Fire Side Chat

Artist Statement

For my fireside chat, I wanted to talk about something that meant a lot to me personally. From the day I was born, my dad could not wait to have me star in his short films. He had just recently graduated BYU as a humanities major with a film emphasis. So while my mom was away teaching third grade, my dad was at home babysitting me. His first movie with me was called “Olivia’s Day Out”, which was a short film of me dropping a toy and the journey I had to take in order to get my toy back. This was the start to my dad’s way of bonding with me and my siblings. The films that followed were sometimes spoofs off of our favorite movies, and some were just random stories that either I or my dad thought up. I saw this as not only a way to bond with my dad, but also a great way of journaling our lives. So this became a passion of mine that I felt very strong about believing in. 

For the media portion of the chat, I decided to find a short film that I had a bigger part in. It happen to be one that I thought up and starred in. I was around 8 years old, and it was based off of my favorite book, Bernstein Bears. It has my sister in it as well. Every time I go back to these short films, I really appreciate them, because they not only remind me of my life back then. So I thought that this short would allow the audience to see how ridiculous these films were, but yet allow them to share a personal experience with me. 

I am not big on journaling, nor am I big on documenting my life in any way that consists of me writing down memories of mine. Personally I regret not writing down what happens in my life, because this just makes it easier for me to forget great moments that I have. The way that I chose to document the memories that I create, is film them. Sometimes I would create a story for them to go along with, and other times I would just film for fun. So when I look back on all of my films, I really love seeing how I looked back at the time, and the people that I was with. I see all the changes that I have gone through. Whether it be my appearance, or my friends, or my style, or even my interests. There was a video that I made 10 years ago of literally my family doing nothing. I thought it was fun to film them all in their own element. At the time, I thought that it was just a random idea of mine, but when I watch them today, I notice so many things that I had forgotten. I would see what I had hanging on my wall, or what movies I was obsessing over. It is so liberating watching the past. It reminds me of all the things I have done with my life. 

These short films help my realize that I have a great amount of memories that are waiting for me to watch or even share. It also reminds me of my passion of filmmaking. I personally believe in documenting our lives in any way we choose. I just want everyone to remember all the memories that we all have, and that they helped us with our development as a human being. 

Concerned Citizen

Concerned Citizen from Morgan Akana on Vimeo.

         We as film students at BYU are given lots of opportunities such as access to equipment and spaces like the Open Lab, the Pocket and The Cave where we are able to exercise our creativity. But that is an exception to the norm. Many artists struggle to practice their craft and skills simply due to the fact that they have no where to do it. We stumbled upon this blog post by Sandy Askey-Adams where she discusses her opinion on studio space. She says “I know an art studio does not make you an artist but you do need a place of your own for pursuing your passion”. She makes the point that an artist needs a separate place free of distractions.  She goes on to state that not having a set and determined place and “taking out and putting back can play havoc on creativity”. So it’s important for artists to have a space exclusively for their art.

        We were fortunate enough to interview Zenobia Taylor, who manages a local art studio that welcomes any artist of any medium in need of space to practice their craft. Provo Art Studio is a recent addition to Provo’s community located in south Provo. We find her to be a great example of a Concerned Citizen. She has provided the opportunity for local artists to pursue their artistic endeavors that they may not have otherwise pursued. Not only has she provided space, she is creating a community and a collective for the artists. Since there are so many different mediums welcome, it allows the artists to inspire each other’s work. Not only does she have separate studios, she holds a weekly art gallery that allows artists to showcase their work. 

      Watching the Beehive Stories, we were inspired by the simplicity of the story. This man’s job may seem minute and unknown but he is the start to many different processes that define that community.

       She may just be a small cog in the wheel, but her influence and passion for this community will have some long lasting effects. Provo is a growing place for artists. We have venues like the Velour or Muse but to get to those places, artists need to practice and work up the confidence to share their work. That starts in their studios. And thanks to Zenobia, certain people may acquire the courage to perfect their work and then share what they have to offer to their community.

