Concerned Citizen

Artists' Statement:

Shelly first met Brennan in the summer of 2014. It was easy to see that she had a specific light about her, although it was hard to place. They moved in together recently, and she has been able to place that light. She found, through the small gifts left at her and her roommates’ doors every so often, and through the uplifting texts Brennan sends after a particularly bad day, that she cares deeply for the people around her, and she does her best to help others in any minuscule way.

What was also interesting about these small gifts or kindnesses given to Shelly or to others was that she handcrafted them herself. A natural artist, she seeks to make every creation come from her heart. It’s in this way she values genuineness and shows true, deep-rooted care not just for the people she loves, but for all humankind. During our interview she recounted an experience she had where she found a complete stranger had been raped. This event impacted her greatly emotionally and ignited a desire to help spread awareness and take action against such things through her art.

When going through our footage and selecting the pieces we wanted to include in the final film, it was easy to see a narrative develop that may have otherwise been jumbled or unclear if not carefully handled. Thanks to her trust, Brennan allowed us to take her story, and these thoughts about how she wants to help our community, and pull them together into an inspiring message - that it’s the little things that count, and we never know how big of an impact we can have. The discussions that we had in class focused in large part on the impact of the individual on their surroundings and environment, which helped prepare us for this assignment. Though our subject hadn’t done some drastic thing, such as donate a large sum of money, or build a shelter for someone, she had an experience that spurned an epiphany which will guide her to making a difference in her own way.

As art is something that comes naturally to her, it is only natural that she use that gift from God, and not some unrelated means, to lift where she stands, and help others in small or large ways whenever the opportunity arises. The fact that she is just a woman you could see going down the street and not recognize as some kind of incredible idol doesn’t stop her from walking the path of a hero. These small contributions by average people like you and me are the contributions that will work together to make the biggest difference.

Game For Change

My Twine Game

Artist's Statement

This was a very challenging assignment for me. Not because of the technicalities and work that needed to be put into making the actual Twine game, but because of the subject matter. It took me awhile to find an issue that I not only felt very strongly about but something that I would be able to feasibly create a game about while helping the player to feel something. That last part, the emotion, ended up being harder than the research itself.

I decided that, in light of recent events, I wanted to create a brief but powerful game that would help others having trouble empathizing with the LGBTQ+ community to have that opportunity. The source I used most heavily was the YouTube channel of a high school friend of mine, Ashley (https://www.youtube.com/user/HeyThere005). She is a lesbian, and has a really popular channel that attempts to bring into the light a lot of things that remain in obscurity about LGBT relationships, and in turn very much humanizes the community. Some of her videos, especially "Dear girlfriend, will you," have really emotionally impacted me and helped me to feel something I didn't realize I had very little of - empathy. They are people just like us, even if they don't fit our straight Christian template. To me, this fits in very well with the TED talk from Chimamanda; if we only have our one story, our straight Christian story, we won't be getting the whole picture. Hearing the story from others in different backgrounds helps illuminate the big picture, and promotes empathy and understanding. This was what I strove to create in my short game.

Due to its nature of being a catalyst for this project, I was doing some research on the LDS policy change, and came across this article. Some great points about equality and inequality were made in the article, but foremost I was impressed by the quickness of the rally's organization. True, some people inexplicably hate protesters and will turn a blind eye to them, but this is toxic. These people gathered because they are people too and deserve our attention, not because they are somehow lesser for getting the short end of the stick and being genuinely upset about it. Wikipedia also turned out to be a great source for intel on this. There are obviously several prevailing theories and ideas about the nature of homosexuality, but what I kept coming back to as a read through this article was that non-straight people are just like me. You can use words like Oedipus, ego-dystonic, and disorder, but these are all just labels and attempts to categorize the uncategorizable - a deep spiritual and emotional connection that can be forged within many different types of sexuality. I struggled to find the appropriate time to reveal the homosexuality of the main character in my game, and ended up determining that the best time would be right after the player has made their decision, and assumes that they are straight (an assumption I make, as this is for a BYU class).

I feel as if the game is effective, particularly if a sad outcome is reached. If you get one, you will know, and you will hopefully empathize with those people who have experienced this marginalization and mistreatment in the past and even recent years. This is my ultimate goal - empathy for others we may not understand.

World Building - Man's Best Friend!

Artists' Statement

Our chosen world was one where dogs are revolting against humans and are trying to take over the world.  We decided that propaganda art would be the best form of art in order to convey the actuality of our new world.   Given this particular scenario, it was quite easy to enumerate several ways that the politics and social realities of our past would be reflected in this fictional world.  Many of our ideas stem from communist and dictatorial regimes in history, in particular the vast amounts of propaganda utilized by such establishments in order to brainwash citizens into believing certain opinions.

We decided that our general rule would be that mankind was meant to feel blessed and not cursed by this sociality, using the tagline “man’s best friend” as inspiration. From this, we selected a few pieces of famous propaganda media with which we could express this aesthetic, and through trial and error found those that worked best, then collaborated to create a visual and cultural body of work representing it.  Choosing pieces of propaganda with historical significance allowed our messages to become real and fit the canine world.  A lot of Russian propaganda was used as inspiration for this project. This type of propaganda brought a “Big Brother” type of feel.  Red, black, and yellow were the key colors we used on most of our posters to emphasize the concept of power. Photos of famous political leaders such as Stalin and Lenin were used. We photoshopped dogs faces over their faces to show how canines rule humans (or want to rule humans) in a communist government.

               In class we discussed certain pieces of media that exemplify the adjective “quirky”. By doing this, we found that these examples could be correlated with social and political topics like existentialism and hyper realism. We as a group decided to do something similar. We found things that were related with power and revolt and connected them with political powers. Concepts from the novel 1984, Russian propaganda, and communist theory were all things we found that were related to power and revolt.

               As a portion of this assignment was to ensure that the art correlated with society, we feel like we picked a good medium in the end (the flag, insignias, and posters) to accomplish that. Advertisements, commercials, and posters not only shaped Nazi and USSR society, but even shape society in modern America, either causing or being caused by specific socio-cultural elements of the time. Since we could not actually create a world where canines are taking over the planet, creating fictional propaganda was a relevant and successful method to emulate the environment that would exist in such a reality. We faced some bumps along the way and had to acknowledge and work with our weaknesses in digital design, but the end products, however imperfect, are tokens of our work and vision of this fictional world.