New York University: Interactive Telecommunications Program

Our first assignment for Animals, People and Those In Between is to make a self portrait of ourselves as our spirit animal or as our animal familiar. I’ve naturally always been (what word can I use here?) other worldly drawn to whales, however, your spirit animal isn’t necessarily the animal you adore. I took several online quizzes (cheesy but it helped) with results of Tiger, Spider, and finally a Snake. Here’s what the test result said for the snake: “Beautiful and deadly, strong willed, love to explore new things. But please, listen to your familiar, don’t strike unless necessary!”

It was the “But please, listen to your familiar, don’t strike unless necessary!” part that shook me. I’ve been trying to pay attention to patterns in myself that I don’t like because I feel like I’m getting to an age where, unless identified, these fight or flight reactions could have serious repercussions to my happiness in the future. I come from a line of stubborn women that trust and work and give their all … until hurt … then strike! I wanted to face this part of myself, honor it even.

The Day of the Dead festival is my favorite holiday. Many people make paper mache costumes for the Dia de los Meurtos parade that symbolize/portray characters or sides of themselves that they would like to put to rest. I decided to use paper mache in spirit of this holiday with the hope of putting my strike to rest, by acknowledging it.

I had a hard time cueing myself up with the self timer, and actually was quite uncomfortable being in front of the camera. I haven’t taken a self portrait since I was in a photography student in undergrad. I decided on a strait forward portrait, fighting trying to turn the snake into a concept driven piece … face it … that’s what this assignment was about for me.

With a curiosity toward nostalgia and its hard wiring to the sense of both smell and sound, artists Corrie Van Sice and Alexandra Kuechenberg joined me in our final project with the goal to encase said senses in an object desirable to touch. We made several plaster prototypes, successfully hacked into a glade wisp, and created sounds from scratch. With limited time, we’re still working on perfecting the object shape (stay tuned). The shape is most important, as we want to encourage the audience to pick up the object. Using copper integrated into the surface, once the object is held, the conductivity from the holder’s hands activates both the sound and the smell (encased in the object), creating a unique experience to him/her.

Young woman sits by the water
A small squid comes and bites her toe
Blood trickles into the water
An old woman warns the young lady by the water
A whale comes from the water and eats the young lady

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovXaKUiTJiQ

Worked with a fabulous team for my Comm Lab film project. Probably my favorite project, no, definitely my favorite project of the semester. Thanks team!