Olivia Taylor & Morgan Akana

Game For Change

The Dangers of Cyberbullying

http://www.philome.la/OliviaTay93/cyberbullying

        Cyberbullying is a growing problem in our adolescent today. It is different from the traditional bullying that still occurs, but can be more harmful. Our world is constantly creating new forms of technology that make it easier for us to take advantage of it’s purpose. Even though it has made communication greater, it has also damaged our morals. We tend to find ourselves hiding behind these gadgets, because there is less consequences when you are not face to face with the person you are toiling with. Cyberbullying has become the easier way to hate on the flaws that people portray. I do not think this issue is recognized enough, or brought to our worlds attention often enough. It is a serious issue that many young adults and kids go through, and the only way to prevent it, is to share the stories that have been affected. 

       There are so many different ways for cyberbullying to occur. We sometimes forget that we how easy it is to offend someone. Even though you may be joking or just trying to be sarcastic, we do not know how the person on the other hand of the joke may be feeling. Many people choose to hide their feelings, and not to show their distress, in fear of embarrassment. No one should ever have to hide their feelings. Kids or even young adults that are being bullied should know that there are people out there who want to help them. Thats why there are special hotlines, such as the suicide prevention hotline. The number is 1-800-273-8255, and it is open 24/7. It is just a choice for those that feel like their life might not mean anything anymore. These people want to help them and show that there is a reason to live. 

      So many kids have to go through this electronic hell. Most of the time they are too embarrassed to tell anyone, so we never know who to help. Maybe they do not want to face the reality that they might need to call someone about it, let alone tell their loved ones. So thats why there are websites that allow anyone to report any bullying activity they may see. So that the victim can be helped by a bystander, rather than themselves. One of the websites is called NoBullying.com. We are the only solution to saving these kids from doing anything drastic to their precious lives. 

      One other reason I chose to pick this social issue was because not so long ago I watched the documentary “Bully” directed by Lee Hirsch. It came out in 2011, and it followed a couple different stories of boys in elementary that were being bullied. It was filmed in the state of Mississippi. When they were actually filming the documentary, they kept it on the down low and did not tell the principle of the school that it was for anti-bullying. This allowed them to really dive into the horror of these young boys and the tormenting they have to go through every day. It is a very heart breaking film ,and I definitely warn anyone who chooses to watch it, that it can become disturbing at points. I truly admire this film, it brought a lot of awareness for this social issue and it continues to. 

       Cyberbullying is a serious ongoing problem that is not addressed often enough. It is up to us as a human race to reach out to those that seem alone and distant. You might just be the deciding point for this person’s motivation to keep on living the life they fear. 

World Building

In our world, gravity isn’t a constant. Instead, it just sort of wildly fluctuates throughout the day. This idea was somewhat inspired by the Kurt Vonnegut novel Slapstick. In it, sudden, rapid shifts in gravity’s force cause the whole of society to plummet into chaos. When we were pitching ideas, Slapstick immediately came to my mind because of how drastically this one thing changed the world. I thought that this idea could be interpreted in a lot of different, really interesting ways. Our world is a lot less intense than the one described in Slapstick, the whole of society hasn’t collapsed. Instead, people have had to make adjustments to live their day to day lives despite the random shifts in gravity.

We created concept drawings of different ways typical items would be altered in order to function in this world. For example, towns would have domes over them to stop things (including people, and even the air itself) from floating away into space when gravity fluctuates into its weakest levels, or anchored chairs with buckles that allow people to strap themselves in and wait for gravity to return to normal. Another idea we had is a vest that has a controllable mass, that can be increased or decreased depending on the strength of gravity allowing people to still walk around during the fluctuations. All of these ideas would have varying levels of quality, richer people would be able to afford better equipment while the poorer would have to settle for things like strapped down chairs. This would create a very clear distinction between the upper and lower class.

One example from the class that we drew inspiration from was the notice from the film, District-9. This public notice gave us the idea to create our own for our world where gravity is not constant. So we wanted to create a sign that portrays a particular public issue that commonly occurs in our world. We wanted to show how littering is a very eco shattering problem, more than it is in our present world. When people choose to litter in our world, it can be lost into our atmosphere every time our gravity starts to fluctuate. In this world, you are unable to simply pick up litter from the ground, because it floats around the atmosphere, getting in the way and polluting the air. Another issue that this fluctuation in gravity creates is sudden, forceful garbage rain caused by higher levels in gravity makes trash jettison towards the Earth with extreme force.

It was interesting to think of all the implications that such a world demands, from the obvious (the need for mass-changing vests and chairs with “seat belts”) to the more unapparent (like the need for domes so that the atmosphere doesn’t float away, or the litter problem). We tried to imagine what the everyday life of someone living here would be like, and it helped us to come up with more creative ideas. Though we all agreed that living in this world would not be fun, the citizens of it have made it manageable for themselves, and that is what we tried to convey with this assignment.

