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.

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 […]

Laura Sofia Perez

Modesty Odyssey Unreleased music video for “Modesty Odissey” by Brooklyn born artist Melanie Charles, whose creative fluidity spans jazz, soul, experimental, and her own Haitian roots.

Emily Eisenstein

plasticity My clothes my hair my face my body. The way I look and the way I feel are at war with each other. A film about gender in isolation.

Marina Santana De la Torre

Alternative Facts (Hechos Alternativos) A reflection on the phrase “Alternative Facts” used during a press conference in January 22, 2017

Carla Lopez

Water as a cleansing, invigorating, distortional, and transitional space. Motel pools as portals. Coloring and Layout Assistance – Lula Ochoa and Emily Malone My Swimmers – Lula Ochoa, Audrey Bandrowski, James Holsten, and Arius Ziaee Additional Camera Work – Savannah Perry Music by 11ai – www.ilai.link Thank you to the Calarts Risograph Printing Techs, especially […]

Hamed Dehqan

Burn This is an abstract and artificial image of burning flowers under sunlight as a lover of love feels burning.     

Max Harper

Apollo, Apollo! In this swift hell, firefighters wore upwards of seventy-five pounds of gear, as they walked atop a landscape rendered to burning coal. Guided only by headlights, the firefighters would soak the path in front of them. Every step released a fine silt of red embers and ash that moved weightlessly through the air, […]