World Building

"What if we were all wizards?", the fact that wizardry has already been popularly covered in recent years due to the success of the Harry Potter series, we really wanted to put our own spin on it. In Harry Potter the world was divided between muggles (non-wizards) and wizards, this would become the defining difference in our world, we are "all wizards". So there is separation, magic thus would be the norm in such a world. We looked at it historically first, this is when we realized that if everyone were a wizard and had access to magic, the need for technological advancement would be null and void. Who needs a car or airplane when one can simply fly, walk through walls and in theory teleport. In reality a magical world would seem to not  need to advance their architectures or anything. When thinking about this we realized that this would also likely have an effect on style, aka fashion.



So the traditionalist would probably look something like Gandalf or Arwen from the Lord of the Rings, having lived thousands of years they know what they like, (kinda like our grandparents). However the younger generation would want to have their own styles as well, to kind of set themselves apart.

Though they would still opt for the traditional hat and cape, they definitely would streamline them for comfort, such as these hip tights. On top of that, similar to the smartphone wielders of our world these young wizards would opt for a sleek portable solution aka wands, as opposed to the archaic staffs carried by the aged wizards of old.

We also asked ourselves what kind of social issues would the wizards face. We discussed some of the social issues we face in our world, one that's on the tip of everyones tongue is gun control. What if the 'Ministry of Magic' were to try and restrict wands as a measure to keep people safe? Then the people would need a protector so we unanimously agreed that the "NWA" (National Wand Association) would need to be formed to protect 'the right to bear wands'.

Like any good world sports must exist, otherwise what would the wizard men do on Sunday nights? So we discussed some entertainment opportunities, and came to the conclusion that everyone loves watching bull riders get thrown. So we decided in a wizard world we would up the anty a little. Imagine if being thrown included the risk of being burnt to a crisp and eaten...yeah I bet you would watch that. Thus Professional Dragon Riding came to be.

Obviously no entertainment medium would be complete with out some ad-placement to help break up the action. You would see ads like this...

We couldn't imagine a world without Denny's so we left it in. This ad also shows something about the type of food that exists in this world of wizards. With everyone assuming more magic through study and practice, some are more magical than others. some such masters of magic have begun to make healthy substitutes for desserts, etc. It is also a means by which to make child wizards 'eat their veggies.'

In the reading it talked about swapping fact and fiction. This was very helpful for us because we already know what a real world looks like, we simply swapped things that are familiar to us make this imaginary world seem like a realistic option for wizards everywhere. 

We were inspired by fantasy stories such as The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Final Fantasy, Eragon the NRA and Denny's.

Textual Poaching

My Covenant Obsession by Brandon Ostler

Artist Statement

Above is a remixed painting by Jan Van Eyck (1434).  The original is titled “Arnolfini Wedding.”  Today, many people hire photographers to take engagement photos or to document the wedding.  Take the official wedding photos of Prince William and Kate Middleton released by the Clarence House for example.  They may not be the most telling of photos about their relationship but it is a symbol of their covenant and a memento to look back to.  This is a similar concept carried out hundreds of years ago, in the “Arnolfini Wedding,” being a symbol of their commitment and the aspects relating to that commitment which I will explain as we go on. 

I identity with this painting for one specific reason.  As I thought about the characteristic of myself that I would like to have portrayed in the media and hence remembered by is my commitment to family and the betterment of families.  It is really only the one thing I can say I am really passionate about.  I have played college football, am on the BYU Ballroom Dance Company, broadcast live sports, am a published poet, a certified foodhandler, and a filmmaker, all of these are just things that I just enjoy doing but am not obsessed with any one of them.  Through my observations and studies though, I have seen that this world is a mess and it is such because of failure in the home.  Real talk.  I am not yet married, but I am a Family Life Minor and am trying to prepare to raise my family the best way possible.  In order to do so, I must find a career path.  I figure though, that if I am going to be spending so much time each day on something to provide for my family, I might as well help other families with that time.  This is where film making comes in, as it has the potential to inspire and show fathers, mothers, and children alike, how to make their lives better.  Anyways, I could talk about the importance of family all day and in the end it would conclude with a focus on understanding and reverencing the marriage covenant and your expectations therein, a lesson which, through symbols, is taught in the “Arnolfini Wedding.” 