Olivia Taylor, Morgan Akana, Jesse Baird, Taylor Davis

Textual Poaching

Body Images

       When we analyze old sculptures and paintings, we admire the unique beauty of these normal woman. We instantly accept them for who they are and how they look. They are iconic historical celebrities that radiate confidence. Currently our celebrities that have similar bodies to the historical ones are constantly being judged and ridiculed. What I did for my textual poaching project was I used Pablo Picasso’s famous painting, “Seated Female Nude”, and added three woman, from three different eras that have unique body’s. I wanted to show how they all are beautiful because of the confidence they portray. The new image that woman feel pressured to acquire, not only denigrates confidence, it fuels insecurity. They need to be reminded that everyone is born with different body shapes. Its ironic that we admire and worship these woman in our past, and yet we subconsciously mock them with our present ongoing judgement of woman now. 

I personally struggle with many body insecurities. I also have a lot of confidence in my flaws, I see them as unique attributes that make me, me. So I am always fighting this battle of loving my body and envying others. It is hard to acknowledge that all bodies are beautiful when I am being surrounded by woman that are being praised for their unnatural thin bodies. So I thought I would remind myself and the rest of woman that suffer from body image insecurities, that all bodies are admired, by showing all the forms. Woman also need to learn that even though envy is unavoidable, we still have to power to show off what we have. 

New pop singer, Meghan Trainor, recently released a single called, “All About That Bass”. In this song she chooses to sing about how she is chooses to own her curves and extra weight. I commend Meghan for her confidence. She acknowledges that our celebrities today that are in our advertisements are artificial, when she sings, “I see the magazine workin' that Photoshop”. I know that Photoshop is real and is used in our photo world, but it happens more than I think. I easily catch myself many times envying woman with fabricated bodies. So she helps boost my confidence when she later sings, “...every inch of you is perfect, From the bottom to the top”. 

In the Velveteen Rabbit, this cherished toy is given the gift of life. He is loved unconditionally by this boy, but when he is about to be burned with the rest of his infected things, he shows true emotions. It is his emotions that grant him a second chance to see the boy that showed him a whole new world. Thus we admire the toy velveteen rabbit the way it is in his normal state. He is real in his own mind, just like how these woman are real in their’s. We as readers accept him and his lifeless existence,  until he starts to portray envious thoughts of wanting more. Woman today and even in the past constantly envy any woman that has something that they do not have. This obsession of wanting these unattainable qualities, unfold our insecurities, and allow them to take full control. It was confidence that created infectious joy from this ordinary stuffed rabbit. Even though insecurities will always be there to hold you back, you have the power to ignore it. We need to remember that woman of all body types are found beautiful. 

Olivia Taylor

Beatlemania vs. One Direction Infection

“But how can you like *insert alternative rock band that people think is obscure* if you like One Direction?"

I sit back and ponder this person’s pointed demand as they gaze witheringly at me through tortoise shell, thick rimmed glasses, bookmarking their page in their Bukowski novel. They had a point...How CAN one listen to and enjoy TWO DIFFERENT GENRES of MUSIC? It’s almost as if I have a VARIETY of tastes. That simply cannot be. I sip my kombucha and cry myself to sleep.

---

Grown, fedora-clad, neckbearded manchildren (was that a bit sharp?) are heralded as supreme connoisseurs of music and are allowed to throw literal temper tantrums when someone suggests The Beatles aren’t God’s gift to the music world but when young girls show their enthusiasm for a band they are undeserving of respect because they are too crazy, too hormonal, and too stupid to understand real music.

For this project, we really wanted to show that what The Fab Four were doing and what One Direction is doing are not all that different - instead of competing our two ideas we wanted to show how alike they really are.  Music-wise, these two bands are doing different things and it’s unfair to compare the two but to simplify the matter, they both make incredibly catchy pop songs, they’re handsome, and they’re British. The way fans (generally young girls) respond to these two bands are almost identical. ‘Beatlemania’ is no longer some unmatched force in the pop world, ‘One Direction Infection’ is just as impressive. David Bowie has a really nice yet simple quote about fangirls.

