one of the four configurations in the Snodgrass Gallery, which includeds the 2UP, 3CH, 1screen/1projection, or a 7CH work. If you do not submit your video Nov. 6th, you will not be included in the exhbition, you will still be able to receive a grade if work is turned in late.
To turn in your work upload you 1920x1080 H2.64 video(s) here, if they are not uploaded here they will not be graded.
Here is the text I put together for the exhbition:
Video Vessels is an experimental exhibition and collaboration between ceramic and video art students in the School of Art and Design in the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Students in the Design! Ceramics course lead by Professor Johnathan Hopp created conceptual ceramic forms as 3D models. Students from Introduction to New Media lead by Professor Eric Souther created video glazes to wrap around the ceramic forms and animations to explore the material interactions across the surfaces. These investigations will be shared across the multi-channel video space in the Snodgrass Gallery. The Snodgrass Gallery is located on the 3rd Floor of Harder Hall. The Exhibition will be on view October 9th-17th, 2020. Artist includes Ariana Bronson, Lucas Easton, Ashley Zhang, Lauren Dembski, Arielle Atmosfera, Jaspal Batra, Amanda Brosgole, Grace Evans, Michael Flora, Nylin Grisby, Nyarai Jokonya, Tammy McGovern, Yunda Sun, Jacob Wilson, Di Zhu, Grace Joyner, Julianna Doughtrey, Maddy Hill, Maya Miles, Neria Leander, Kyle O'Connor, Ty Heyden, Johnathan Hopp, & Eric Souther.
This is how I would list it on your resume / CV:
2020 Video Vessels, Snodgrass Gallery, group exhbition, November 9-17, School of Art and Design, Alfred University, Alfred, NY.
In-Between Space & Thought
the exhibition is titled In-Between Space & Thought a multi-channel exhibition for the Snodgrass Gallery, 3rd floor of Harder Hall. Artists Ethan Billings, Chloe Chen, Dan Fagan, Felicity Machado, Lukas Perry, and Abby Preston co-developed a video repo for a collaborative sharing of footage and audio to construct a database. Each artist made a one-minute edit that works together towards a whole (6min). What are the spaces and thoughts between each of the artists as they share their visual vocabularies and weave them together? The project was collaboratively designed as a group.