Senior Thesis (Comps) Project

For my Art History Senior Thesis, or so-called “Comps” at Carleton College, I gave a historical comparative analysis of art that has striven in either form or function to provoke illusion in the viewer or cause the psychological phenomenon of immersion. From these works I traced the evolution of illusionistic concepts into the immersive realm of media and, finally, digital media, cinema, and beyond.

I demonstrated a progression of the desire to create illusionistic art and, more importantly, realistic or naturalistic art that ultimately strives to form an artificial reality. This artificial reality is the foundation of naturalistic and illusionistic art throughout history and, again, through comparative analysis with the application of several significant art and media theories I moved to incorporate new media and film theory into my project.

Presentation Slides (QT H.264) Link.
Presentation Notes Link.
Slide Sheet Link.

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Happening: A Video Convention

In the Spring of 2006 I co-developed a happening funded by the Art & Art History Department of Carleton College along with the Carleton Administration. Combining inexpensive and readily available building materials with live video and lighting, we created an indoor video landscape for an estimated 500 participants.

Encouraged to adopt the guise of a fictional character, live wireless video feeds were transmitted within the space, an inflated poly dome roughly 100′ x 200′, and projected out onto the walls, creating space within space and video echo for the guests and amplifying their assumed characters. The project became, through the participants, a living video amoeba and a great success (outside shot seen above).

La Nouvelle Interface

In the summer of 2005 I left for Nice, France to participate in NYU’s Nice: A City in Motion program. Steeped in 3D animation, theory, and design, it explored the word of digital video and its manipulation.

The course covers conceptual design and production using animation and video processing software. We look at ways to shoot and manipulate visual media in 2-D and 3-D, playing with motions, colors, lighting, textures, camera movements, gestures, sounds, and human expressions. Students are asked to create their own story combining video and 3-D animation. Topics addressed include designing digital storyboards, motion capture, creating animated digital characters, camera tracking, lighting, and compositing. Course taught by NYU ITP Program Professor Jean-Marc Gauthier. [above]

My final project in this course involved using Maya3D to construct an extractable layer over a still photograph of the city of Nice, France, animating the buildings to represent the political vibrancy of it’s old section. Undergoing rapid development, Nice could be seen as standing to lose much in the coming years and this project can be taken both in a political and artistic sense within this context. All audio, photography, and rendering is completely original.

New Interface (QT H.264, 21MB) Link.
Program Website Link.
Exhibition Press Release (PDF) (French) Link.

Social Reform Photography Analysis