2020 Graduate Student Showcase SMSMIXEDMESSAGES.COM
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Welcome
Welcome to the Mixed Messages Graduate Student showcase. This semester has been an extremely challenging time for all our students and faculty. In spite of that, however, they were determined to continue their work, and to present some of the best creative interactive, experimental, and multi-platform projects, this time in an online environment. This work is testimony to our students’ ingenuity and resourcefulness, and to our faculty’s continuous commitment to teaching and mentoring. Even in these trying times, we strive to continue our mission to be at the forefront of new media trends, as well as critical thinking and analysis, showcasing a rich context of imagination, innovation, and social commentary. I hope you will celebrate these media artists and their work along with us, and enjoy.
Vladan Nikolic Dean, School of Media Studies The New School
MIXED MESSAGES 2020
Program
Mac Blair JCO
Amie Hollmann One Day
Nicole Cornwell Audio Letters Home
Peter Lewis Hear The Danger!
Isadora Dias Vieira Leite Baily’s Beads
Gabriella Miyares Stolen Guns
Identification Error
Matters Of Substance
Marcos Echeverría Ortiz Camilo Never Left Ecuador – A VR Experience
Alexandria Muhammad The Literary Memory Archive
The Liner Notes Of Salsa: Fania All-Star Live At The Cheetah Club
Thalía Noboa Now, What Do I Do?
Brian Erickson Microhistories: Go Green, Long Island Feilin Gao #Freemask Elizabeth Gartley The Gulls Of Great Duck Anna Gedal Dreamland
Casey O’Connell RENTERS – A Web Series Pilot Alex Richardson Star Treatment Sally Shahin Heartstring Jewerly – Digital Storytelling Miguel Tang Anamnesis Of My 90s
Diana Hernandez Urbano Street
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Mac Blair
Mac Blair is a first-year graduate student in the MA Media Studies program, where she researches innovation in journalism, in particular how journalists can better serve their readers and one another. She graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 2019, where she studied magazine editing. She has worked at POLITICO Europe, Vox Magazine and the Columbia Missourian, where she honed skills that range from person-on-the-street reporting to digital production and design. In sum, she is a news nerd, and she is very excited to be here.
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jCo This presentation contains the interaction design for one of the main functions of jCo — the act of requesting contact between users. jCo connects members of the global journalism industry and promotes individual, meaningful interactions. It’s a networking tool that acts more like a contact book: There’s no news feed, no posting updates and no status symbols. It encourages barrier-breaking, collaborating and cross-specialization understanding by bringing everyone’s information together. Mac Blair is a first-year graduate student in the MA Media Studies program, where she researches innovation in journalism, in particular how journalists can better serve their readers and one another. She graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 2019, where she studied magazine editing. She has worked at POLITICO Europe, Vox Magazine and the Columbia Missourian, where she honed skills that range from person-on-the-street reporting to digital production and design. In sum, she is a news nerd, and she is very excited to be here.
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Nicole Cornwell
Nicole Cornwell is a graduate in Media Studies, focusing in Sound Studies in audio production and storytelling. Audio Letters is personal and non-narrated, a project dedicated to her family, but also intended as an accessible practice in thoughtful listening, experimentation in construction of soundscape.
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Audio Letters Home There are certain topics, cultural and political, that I can’t breach with my dad. We seem to understand each other to the core, share habits and demeanor, yet often disagree about the state of the world. We will never reach an agreement about the 2016 election, “liberal Hollywood,� the deep state, or fake news. But we do share a joy for sound and music. My dad lives for his vintage stereo collection, for music, and his little dog named Coco Chanel. Audio Letters Home is a way to share my sonic environment with my family far away. The letters are soundscapes, sound events, and voices that evoke my impressions of New York. They are field recording compositions, collages made up of soundwalks, bike rides, and train commutes. Many samples are binaural recordings. Interspersed within these tracks are the grounding voices of my parents--personal, quotidian sound bites that contrast with the din of the city. This is a way of exposing common ground, love, and solidarity.
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Isadora Dias Vieira Leite
Isadora is a filmmaker with eight years of industry experience, and currently a Media Studies MA candidate, where she is exploring the possibilities for a female gaze in cinema.
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Baily’s Beads Baily’s Beads – tests the possibilities of a high contrast - hyper insensitive - film stock and how it silhouettes around a human figure. The film was manually processed and the chemistry supposed to reveal the images often worked to veil them. The silver halides that operate to reveal light are engulfed by a dense chemistry that unevenly eclipses the dancing figure. The work here is presented in VR to grant a sensorial experience similar to early film projections - confounding the audience’s senses and offering a new perspective of moving images.