Not only is the painting a reminder of the covenant that day but there are many symbols in the painting that show us what that covenant is.  First, you will find two pairs of shoes on the ground, a random dog, a mirror in the background, a signature on the wall under the mirror, oranges, an elaborate chandelier with only one candle burning, a hand broom, and significant body language being shown in the hands.  The shoes show that this covenant is being made on holy ground.  Her hand is submissive to the husband and the husbands to the officiator.  These have great significance and ties with Adam and Eve.  The mirror shows the reflection of two persons in the doorway which are witnesses.  Around the mirror are little snapshots from the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ. The signature on the wall is proof of the marriage witnessed by Van Eyck.  The oranges show fertility; the broom, domestic work.   The dog symbolizes loyalty and the chandelier with one candle is directly over top the couple symbolizing God and a concept that is taught in the Mormondom of the triangle between God and the couple that is getting married because all are part of the covenant.  It is amazing what truths were known during that time.  This whole paragraph shows the symbols that I also believe should be ever present to remind us of the importance of marriage.  This is why I put my face in the picture; like Marcel Duchamp’s “L.H.O.O.Q” making a famous interpreted painting my own.  I want to show my desire to be that man making the covenants and showing that I will accept all of these symbols.  I have a childish look on my face though because I am still extremely single and not yet to that point of marriage yet.

Now, this leaves us to determine if this representation of marriage and family that I got form Jan Van Eyck is also what the rest of media is showing about these things.  I come back to the pictures of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  I find that they are beautiful pictures but they are mainly done just out of tradition and for a memory of that special day.  As with most portrayals of marriage in the media today, it fails to remind us of the specifics of the covenants made that day.  With lavish parties and gift giving, it just adds to the confusion of why people get married; becoming a mere tradition and a step in life that honorable people should take.  This representation in the media makes it hard for me to be who I am showing I am in the Van Eyck remix.  People look at me strangely or chuckle when I tell them about my passions for strengthening marriage and family or tell them about something I learned from a marriage class.  There should definitely be more art made to show the why of everyday archetypal processes like marriage.  Maybe continuously seeing these symbols of the why will help change our perspectives that media has skewed.

Medium Specificity

A Visible Imagination

Artist Statement

For many years, I have thought that ghosts actually existed because I had seen them in some glamour shots from the 70s while in my younger years; now, after the completing this project I realize it is just Hollywood magic.  My idea for this medium experimentation came as I was at one of the BYU homecoming dances held in the Springville Museum of Art.  I walked through on the museum hallways and there where pictures of waterfalls lining the wall.  They had that soft, white color for the water that looks like it has been painted on.  As my date and I mused about how they make the water look like that, I remembered my brother telling me when we were on a camping trip that if you leave the shutter open and have a tripod you can get that smooth white look on the water.  I accordingly began to preach to my date about the secret of waterfall photography like I actually knew what it was but in reality, I hadn’t experimented much with a camera feature like that before, so I decided I should explore the element more in depth.  In a recent TMA 105 class I learned that shutter speed is what makes it possible to blend images together because the shutter stays open longer, I decided I would try to experiment with my camera to see if I could access the shutter speed and create a foreground that is mobile and a background that is stable.  On my manual settings, I found the controls for f-stop and shutter speed and the rest is displayed above (though it took about 10 different times per shot to get one to finally turn out not blurry or overexposed.

I was inspired to go in a direction similar to what Andy Warhol did with his “Eight Elvises” that we reviewed in class.  Of course, his was a screen print and mine is photography.   I still think the same concept was a commentary on the possibilities of images that could be manipulated to force more things than the viewer expects in them.  In my celebration of shutter speed photos I thought I would like to show a strange figure of our imagination sitting right in the apartment with us, the Gorilla.  I wanted him to still be an imaginary creature though and thus be still transparent and not fully in the house.  I found the tinkering with lighting in the room and elements of photography like shutter speed and the f-stop were indeed a celebration of what can be done in raw photography.  Now that I am aware of this possibility to keep a stable background while having a moving foreground, I want to try more experiments with car lights or lightning and see what stunning raw photos I can come up with.

World Order "AQUARIOUS"
 

 I originally thought we just had to find piece of art that explores a certain medium and write about it, so i was going to do the above dance music video. I thought it would still be enjoyable to see for those who love themselves some creativity in the medium of dance.

