Kai Luen Liang

MFA 2 - Music

Flag ASMR

“On Sept 11th, 2001 I watched the twin towers falling with my father. Glued to the TV. A silent demolition. An American reality TV show. In the weeks that followed, I started to see American flags everywhere. Especially from immigrants of all colors, flying the flag out of a sense of fear of appearing to be on the wrong side.

The sound of the twin towers falling in my memory is silent. Filmed from far away. As the second plane hit, there was no sound on TV. I heard the sound via the sound of my own heart beating and the breath of the newscaster trying to be as professional as possible as they had to report a major catastrophe in real time, live in front of the world.

Flag ASMR is the attempt to recall a memory. An attempt to close a schism caused by a fear of the lines people cross and the fears of uncertainty, harm, and danger. What is the sound of a silent memory. The sound of it being touched, taken apart, and reordered.”

Redefining Boundaries

Building new systems, setting new parameters. Boundaries are constantly defined and redefined. An experiment in generative systems, generative image/ film and sound relationships. Exploring mutual relationships/ co-habitations of sonic and visual digital spaces.

Manufacturing Landscapes

*** warning: Contains strong flashing lights….

Manufacturing Landscapes:

A short film investigating the metaphors of vision used in surveillance hardware brand videos. Uses various Generative Adversarial Networks(GAN)/ machine learning image synthesis techniques to generate material related to vision and changing landscapes. Also looks at word associations with images by using text descriptions to generate images. The images generated were then used as “found footage” for the film.

Estela Anakaren Silva Botello

México Mágico Machista Part of documentation of a feminist protest in Monterrey, Mexico (nationwide initiative) on March 8th 2020— which sought to gain visibility to the alarming rates of femicides in Mexico due to gender violence rooted in machismo, an almost intrinsic, evil element of our culture. *screen printed sign on cardboard *scan of 35mm […]

Andrea Turk

KARMA Music Video “Karma”, a song by Andrea Turk featuring Prince Husein, is a song that throws you into the situation of unreciprocated love and how one would react to it. In this song, both sides wish the other person well but also ‘karma’, for wasting their time and effort into a one-sided relationship. The […]

Roger Holzberg

LIFE QUILT “Created by the Healthcare by Design class of 2020 (CalArts Theater School), in partnership with Henry Mayo hospital. LIFE QUILT is a part of a larger pilot program developed for patients & families approaching end of life. Each panel is an active, creative experience, designed to reduce anxiety, connect family members in support, […]

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 […]

Brian Griffith

Biological Internal Feedback Biological Internal Feedback is a visual music piece exploring the opaque gelatin that is created when combining the moment of inspiration and the realization of the thought. The video for this piece was created using nature footage taken from around my neighborhood, and abstract video synth textures created in the CalArts Videographics […]

Sam Jones

Noticing Nature Noticing Nature looks at how a new story is needed that is more centered around nature. It explores how everything, including ourselves, is connected, and how important it is that we take the time to slow down and notice the nature that surrounds us every day. http://www.noticingnature.com/

Meisen Hu

Cars N' Cats A series of toy cats and vehicle prototypes https://humeisen.wixsite.com/relicworkshop