SPARK IV: A New Word? Video Program Notes

Works in order presented:

Bathtime Cooper, 2020
Running time: 1 minute, 17 seconds
by LYDIA HILLMAN ‘21 – ART + DESIGN: GRAPHIC DESIGN, TOWSON UNIVERSITY
2020 was an invitation to recognize the need for introspection and celebrating the small things that bring us together. Our pets provide entertainment, security, and above all, comfort. My hope for the future is to celebrate the things we take for granted and realize more of the things that actually make us happy, together.

Coffee, 2020
Running time: 33 seconds
by MARCEL MOONE ‘22 – ART + DESIGN: ILLUSTRATION, TOWSON UNIVERSITY
Not even a pandemic can’t stop some important rituals.

Pandooric, 2021
Running time: 2 minutes, 44 seconds
by UMBC Intro to Animation Students
After a year of lockdown, what will we find outside? A collaborative project made by students in Intro to Animation. Each student filmed themselves opening a door in their own isolation, imagining the world outside through transformative rotoscoping.

all alone, 2021
Running time: 1 minute, 20 seconds
by SAMANTHA FROST ‘21 – ART + DESIGN: GRAPHIC DESIGN, TOWSON UNIVERSITY
all alone was inspired by the way the pandemic impacted birthday celebrations. Animation and music by Samantha Frost.

Touch, 2020
Running time: 1 minute, 9 seconds
by FAHMIDA HOSSAIN ‘23 – INTERMEDIA AND DIGITAL ART MFA, UMBC

Thinking of You, 2021
Running time: 1 minute, 4 seconds
by LUCY ADELIZZI ‘21 – ART + DESIGN: DIGITAL AND ART DESIGN, TOWSON UNIVERSITY 

Familiarity in Change
Running time: 55 seconds
by ANGELA ENDRES ‘21 – VISUAL ARTS: ANIMATION, UMBC
Familiarity in Change is about feeling distant from the world yet finding comfort in it. My goal for this project was to convey how I feel about my surroundings during these times of isolation. Although it's lonely, the world still holds beauty.

The Peony Lung, 2021
Running time: 1, minute, 22 seconds
by IRENE CHAN – ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, VISUAL ARTS - PRINT MEDIA, UMBC
An unhealthy peony lung goes on a timeless time travel odyssey and becomes renewed. An optimistic passage in pandemic times. With 13 original etchings and drypoints, the original score influenced by 3rd-century Chinese guqin music.

Animated Wildflower Map, 2020
Running time: 3 minutes, 25 seconds
by ALEX GAROVE ‘22 – ART + DESIGN: ART EDUCATION, TOWSON UNIVERSITY
This animation catalogs the growth of wildflowers throughout the spring during the initial stages of the pandemic. This ongoing project examines connections between botany, scientific observation, illustration, technology, and mindfulness.

The Sky is Coming, 2021
Running time: 4 minutes, 40 seconds
by DANIELLE DAMICO ‘21 – INTERMEDIA AND DIGITAL ART MFA, UMBC
The Sky is Coming is a two-channel video that depicts an ecosexual encounter between a developing thunderstorm and its human lover.

If you Forget Me, 2020
Running time: 2 minutes, 22 seconds
by KAT NAVARRO ‘23 – STUDIO ART MFA, TOWSON UNIVERSITY
Based on the poem by Pablo Neruda, If You Forget Me is an experimental animation and projection installation depicting a house that wonders about its departed occupants.

Time is Out of Joint, 2020
Running time: 9 minutes, 7 seconds
by SYLVIA EKEN ‘22 – INTERMEDIA AND DIGITAL ART MFA, UMBC
In Time is Out of Joint, I record my presence using video and photographs in Amsterdam, Baltimore, Bangkok, Jakarta, Rome, and Singapore, observing the disregarded world and its stratigraphic deposits. The video uses intermezzos, strategic pauses dedicated to watching an image; regardless of culture, time, and place, we leave individual and collective traces.

