Aashray Harishankar - CalArts Expo 2020

“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.

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 […]

Socks Whitmore

Quarantine Acoustics When Jacob’s estranged sister Ashley asks him to reprise a role from his past, the two must come to terms with their relationship to his younger ‘female’ self in order to save their own. “Pass” is a queer one act musical in development. It had a staged reading on January 26, 2020 in […]

Eric Lennartson

A laser pointer is pointed at a mirror attached to a balloon. Sounds from a synthesizer vibrate the balloon, causing the mirror to move. This moves the laser pointer, resulting in the visualization of how the sound causes the balloon to vibrate. The images produced from this process are called lissajous figures. The improvisation explores […]

Mengqing Yuan

B-body “My B-body” is a project I created during home quarantine. It is based on a poem I wrote about the relationship between my physical body and my consciousness. The text of the poem reads: My B-body My body doesn’t belong to me It wants to be free It wants to come apart It wants […]

Daniel Corral

15 Pendulums This is a Unity-based video piece, inspired by Reich’s Pendulum Music, but with a microtonal tuning based on a 1-3-5-7 combination-product set. The fundamental of this tuning is an upper 2/1 partial of the Schumann resonance 7.83 Hz. This Schumann resonance is basically the resonant frequency of the Earth’s electromagnetic field. Here is […]

Kathleen Fox

Don't Let Me Be Lonely Don’t Let Me Be Lonely is an architectural projection performance inspired by Claudia Rankine’s book of poems of the same name. The projection mapping explores loneliness as it exists at CalArts both before and during the COVID19 Crisis. Rankine defines loneliness as “What we cannot do for each other.” This […]

Max Jaffe

The SOFT Glass “The S.O.F.T. (Sonification Of Flowing Temporality) Glass is an hourglass that makes and manipulates sound. In its final form, it will be a sculptural object that can double as a musical instrument, based on the simple and enduring timekeeping device dating back at least to the 16th century BC. Utilizing a variety […]

Bo Li

From 1942 to 2020 Why are you making this piece? Since the beginning of the epidemic, I have followed the notice from the local authority to stay at home and stay alive. Since the food in my house has become thinner recently, I have to go out to hunt. Firstly, I found that I was completely expired, so […]