Identification Error Identification Error is a database narrative about the journey of a stateless black man in the United States as he struggles to make sense of the world through his experiences. The story unfolds in a trifold path that weaves the political environment, family struggle and instances when the lines between personal and political get blurred. Each click reveals a small narrative unit with a piece of the story leading the viewer/user into their own journeys, stitching together who the character is and how statelessness and public policies impacted his life. The project offers perspective on immigration, statelessness and being black in America.
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Marcos EcheverrĂa Ortiz
Marcos EcheverrĂa Ortiz is a multimedia journalist interested in transmedia storytelling and new media. For the last six years, he has focused his efforts on the development of multimedia web projects in Latin America related to culture, underground music, and social movements. As a Media Studies MA candidate, most of his recent work focuses on exploring the intersection between documentary, immersive narratives, cultural memory, identity, and immigration.
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Camilo Never Left Ecuador – A VR Experience “Calle 14” (14th Street) is one of the most enigmatic paintings by Ecuadorian Artist Camilo Egas. Painted in 1937 in New York City, it is a visual response to the aftermath of the great depression, in which a beaten and engulfed man is portrayed in a lonely and cold subway station. This painting was recreated in VR to experience it outside of the limitations of the second dimension. This immersive approach enables us to render a new meaning of the painting and to extend its narrative inspired by a testimony provided by Eric, Camilo’s son, which gives insights about the artist’s memory, identity, and sense of belonging. Eric’s testimony appears in Camilo Egas: A Secret Man (2009), a documentary directed by Santiago Carcelén Cornejo.
The Liner Notes of Salsa: Fania All-Star Live at The Cheetah Club On August 21st, 1971, a New York City Latin band called Fania All-Stars played on the Cheetah Club in Midtown Manhattan. Many historians and ethnomusicologists consider this concert as one of the most important events in the history of Latin Music because it gave birth to the “concept” of what we know as “salsa.” By using augmented reality (AR), this project not only unfolds the liner notes of the live album recorded that night, but also provides an interactive storytelling experience. By merging archive material such as video, photography, and audio, this AR piece allows the audience to explore the history behind this seminal event in Latin culture in the US.
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Brian Erickson
Brian Erickson is a freelance videographer and digital media strategist with a decade of experience using media advocacy strategies to create political leverage for social change. Prior to his studies at The New School, he led and supported campaigns of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Border Rights Center in support of just and fair immigration reform and holding border agents accountable for human rights abuses. Grounded in traditional media advocacy and messaging best practices, Brian combines film theory with emerging media and documentary practices to produce videos that inspire audiences to create a more equitable and sustainable world. He will complete his MA in Media Studies in May 2020 and holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Global Studies from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA.
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Microhistories: Go Green, Long Island A video blog, all shot on the iPhoneXR, Go Green, Long Island explores both environmental challenges and the sustainable solutions Long Islanders are innovating to protect natural resources for future generations.
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Feilin Gao
Feilin Gao is a photojournalist, editor, and videographer from China. She is also a graduate student enrolled in the Media Management program at The New School. Having established her sense of social justice and pursuit of the free press in her early journalism experience in China, Feilin is now interested in multimedia storytelling and cross-culture communication.
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#freemask #freemask is a multimedia art project that discusses the challenges Chinese people are facing during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in the field of communication. The project showcases how the suppression of speech and the freedom of expression both caused problems around the same incident and on the same group of people, and how human beings respond to the problems.
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Elizabeth Gartley
Liz Gartley is a second year Media Studies graduate student based in southern Maine.
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The Gulls of Great Duck For many coastal Mainers, herring gulls are little more than a common nuisance, but the population of these birds is actually in decline. As a part of an ongoing natural history survey, professor John Anderson takes a group of his College of the Atlantic students to Great Duck Island every summer to track these gulls. Producer Liz Gartley tagged along.
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Anna Gedal
Anna Gedal is a creative strategist, writer, and researcher, currently pursuing a Media Studies MA with a focus on immersive storytelling for emerging technology. She holds a BA in American history from Barnard College. For the past ten years, Anna has designed and created digital experiences for cultural institutions across the country. Her favorite project to date is the Sazerac House, a cocktail museum in New Orleans. As new wearable technologies hit the consumer market, Anna is excited to explore new ways of designing experiential narratives in virtual spaces.
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Dreamland “Dreamland” is an interactive, non-linear film that takes viewers on a polyphonic journey across golden-age Coney Island. The piece shares its name with Coney Island’s most opulent amusement park, which opened in 1904. But the title also embodies the destination’s futuristic vision of an electric fantasy for all. “Dreamland” echoes a meandering walk through the park; viewers choose their own path. Along the way, they encounter layered archival footage, photographs, music, and oral histories stitched together to revive the sounds, atmosphere, and history of America’s lost amusement capital. This project is currently in production for Amir Husak’s Documentary Practice & Emerging Media course.
