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NOVEMBER 20, 2019 VOLUME XXXIX ISSUE VIII
New College of Florida's student-run newspaper
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Short films, original compositions and innovative performances at New Music New College: Images BY HAYLEY VANSTRUM On Saturday, Nov. 16, a select group of students, led by Professor of Art Kim Anderson and Professor of Digital Media and Music Mark Dancigers, presented their own collaborative compositions, performances and animations at New Music New College: Images. The students, including Margaux Albiez, Elizabeth Barrett, Parankush Bhardwaj, Gillian Boll, Freddie O’Brion, Harold Gonzales, Lev Gurt, Aniston Hoffman, Cindy Kim, Hunter Mundy, Hugh Roberts, Emma Solloway, Rose Schimmel, Rolando Tate and Claire Thomas, worked together closely over the course of the past few months. Some students produced original musical pieces. Others simultaneously developed the score and animations to craft six distinct short films. While most of the production for this event took place during Anderson and Dancigers’ fall tutorial, the Images
out to Danciger’s Electronic Music class to see if his students might be interested in scoring the animations. The short films that resulted from this collaborative effort between duos of art and music students, which were screened last May, were highly successful, prompting Anderson and Dancigers to ask a few of those same students to make new pieces in the same style within a Fall 2019 tutorial. Last semester, the Photo courtesy of Nancy Nassiff animations were created before the More than an evening of sound and music, this program was an event that invited the score, but Anderson and Dancigers encouraged their current students audience to experience sound with a sense of space and animated visuals. to work on both pieces of the film concert has been long in the making. animations were designed through simultaneously for this project, cre“I co-taught an animation analog methodologies, we wanted ating a more harmonious workflow course with Professor Buyssens in to demonstrate the historical range and final piece. Spring 2019 entitled ‘Scopes and of these traditions and so we asked “Music students took cues from Tropes,’” Anderson said. “This class students to digitally document their the visual elements in the early was based on the legacy of cinematic work, in a way, addressing the confla- stages of the animations so that the antecedents including animation and tion of the past and the present.” scores could be developed in tandem animation devices like the zoetrope, After Anderson’s students with the visual elements,” Anderson phenakistoscope, thaumatropes and translated their work from physical continued on p. 10 even flipbooks. Although student to digital objects, the group reached
Dive into “Dark Waters”: new movie shares the legal battle between DuPont and alumnus Robert Bilott BY SIERRA LAICO
https://doc-0k-18-docs. googleusercontent.com/ docs/securesc/s7jurnmk912se8sp3mgg3hd8llrh0uos/obdpo7fpcdn719 co01n4qb7t57rv346b/1 506448800000/0533393 9401667025082/025783 83506865688437/0B4ze ECbsUTILVjVXY25YUU 52ZUk?e=download
Robert Bilott, a 1987 graduate of New College and member of the New College Alumni Association Board of Directors, has been regarded on Twitter as a “real-life superhero” by actor Mark Ruffalo. Ruffalo plays Bilott in the new legal thriller “Dark Waters,” based on the true events of Bilott’s 18 year-long battle with DuPont, one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Todd Haynes directed the story of the legal battle between Bilott and DuPont, which is Haynes’ eighth feature film. “Dark Waters” stars some of Hollywood’s biggest names: Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins and William Jackson Harper. Bilott’s story gained national at-
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tention when Nathaniel Rich wrote a feature for the New York Times Magazine titled “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” in 2016. The story detailed his discovery of DuPont’s wrongdoings in a small Appalachian town, which were called to his attention by a concerned cattle farmer. The farmer believed that an upstream DuPont factory was responsible for dozens of dying cows. Bilott, who had previously defended chemical companies, was skeptical until the farmer mentioned Bilott’s grandmother’s name. Bilott agreed to help because of his sentimental connection to the area and ultimately believed that it was “the right thing to do.” Bilott’s tireless research led him to the conclusion that DuPont
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had known for years that a chemical called Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), used in the production of nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, fire-fighting foams and a variety of household products, was responsible for serious illnesses including two cancers, thyroid disease and ulcerative colitis. But DuPont also dumped thousands of tons of PFOA into the local water supply. Bilott spent months drafting a public brief that shared these findings against DuPont, which was 972 pages long and included 136 attached exhibits. “We have confirmed that the chemicals and pollutants released into the environment by DuPont at its Dry Run Landfill and other nearby DuPont-owned facilities may pose an imminent and substantial threat
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to health or the environment,” Bilott wrote in the brief. In 2001 Bilott sent the letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States attorney general Josh Ashcroft. He then filed a class-action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of everyone affected by PFOA. This made him the first lawyer at his Cincinnati-based firm to ever file a class-action lawsuit. By 2011, over 3,500 personal injury lawsuits from West Virginia residents had been filed against DuPont. In 2017, DuPont agreed to pay $671 million to settle the lawsuits. To date, DuPont has paid over $1 billion in penalties from the PFOA discoveries. continued on p. 11
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