Silverfish is an independent film I undertook with Ran Li starring John Wax and Bill Campbell. With Silverfish, I revisited the method of the cryptic narrative in regards to the main character, leaving his backstory intentionally ambiguous, not even revealing his name. By keeping him a blank slate, I invite the viewer to put himself in Silver’s shoes, reflecting on the decisions they would make in the difficult situations Silver encounters throughout the film. On set I worked with lighting, sound, script supervision, and scene setup, and each of these positions offered me excellent insights into my future films.
Terminus Est further explored the minimalistic method of narrative I introduced with United by using incomplete and achronological imagery to conceptualize the void soul. With these images I provide incomplete pieces to a nebulous puzzle to be interpreted by the viewer. While the pieces I provide in the animation are not complete, they are the significant cues from which the viewer can impose their identity into a fully fleshed narrative.
Oblivion was an exploration into the cryptic narrative approach, as well as a return to the Void Soul. For this project I returned to the concept of using non-verbal audio to provoke a narrative. Unlike United, I did not compose a score for this, instead relying entirely on foley sounds I created using materials relating to the scenes. I found that by slowing and warping these familiar sounds, I was able to augment the ominous ambience of the film. I further explored the notion of using recognizable objects to create a foreign audio landscape in several of my entailing projects.
Tranceptance and the Return were sister projects featuring one of my characters, a domesticated dog wandering through a post apocalyptic wasteland. Both pieces incorporate foley sounds into the landscape and conclude with a score.I found music to be a successful conclusive element because it encapsulated the emotions I attempt to evoke with my foley landscape. With Tranceptance I explored the boundaries of foley more extensively. For example, the dog’s whimpering growl at the end comes from the sound of a dying engine amplified by a Styrofoam cup. This method of warping sounds through cylindrical devices was something I pursued further in other projects.
Inflection was an independent study I created using plaster, sand, and wood. My project was on display in the Living Arts lounge from Fall 2011 to Winter 2012.
Inflection is a study in self reflection and change. Every aspect of the piece but the
centermost mirror can be manipulated or altered by the casual viewer to represent change within him/herself. Altercations made to the central rock represent permanent change: changes to the mind, which can never revert to its previous form. Altercations made to the sand and rock orientation surrounding the central pool represent impermanent change: changes to the flesh. The contrast between the sand, which is easily changed and easily reverted to its original state, and the stone, which is forever transformed by even the slightest mark, is meant to represent the contrast between shallow and deep transformations within an individual.
This is an interactive piece: for it to fulfill its purpose, the viewer must spend time gazing
into the pool, and transform the rock to express the way he/she views the state of her mind, and alter the sand garden to express the way he/she sees her physical appearance. The viewer should not second guess their creation, but simply gaze into their reflection within the pool and carve whatever they see. The resulting composition can be seen as physical representation of the viewer’s emotional state. Eventually, different compositions will mix together as more viewers leave their marks, resulting in an involuntary collaboration between different individuals. In this way, the piece will be shaped by the emotions of myriad viewers, and the difference between the permanent and impermanent changes will become more and more pronounced. The outer rock of the reflection pool will evolve and change permanently, while the sand garden remains transitory.
The mirror in the center of the pool represents the soul: the intangible, undefinable,
enigmatic center of the individual consciousness. It is the one aspect of the piece which is
unalterable, for the soul is the only aspect of the piece that truly reflects you. Over time, the outer body will change. Beliefs will alter, knowledge will evolve, flesh will age. Eventually, the
physical body will be carved away, wasted to nothingness. No matter what transformations shake the flesh, the soul remains the pure embodiment of self. It is the calm center which no outer turmoil will ever reach.
The crowds rolled back, like a breakers receding into the sea, and in the ensuing silence I declared:
“Look amongst you! In thy desperation to reach the hundrednote, ye have laid waste to a thousand ones!”
And behold, they looked upon their plunder, and were ashamed.
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This project that I undertook in February of 2013 was a social experiment with very interesting results. Physically, it was an ice sculpture containing half a hundred single dollar bills, but the true piece was the destruction caused by my experiment. This experiment was meant to examine the destructiveness of human greed and the way that the possibility of great gains can influence the emergence of our savage nature. The results of my experiment were fascinating, confirming some of my original predictions while upending others.
In the beginning, the sculpture took a simple, dome-like form. Visible on the surface of the sculpture is a coating of about 40 dollar bills. I told my piece’s participants that there was a grand total of 240 dollars within the sculpture, 140 singles and a single hundred-dollar bill. The participants could do whatever they wished to extract these bills from the structure, and were free to keep any currency they received.
Almost immediately after receiving these instructions, my participants fell into chaos. One member of the group bodily thrust the entirety of the sculpture from its ledge to the ground. The initial impact failed to shatter the piece, but another surprisingly skinny individual lifted the structure with a strength I would have not thought possible from his physical appearance, and cast it against the corner of the ledge. The impact successfully broke open the structure, and each participant scrambled to find a chunk from which they could extract currency.
One individual found a broken hammer that had been discarded in a gutter, and used the rejective end to pry open his chunk. Another used a cinderblock, which he rammed against several shards at once. Many simply cast their chunks against the pavement again and again. All the while, frantic participants shouted to one another, attempting to divine who had acquired the hundred-dollar bill. In the fray, one participant cut his hand on a shard of ice. Another accidentally stepped on another project. No one took the time to care.
There was no answer, and the frantic search continued. The possibility of earning a hundred dollar bill caused the participants to become reckless with the ones, until unusable remnants of single bills littered the ground. Over time, some participants forsook the larger chunks, instead searching the ground for damaged bills that might be salvaged and repaired.
Something I observed through this social experiment was that there was almost no deceleration of enthusiasm throughout the desperate search. The almost inhuman fervor with which the participants searched through the ruins of my ice sculpture stayed consistently high for about five minutes, then suddenly deflated, as if the fuel of the vigor had been expended. I could see shame and embarrassment in the eyes of my participants as their gazes rolled over the results of their destructive foraging. It was as if the inhuman element that allowed them to lower their self-regard and rummage through the dirt had been dispelled, and civilization had been resumed.
It was then that I revealed that there had no hundred-dollar bill, only ones. I did not receive the indignant resentment I had anticipated, just a dull acceptance as if every participant had come to their own individual realization, and I only confirmed their doubts.
The total casualty count of the experiment was twenty-three of the forty-nine bills. Almost half of the currency had been destroyed in the search for the nonexistent hundred. A nearby art piece was also damaged in the search, perhaps the most unfortunate casualty of all. There were several injuries as well, including a hand cut from a stray ice shard. I asked all participants to raise the bills they had earned in the air for a photo, and they did so halfheartedly, as if ashamed by their plunder.
Dozens of downtrodden scraps of dollar bills remained scattered throughout the courtyard long after everyone had gone. They were only trash to them, utterly worthless, destroyed in the haste to find the hundred.