Brain, 2020
Running time: 42 seconds
by IRENE CHAN – ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, VISUAL ARTS - PRINT MEDIA, UMBC
A brain with question marks goes through echoing changes and movements, some contemplative, some thunderous.

Finding Our Place In Space, 2017
Running time: 11 minutes
by SARAH G. SHARP – ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, VISUAL ARTS - FOUNDATION, UMBC
In 1975 NASA sent two rovers (Viking I and II) to Mars to survey the planet's surface. During the same year a group of women in the Pacific Northwest formed what became known as the Oregon's Women's Land Trust. Land purchased by the OWL Trust became the site of separatist wimmin's land where women from varied backgrounds developed new modes of self-sufficient, rural, communal living. Finding Our Place in Space complicates these historic, gendered, technophobic and technophiliac narratives by combining documentary notes, text and images from these momentous events. (Creative Commons sourced images: Don Whitaker via Archive.org, Ruth MountainGrove via OSU, other images and sound are Public Domain from NASA.)

Cut it Out, 2020
Running time: 1 minute, 1 second seconds
by ALEX GAROVE ‘22 – ART + DESIGN: ART EDUCATION, TOWSON UNIVERSITY
This work was created in response to ongoing voter suppression, particularly during the 2020 presidential election through the lens of women voters.

Zero Feet Zero Inches, 2020
Running time: 3 minutes, 4 seconds
by TIMOTHY NOHE – ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, VISUAL ARTS - PRINT MEDIA, UMBC
A datamosh video employing materials sourced from historic footage at archive.org. This piece features a performance of Variations V by John Cage, with the Merce Cunningham Company and Apollo footage from NASA. Sound created on a modular synthesizer, using recordings of John Cage as foundational elements. Video and sound synthesis by Timothy Nohe.

Good Time Charlie, 2021 (ongoing)
Running time: 2 minutes, 29 seconds
by NOAH P. NIES ‘21 – VISUAL ARTS: ANIMATION AND PHOTOGRAPHY, UMBC
Good Time Charlie is an animated short film, entangling the relationship between imagery, place, and history using the historic cyanotype process to print every frame of the film.

Serial Collage: Rainy Laser Museum, 2020
Running time: 2 minutes, 56 seconds
by MIND ON FIRE with Timothy Nohe (UMBC), Jason Bernagozzi (Signal Culture and Colorado State University), Corrie Frances Parks (UMBC), and Evan Tedlock (UMBC)
Serial Collage number three: four people create four videos which are then woven together. This one combines visual materials from Jason Bernagozzi, Corrie Frances Parks, and Evan Tedlock. The tapestry also employs field recording sound by Corrie and physical modeling percussion synthesis, video compositing, and editing by Timothy Nohe.

uni.Sol 44 tel-video (excerpt), 2021 (recording portal opened in Moscow Friday, February 5, 2021)
Running time: 22 minutes
by STEPHEN BRADLEY – ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, VISUAL ARTS - FOUNDATION, UMBC with the uni.Sol collective
Participants: Linn Friberg (Sweden), experiMENTALien (Slovakia) , Dominik t'Jolle (Belgium), Ludovic Medery (Belgium), Piet Schen (Germany), Diarmuid Mac Diarmada (Ireland), Stephen Bradley (USA, Maryland - video content & editor), Slavek Kwi / aMt (Ireland - video content), Anna Mikhailova with Moscow Unfreeze Orchestra (Moscow, Russia), Maria Wojdyło Kelly (Poland, Ireland - video content)
Bradley collaborates with an international artist collective, uni.Sol – most are sound/musicians and they get together at the same time and perform without hearing one another. They play for an hour, sometimes longer - tuning in with one another via "telepathy." Afterward, they send a recording of their session to the director of the project, who redistributes the raw content along with an "as is" mix - no edits, only amplitude adjustments as sometimes 10 or more artists contribute recordings. Subjective mixes are then created and posted to Bandcamp. This year, Bradley has been creating tele-video versions of the sessions using his footage and raw footage from several other uni.Sol artists.