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.

Vanessa Kwan

Ernestine and Delilah Ernestine and Delilah navigate their love in an apocalyptic world. Collaborators: Claire Brnjac https://vanessakwan.art/

Luka Fisher

No Time For Names is a 51 minute score created in Spring 2020 by artists Rissa Dee, Luka Fisher, Jung A. Jung, Peter Kalisch, M-Other, Kyler O’Neal, Ritual Spirit, Danielle Roz, and Christina Elaine Vasquez and arranged by Luka Fisher and her garage band. Collaborators: Rissa Dee, Luka Fisher, Jung A. Jung, Peter Kalisch, M-Other, […]

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 […]

Cindy Pepper

Boxing Can Be Fun A contemporary duet danced on 2 wooden cubes performed by 2 dancers from Ballet West to the music of Keenan Webster composed on the African instrument called the baliphone. cynthiapepper.com

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, […]

Adam Zuckerman

A collection of melodies. Embedded like a small light in the corner. This piece engages themes and processes of transparency/translucence, copying/covering, and distance/absence: the traces of a thing not there. Melody fragments expand and contract. Here, melody crystallizes into harmony and harmony unfolds as melody. Like a constellation of stars; or in the direction of […]