“They’re the salt of the earth, those girls. They don’t sit each night and compare notes on groups, criticising lyrics, asking if it’s valid. They just play the record… yeah, and maybe they dance. I love them. I love them dearly."

So what some of these manchildren are choosing to forget is the fact that young girls played a huge role in the The Beatles career. They are a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. Whether you think a band is talented or not doesn’t always matter because the power of young girls has proven time and time again that their enthusiasm is a driving force that propels people to success. We love The Beatles. We do recognize what they’ve done for music. And we really love One Direction. A lot. Some people want to know if it’s an ironic statement against televised talent shows. Others say this make one lose credibility on musical matters. When people discredit the things someone finds joy in, it invalidates that person’s happiness. So when old fuddy duddy purists become enraged and in hysterics over their band, why can’t young girls be taken seriously when they do too?

All the clips we chose were juxtaposed against each other in order to highlight and heighten the similarities between the two. For part of our performance we did that “Riff-Off” thing they do in Pitch Perfect (2012) where we’d match one word from a song into another (What Makes You Beautiful/Dear Prudence, Little Black Dress/Revolution, Hey Jude/Steal My Girl).  We matched the sounds of the old and the modern fans screaming. We matched what reporters were saying about the bands. Our costumes depicted a typical Beatles/1D fan. We timed our piece in a way that paralleled L-cuts. Our choreography was minimal, but effective (I’m thinking specifically about the make up). I guess you could say our driving thought or MDQ if you will was,“What’s so bad about girls getting emotional over boys?” Nothing.

Olivia Taylor & Morgan Akana

Medium Specificity

Hidden Beauty 

Artist Statement:

      Photography is meant be untouched and unprocessed. Even though today we have so many ways that we are able to positively alter our pictures with filters and and photoshop, Polaroids are different. They are basic images that emphasis the honesty in photography.  The whole idea of taking a picture, is you have the capability of capturing a moment in time.  I thought that if I could change a picture after it’s taken, in an artistic way, then it can be noticed as something abstract rather than something basic. I wanted to prove how a moment that is still and plain can be given an illusion of texture and color. I used my Polaroid Camera 300 to take 4 ordinary stills of a girl. Just as the image began to show, I went over them and drew harsh lines and circles. I also  When the picture finally developed, the lines dramatically popped and they smeared the hidden colors within the Polaroid. I wanted to explore the different ways these pictures could be manipulated. To see if the emotion and reaction of the still image is altered. So I created a whole new image out of an existing image. 

Scott McCloud uses the medium of comic books, to explain the importance of comic books. He goes onto convince his readers of how his creation that mocks the itself ultimately becomes an art. So I wanted to be able to show that something as simple as a polaroid can be made into an separate art that obtains a whole different style. I look at the polaroids when they are fully developed, and I find myself distracted by the lines and colors, more than the girl herself. I felt that my art shared McCloud’s choice of emphasis in where it slightly mocks the choice of taking a still photo and giving it a whole new message. 
Andy Warhol used Elvis as subject matter, for his “Eight Elvis's” Silkscreen creation. He almost enjoyed seeing a form of simplicity and using it as motivation to adapt it into something complex. I too liked using the uncomplicated tactics in the medium of my photography to encourage my wonder of how it can be transformed into something more iconic and intriguing. Unlike Warhol and his distortion of the characters he chose to wield, I wanted to encourage the the lack of color and action. The lines that I drew out the internal colors of the photo. Warhol’s repetition in his silk screen, allowed him to extract action as well. I was motivated by his adaptation of Elvis, I used it to employ my photo’s with a whole new definition. 
I consider my medium specificity as a form of photo manipulation, in a way that both McCloud and Warhol achieved in theirs. One other artist that influenced my choice of transforming simplicity into mosaic is the photographer Christophe Gilbert. He believes in finding the small details in his photos and reconstructing them into his focal point. He does this by reshaping the paints and colors. I too saw that my photos lacked excitement. So I used a sharp point to extract texture. As I did this, more colors began to appear. Gilbert is known for his clever style, so I to demonstrated something that is not done commonly. My end product became more appealing to me.

I chose to explore the lack of texture in a still shot, by adding lines and circles that would give them an illusion of motion. I wanted the ink to spread through the lines, so more colors could also be presented. Overall I wanted to use these plain photos and convert them into interesting examples of abstract art that can be recognized by their texture and movement additions, rather than the the raw untouched photo it started out as.