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Diana Hernandez
Diana Hernandez is an entrepreneurial and bilingual producer of experiences. She is a digital media strategist passionate for live music and vinyl. Prior to her studies at The New School, she worked as a sales engineer at IBM, where she was the recipient of the 100% Club 2017 one of IBM’s highest distinctions shared by those who deliver outstanding results during a year of very important milestones. In 2018, she co-founded Urbano Street and serves as the producer of the U Capture series. She will complete her MS in Media Management in May 2020 and holds a double major bachelor’s degree in Business Information Systems and Science Technology & Society from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).
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Urbano Street http://urbanostreet.com/ Connection To Expression U Capture is a series of live music videos shot in the streets of New York. It provides emerging bands, such as Combo Chimbita, with a professional and high-quality recording of their live performance that opens new gigs, radio and festival opportunities. For example, the sound recording of the capture of “Lekeel” by Ensamble Calavera was featured in the international CD compilation “#Yosoyska” from Mexico in 2019. Urbano Street is a non-for-profit and audio-visual content station. Our mission is to support, document, and promote independent creators and their art. U Capture is our first program that helps independent bands get their music captured, free of charge. Shot in unique locations, the video is about the band, the music and the oftenoverlooked multicultural environments that are key parts of the city’s identity and diversity. 21
Amie Hollmann
Amie Hollmann is a designer, and creative communications professional with a background in Publishing whose passion is helping people collaborate and create. Her illustrations, photography and writing have appeared in national magazines. She received an MS in Media Management from The New School and has taught workshops on creativity, social media, and design in India. Currently, she serves as an Adjunct Instructor of New Media and Associate Director of Creative Services at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York.
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One Day “One Day” grew out of a lifelong fascination with creativity and an exploration of visualizing the creative process through the Parsons School of Design: Art, Media & Technology course “Data Visualization and Information Aesthetics” with Professor William Bevington. The project was inspired by the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, in which author Mason Currey outlines the habits of 161 influential creatives throughout history - including artists, writers, scientists, philosophers, composers, filmmakers, playwrights and inventors. “One Day” is a Data Visualization of a “day in the life” of each of the 161 creatives in Daily Rituals, based on a database I built from the book. Through graphic design, it explores the creative process, bringing to light elements of how creative work is brought into the world.
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Peter Lewis
Peter Lewis is a visual artist and writer from Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BA in Cinema before moving to New York to pursue his MA in Media Studies at The New School. Peter is a self-taught illustrator with his own strange yet captivating visual style. Some of his illustrations can be found on his Instagram @peterhorses.
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Hear The Danger! You awake to find yourself trapped in a bunker with a strange individual. He insists that the outside world is in flames, and that you are safer here, with him. To pass the time he suggests that, perhaps, you would be interested in hearing a few poems from the book he’s been writing. They are not particularly good. Explore this space while you listen. Developed during Immersive Narratives in VR/AR w/ Professor Wong
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Gabriella Miyares
Gabriella Miyares is an NYC-based artist, educator, graphic + motion designer, filmmaker, and writer. She currently produces multimedia design work for the Drug Policy Alliance. She enjoys drawing, hand-lettering, printmaking, and other old-school processes as much as she enjoys the Adobe Creative Suite.
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Stolen Guns Stolen Guns is an animated PSA I created as part of my coursework in Motion Design. We drew prompts out of a hat, and I was initially very nervous to tackle the very politicized and complex topic of gun violence. I chose to focus on a specific issue, and used a stylized animation style, simple color scheme, and straightforward script to make the problems and proposed solutions clearer and easier to understand.
Matters of Substance Matters of Substance is a series of short animated videos that break down important drug policy concepts in 60 seconds or less. As part of my coursework in Advocacy Video and my full-time work doing multimedia work for the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance, I pitched, wrote, voiced, and animated these educational videos and created accompanying graphics to promote them across our social media channels.
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Alexandria Muhammad
Alexandria Muhammad is a 24 year old Afro-Caribbean graduate student in the Media Studies program, who aims to discover the various way we can tell and preserve stories with programming and emerging technologies. Originally planning to study film and audio. She was pleasantly surprised with how her focus has changed in the program and can’t wait to learn and practice more.
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The Literary Memory Archive This project was an exploration of how to use and understand object-oriented programming using Javascript and p5. Each colorful circle contains a memory of a piece of literature that floats around the open space that’s considered the archive. Gradually, all the circles become disorganized and scattered in the environment. When hitting a circle with the cursor, words will appear in the black box in the center. This is only a prototype, so some circles may not contain a literary memory just yet. The goal is to have the environment continue to change, in different kind of organization and disorganization as well as increase the amount of literature in the archive.
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Thalía Noboa
Thalía Noboa is a non-fiction storyteller with a background in multimedia journalism. Her work explores the intersection of imagery, art, journalism, and media theory. In the past, Thalía co-founded and directed a political satire talk-show in Ecuador. She has reported on migration, politics, reproductive rights, and culture. As the media landscape changes, she’s excited to explore new ways of creative storytelling through transmedia production and interdisciplinary practice.