Historical Script

Artist Statement

When looking for an idea this one seemed pertinent and interesting to the both of us.   The genesis of the idea came from a story about Megan’s father who attended the opening day of Star Wars, May 25, 1977.  We decided instead of making the protagonists 8 and 9 years old, as Megan’s dad was, to make them 21 thus more relevant to us.  It also happens to be a  crucial age for decisions on what to do with ones future. Much more so than childhood. This required us to do some research on the year 1977.  We first learned about the humongous crowds that flocked the Mann’s Theater in Hollywood California. The incredible amount of youth were also joined by many young twenty somethings who were intrigued with the premise of this new movie. Star Wars ended up one of the biggest cinematic sensations to sweep America leaving many viewers with their mouths wide open in the aftermath.  Through many images found in our research, we saw a sense of enthusiasm and fanaticism in the faces of those people waiting in line.  We decided that our characters would take part in these crowds and the general mayhem that came with it.  Then, once apart from the frenzy, they had time to think and ponder the narrative experience they just had.

After further research on the year 1977, we were particularly interested in the world of social cuisine that existed in the era.  These two boys needed a social setting in which to discuss their thoughts and feelings.  We felt that a diner setting could be used as both the catalyst for their discussion as well as a symbol and metaphor of the feelings and reasonings taking place in the adolescent’s minds.  We wanted to show some process that had to do with trying something new and experimental. In 1977 Denny’s introduced the iconic “GrandSlam” and thus we thought it fit perfectly.

We wanted to tell a “discovery” sort of story, one in which they take some time to really think about what their future holds in store. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut and think that we’re destined to remain doing something we don’t want to do for the rest of our life. Star Wars showed the possibilities of the world to so many young people, including Megan’s father. Just as in Torill Cove’s story of her grandmother, we took certain liberties with the aspects of the story. However, we felt it didn’t detract at all from the dialogue that was opened up between the two boys, and we even thought it helped to set the plot better. We decided against the fantastical route, as Satrapi took with Persepolis, because we wanted it to be very basic and focus simply on the two characters’ interactions. We wanted something real, something that could have really happened, something that no one would question.

The past can be our greatest inspiration. History is cyclical, so stories quickly come in and out of relevancy. All it takes is finding the right perspective for the right time.

Process Piece

Gratuity in Servitude

Click here for an awesome ride down audio lane.

Artist Statement

In this project, we decided we wanted to find something different and unconventional to document. There were many directions we could have taken, so we turned instead to our physicals needs. We wanted to document the college staple activity of hitting up the fast food restaurants for quick and easy access to food. Not necessarily healthy, but it hits the spot. 

 How is this creative, you might ask? We thought about the ideology of normal college students and tried to find a regular, yet still hidden process. Not many would think of a drive through as a high art, however as we conducted our recordings, we found ourselves flabbergasted at the amount of judgments we would make based on a simple voice in a box above the dollar menu. We decided to compare the different styles and deliveries that came from the different servers. There was a certain sort of commentary to be had on how gracious they were towards us as customers. There was a stereotype that most of them hate their jobs and are not very enthusiastic about what they do. We decided to approach it from another angle, a different objective. Instead of simply going for the food, we went in search of the service. Especially, noticing their behavior toward us. There is a tendency to just think of them as objects who deliver the food to us, but we began to see there were varying degrees in the individuality of these servers. For example, there was a particular server who seemed nervous and cautious about getting the right wording. It was assumed immediately that he was newer or took his job seriously by doing exactly what his manager had told him to. In contrast, another server seemed much more relaxed in his wording, treating the encounter like a conversation instead of a means to an end.

In our society today, everything demands instant gratification. We simply just want the product so we don't pay attention to the process of it's delivery. By ignoring these processes we not only stop ourselves from admiring the day to day but also lose respect for those who are performing the process. When we watched the video of Jack White creating a guitar, he made sure to put the focus on the process instead of the product. Though the product was the ultimate pay off, it was interesting to see the lead up and how he would accomplish it. In our little documentary, we wanted to draw attention to the human element of fast food. It's a very minute detail of picking up your late night tacos, but still a process that can be appreciated when seen in the right light.