Brittany Art and Technology

This is a project of fragility. I have felt recently, in thinking about graduation, that there is not enough time left of my college career and that time truly never seems to be as consistent as I would expect. There are times when the hours fly by and, alternatively, times when each second seems to take a lifetime. In preparing for this project, I knew I wanted to make a commentary on time. Time, as I count down to so many big events in my life soon, seems to be slipping through my fingers. My face represents the me at the center of all of this - confused and clearly not prepared to react to an unfamiliar environment. As I get closer, however, to commencement, the hours are full of suspense and excitement. They are last moments, new beginnings, and surprising blessings. Each has challenges and joys, tears of sadness and hopes for the future.

This is a tribute to travel. When I decided to come to school in Florida, one of the draws of moving from New Hampshire was the amount of time I would get to spend in the airport. Unlike many people, I love airports -- the way they represent a separate world of sorts. Over four years, I have gotten very used to these alternate worlds. I have accrued nearly 60,000 miles on my Southwest account. I have memorized the typical flights from my home airport (BDL) to TPA and everywhere in between. BWI has become as familiar as either of these and I certainly have preferences and biases when it comes to layovers and connecting airports. The trips, though, can become mundane. This is a compilation of a few videos I have taken while flying. The song in the background reverses and speeds up about halfway through, representing the trip home - this flight is consistently faster because of wind patterns. However, it is difficult to tell where the song changes, as these flights can become rout

My flip book, a time-based project, is fittingly based on the concept of impermanence. It walks through the life of a flower, which is cut short by a girl who picks it. The now-dead flower, though, drops a petal that turns into a drop of water and helps five other flowers. Some of them flourish and others do not. Under the same conditions, one breaks, one refuses to grow, and only one reaches its full potential. This project ended up making more of a statement than I'd anticipated. It was supposed to start as a study of a growing flower, something I draw on a regular basis. Eventually, though, I became interested in animating text and the final project ensued. Song featured is "As it Seems" by Lily Kershaw

This assignment was to create a 30x30 grid of...something. I was reminded of a coloring app I have on my phone that does just this - invites the user to color-by-number an image, but a pixelated one. I chose an image of a Coke cup and, for my objects, double-sided tape squares. On one side, I kept the paper on the tape so that I could color each square individually and I cut them apart and stuck them to the poster board. My grid ended up being 35x35 tape squares. This amounts to 1,225 squares total. The overall finished product took about fourteen hours, not including when I cut the poster board too small and had to start over again towards the beginning.

Ascii art is nearly as old as online communities themselves. The most widely known of these types of art are commonly known emoticons [i.e. :-), B-), O.o]. The most complex are difficult to accurately duplicate, but are impressive nevertheless. In their origins, they were often done manually by users but they can, and often are, automatically computer-generated today. Algorithms can use a typical image and generate ascii, or text-based, art as an output.

Growing up, theatre was a large part of my life. It started in middle school when I was in my first musical: The Best Little Theatre in Town . This love of theatre continued into high school, when I saw Wicked during its national tour with my mom and younger sister. This was the first time I'd seen a professional theatre company and I fell in love. For this reason, Wicked  has always been an important show for me. Not only was it the first show I saw in a venue such as this, but the message spoke to me, too. The friendship between Elphaba and Glinda despite their stark differences was inspirational to me as a small-town girl who had always felt a bit left out. As I got more involved in theatre and choral music, other musicals began to be more important to me. One such show was Next to Normal.  I love the tight harmonies, the way the story is told by only four main characters, and the interwoven melodies among different songs. The show flows in a unique way for its time, telling

Madama Butterfly  tells a tale that shouldn't need to be told - of a woman ripped from her child by the child's father it never knew. The claymation version is, somehow, even more human than one may assume inanimate storytellers could be. In his art,    Pjotr Sapegin portrays human emotion and makes his viewers feel deeply for his creations. The closing scene, where the child's mother rips herself apart piece by piece, is particularly moving. This is something that would be impossible to fully portray with human actors without some tricky editing, but that is easily done with Sapegin's characters. The scene evokes discomfort and portrays "gore" without being graphic. The character appears to be mechanical, rather than made of flesh and blood, but the viewer has an idea of her as a human and thus empathizes with her as she tears herself apart. With Madama Butterfly , Sapegin fulfills an artist's dream: to make one's art come alive. He makes his viewer

The Baroque style is vast and fascinating. This piece attempts to describe the style as it is -- an umbrella that covers everything from this time period, from silverware to music and everything in between. The handle of the umbrella is a candlestick, while its fabric is formed out of a Baroque-style ball gown.

At first, I didn't understand what this interview had to do with technology. I was inspired by Cuero's story, sure, but I didn't know how it had to do with this class. I also didn't know what it had to do with me. Then, I thought a little deeper. The part of Cuero's story that stuck out to me the most was the part during which he talked about being poor as a child. He discusses his fascination with watching the roaches in his grandmother's house for entertainment. This taught them that these creatures move in pairs and he expressed empathy for the roaches that were alone. If I saw a pair of roaches in my home, I would certainly be overwhelmed and promptly move them elsewhere rather than trying to learn from them - let alone watch them for an extended period of time. The connections he made watching these roaches surely aided in his journey to become a microbiologist, which definitely requires deep analyses and making observations. My most important take-aw

I am a senior New Media Production major that has been enrolled in and subsequently dropped this course twice. As I plan to graduate in May, the chances of me dropping are 0% so we are off to a great start! I anticipate that this class will be largely lecture-based and move at a relatively fast pace. It also seems as though it will be a large workload, which I was not anticipating from a 200-level course and I am not hugely excited about most of the projects. However, I hope that as we get going, the overwhelming-appearing syllabus will thin itself out and the class ends up being exciting! Until next time!