Aashray Harishankar

is a composer, producer, and keyboardist from Irvine, CA. He has musical foundations in Carnatic keyboard, jazz piano, composition, and audio engineering. He earned his B.A. in Music Technology from Stevens Institute in Hoboken, NJ and is currently pursuing his MFA as a Performer-Composer at CalArts.

Flight

“Flight” is a 2019 concept album mirroring the timeline of human life, from birth until death and beyond. Each song, lyrically and sonically, represents a different time period, but all are reflections of life as a whole. Beginning with “Liftoff/Zephyr”, we rise into a period of birth and infancy, of wonder and innocence, carrying into the youthful bounce of “The Sweetest Thing” and onto the teenage angst of “Break the Chain”. “Never Had Much Faith” introduces the first feelings of love as a young adult, building to the hardened ambition of “Pilot”. In “Gemini” we hit mid-life, a period split between youth and old age. As we reach old age, “After Dark” and “Oceans” bring in feelings of isolation, nostalgia, and loss of purpose, but a love of life is reborn in “Another Dawn” and leads to enlightenment at the end of life as we pass to “The Other Side”, escaping the atmosphere and into the unknown.

Kiera Dillon, Michael Cozine, Matt Renzo, Julian Hernandez, Eddie Wilkins Jr., Andrew Chrepta, Andrew Alvarez, Tristan Demetri, Sumika Inoue, Carlos Schmitt Dissenha, Justin Tanksley, Erik Rabasca, Alex Kaufman, Kavi Srinivasaragavan, Justin Kilpatrick


Jennie Park

Three kinetic sculptures explore relationships between circularity/co-opting/recycling and linearity/polarization/binary-ness, and how personal agency or positionality intersects with these linked mechanics. (They’re NOT “voting machines;” they reflect the operation of many large systems, frameworks and conversations, e.g., the relationship between the DIY ethos and capitalism, between the political far left and far right, and among nested […]

Sungjae Lee

Wind and Wave Drawings is a series of motion drawings that intrinsically shows only one piece of thread; the video describes how the shape of the thread is changed by the wave of water and wind. By gathering these diversified shapes of the original thread, this project challenges the fundamental origin of the world that […]

Usha Venkat

Radical Practice Radical Practice is a series of podcast conversations between CalArts Graphic Design Program alumnae and current students. Each episode features an alumna with a distinct professional practice, including BFAs and MFAs whose endeavors range from cultural to corporate and from singular enterprises to ambitious ideas. We’ll discuss how they have defined success for […]

Jamie Naqvi

Scenes Inspired by film, memory, and collage, “Scenes” uses found and original material to recreate three scenes from its author’s life.  

Yunni Lin

The Process A short film documenting the day to day training of dancers in the studios.

John Tejada

Future Stars class compilation album John Tejada, a frequent guest on Touched Music compilations, hatched the idea of turning the final project for his CalArts “Advanced Electronic Music Production” class into a compilation album for the established label. John Tejada Presents Future Stars features 15 of Tejada’s students at their best, as well as an […]

Joanna Keler

DEEP INSIDE “CalArts. A game-changer in the education of professional artists. CalArts. Grounded in openness, experimentation, critical engagement, and creative freedom. CalArts. Transform ourselves, each other, and the world. Let’s go, stranger I’ll show you CalArts. From outside to inside. To all our concerns, frustration, and alienation. To all what will always stay in counselor’s […]