Project 1 "Go Sock Go"

Artist Statement

My artwork is intended to take a critical view on the importance and value of free will via the personification of several items of clothing. The piece “Go Sock Go” brings together two themes that are elusive in nature (existentialism and the mystery of lost socks) in order to create a narrative of a sock who is on a mission to define “her” own meaning in life. The stop motion starts off with the curious sock unraveling herself and wandering away from the folded pile of clean laundry. The other socks follow her in attempt to bring her back to where she “belongs.”  She treks on and just when she thinks she has escaped the confinement of her given sock destiny, she is entrapped by the others and dragged back.

The sock’s strength and willpower is put to the test as she tries to escape the firm grasp of the others’.  She is beaten and torn but manages another attempt to escape.  Towards the end she is unable to withstand the power of the other socks and is ripped apart and thrown aside. Although she lost this battle, she gave it her all and did not give up the fight for her freedom.

https://vimeo.com/140114612

Dana Hatchett- Artist Statement and Final Video

Artist Statement

            My stop motion animation is titled “Progression of Time.” The film was shot around Gainesville, Florida. The purpose of my project is to capture time while living in Gainesville, Florida. The footage took place in a day’s worth of activities. I went to downtown Gainesville and Payne’s Prairie to shoot the film. I wanted to capture the sunrise and sunset to show progression and time throughout the day. I also wanted to capture the untouched land of this world versus civilization. Time elapses in that sense because everything in the past used to be barren land untouched by humans. Downtown Gainesville has many buildings and there are many people walking the streets. There is a form of art that can be seen walking down the streets. The beauty seen in nature with the sunrise, sunsets, and the view of the never ending fields is art created by nature. In the fields of Payne’s Prairie, time elapses solely based off of the position of the sun in the sky. In downtown Gainesville, time is captured by not only the sun setting, but the restaurants filling up with people and the lights on the streets lighting up when it gets dark. There is almost a glowing feel to downtown Gainesville when it gets dark. For the pictures, I used a Visco filter to capture the color in the images. I wanted to make the pictures look mysterious, cinematic, and saturated at the same time. The Visco filter really allowed me to do that.  

https://vimeo.com/140092770

Project 1 - Hattie Mallot

Link to Vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/140077329

Artist’s Statement: Self Portrait

My piece, entitled “Self Portrait”, shows a girl drawing herself. The first picture she draws is a glamourized version of her, the way she would like to present herself to others. Deciding that this is not an accurate portrayal of herself, she erases the picture and starts over. This time, she includes her flaws in the picture, such as her messy hair and the bags under her eyes. This picture is more accurate, but is not a picture she wants to show others. She doesn’t want people to scrutinize her flaws! She scribbles out the face in her picture, marring the face she doesn’t like, and goes to erase again. When she does, her eraser tears holes in the paper, destroying not only the face she was drawing, but also the surface on which she was drawing. Frustrated, she crumples up the paper and throws it away. This piece is about self-representation and the way we present ourselves to others. There is a disconnect between how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us. In an ideal world, the glamourized versions of ourselves that we show to other people would be our true selves, and there would be no disconnect. My movie aims to show the elusiveness of self-representation that shows our best selves and still feels true who we are. As the protagonist struggles to find a representation of herself that she can be content with, the violence with which she treats her materials destroys her representation entirely. In the end, the protagonist gives up instead of trying again, though that’s not to say that she can’t come back to it later. After all, the sketchbook is still lying on the table.

Project01_martinez

This is the link to vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/139966807

This is the artist statement:

Since my major is Computer Engineering, and I want to specialize in computer graphics and animations (video game design, specifically), I decided to use screenshots instead of taking pictures with a digital camera (this relates to my artwork as well, since it is mostly with a computer). The images depicted here are from video games that I play, some of them are online (on the computer) and others are not (on a console rather than computer).

My intention with this project is to show how video gaming can represent life itself. All the games are fighting games, basically, as to reference the difficulty of life, that is loops through a fight and then another fight, and so on. Also, if you die in the game, you can always resurrect and come back to life, meaning that if you fail on something in real life, you can stand up and keep trying. There is also a reference to time that can be mostly appreciated at the end, where the video shows different times at a given time, sometimes increasing and others decreasing. Real time is different from the time in the game, referring to the Theory of Relativity. You can spend 3 hours on a game, and the time inside the game is still the same.

Project1_Progress_CM

https://vimeo.com/139655655

In-class Exercise | Week 4

https://vimeo.com/139655555

Project 1 Revisited- Sock Motion

I was unsure as to how I wanted to visually execute the previous idea I had for this first project so I did some more brainstorming around the word "elusive." Immediately what came to mind was the elusiveness of existentialism and wanting to define our own meaning in life. I also thought about all those socks that are lost on laundry day and how they are also elusive in nature because they are items that I seem to always be looking for but somehow never find.  I decided to bring these two ideas together and create a narrative of a daring and colorful sock who attempts to escape the confinement of "her" given sock destiny. As the sock tries to escape the neat pile of laundry, the other socks unravel themselves and drag her back into their pile. The brave sock fights back and does her best to escape again, but unfortunately to no avail. Although she is destroyed in the end, she gave it her all and did not give up the fight for her freedom.

(I will write a more formal artist statement to turn in the day the project is due.)