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Now, What Do I Do? “Now, What Do I do?” (in Spanish: Y ahora, ¿qué hago?) is the question many Ecuadorian women have when facing an unplanned pregnancy in their country. This question is the name of the project: a text-based, decision-making game, inspired by real-life events, in which the user is placed in the mindset of an Ecuadorian woman that has decided to abort her pregnancy. Besides relying on data and testimonials, this piece aims to make the user acknowledge and experience in first-person the stories many prefer to ignore, condemn, or silence. Abortion is illegal in Ecuador for most cases. This has contributed to making unsafe, clandestine procedures the fifth cause of maternal death; and unaccessible safe abortions the third cause of teenage suicide in the country.
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Casey O’Connell
Casey O’Connell is a storyteller and creator driven by the motivation to inspire human connection. Through her creative work, she attempts to explore relationships in order to challenge today’s illusion of transparency, by embracing and presenting the vulnerable, honest moments in life.
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Renters – A Web Series Pilot After her ex moves out, an emotionally needy artist must learn to heal in solitude over the course of a newly resigned lease...and with four other lonely roommates.
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Alex Richardson
Alex Richardson is a live sound and portrait photography focused on social media content creation for aspiring artists.
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Star Treatment Illuminating the not-so glamorous life of aspiring musicians in NYC
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Sally Shahin
Sally Shahin was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. By the age of sixteen, she became the youngest professional certified jewelry designer from both the Egyptian and Italian chambers of commerce. Guided and Inspired by female entrepreneurs, Sally pursued her BS. degree in International Marketing and her MS. degree in Media Management to become a knowledgeable entrepreneur and create a clear vision of consumer behavior and preferences in today’s era. This Inspired her to create Heartstring - an evergreen jewelry brand that targets the technological generation and is differentiated by its modern aesthetic, patent design, personalized creations, and digital storytelling.
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Heartstring Jewelry Heartstring is a jewelry lifestyle collection design concept that is built on the idea of capturing and sharing one’s sentimental memories. The term heartstring has a historical meaning, as medical experts once believed that it’s a nerve that sustained the heart. Heartstring is the first jewelry brand of its kind. The collection is differentiated by four key characteristics -- modern aesthetic, a patentable design element, personalized creations, and digital storytelling. Customers love the ease of sharing their treasures and personal stories. Influencers are excited by the ability to promote and earn. And retailers are eager to showcase an innovative collection in a bestselling, evergreen jewelry category. Attractive, affordable and optimized Heartstring is perfect for our social media society.
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Miguel Tang
Miguel Tang is a digital storyteller, recording artist, audio producer, and disc jockey from Hong Kong. He first obtained his bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Music at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School in 2014, then returned to The New School’s School of Media Studies and received his master’s in 2018.
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Anamnesis Of My 90s “An effect of reminiscence in which a past situation/atmosphere is brought back to the listener’s consciousness, provoked by a particular ... sonic context.” That is “anamnesis” according to Jean-Francois Augoyard. My project for Sound Studies, I had decided to take an existing piece of music, to create my own cover version/interpretation of my childhood in the early 90s. “When I Think of You” (1986) by Janet Jackson was a hit song I was very familiar with as a child because my sister would play it all the time. And growing up in the 90s, I was obsessed with house music and its very distinct sound/era in the early 90s. Recordings made at that time were minimalistic, jazzy, and has a post-disco feel. They would always feature a four-on-the-floor but syncopated beat, a thumping bass, sharp hi-hats, and the signature keyboard you would hear in almost all house hits made in the early 90s, be it a Morales remix, a Robin S. record, or a Frankie Knuckles track. As a queer kid, its association with camp and queer culture made me identify with it even more. To stay true to my nostalgia and the sonic context of early 90s house music, I utilized analog recording and mixing technologies and tracked instruments and my vocals on tape. The final mix of this song was transferred to a cassette tape - adding the sonic warmth and the nostalgic hiss that was the soundtrack of many of our adolescent years. 39
Acknowledgments Producers Diane Mitchell, Brian McCormick Program Manager Alexandra Shinert Associate Producer Ever Bussey Manager of Technical Operations Manny Ermecheo Digital Assets Manager Frankie Whitty Graphic Designer Sulamita Javier Director of Administration Janelle McKenzie Executive Secretary Laurrice Morgan-Eady Producer, Red Dog Productions Macha Beard Harper
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Special thanks to all of the students who submitted projects for consideration and the faculty members who guided their work. www.newschool.edu/mediastudies
Immerse yourself in an academic experience that uniquely integrates media theory, production, and management. Create your own interdisciplinary curriculum by combining courses that meet your interests and goals. Join a vibrant and creative community at one of the most international and diverse media programs in the country.
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