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.

Steve Weir

Alleys The Alleys series documents a lesser-known casualty of the construction boom in Seattle—alleyways. While they often carry a negative reputation, they are an integral part of the urban landscape.

Greg Lewis

Rob Ford Explorer Original experimental music from CalArts that would be perfect for the virtual expo! Greg Lewis, Cameron Sax

J. Rosenbaum

Set in Stone A series of marble faces, generated by AI, as it learns to create and update its bias’ on gender. First it is trained to generate masculine marble faces, fixed, immovable. Then marble feminine faces are added. It learns to change, a transgender neural network, updating its knowledge and its experience as it […]

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 […]

Carson Schafer

A Drum Solo Visualized Hello, I am a Jazz Drums MFA ALUM (’19). My goal with this submission has been to find a way to make visuals that clearly represent what drummers practice –moving around the kit and using multiple limbs at once to create music. I wondered if there was a way to visualize […]

Jamie Naqvi

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

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, […]