Fireside Chat

Putting together this piece was a really great experience for me.  The hardest part was deciding exactly what to do for it.  By the time I decided to do it about my friend, it was pretty much too late to put much together for the assignment.  But what surprised me was how much video content I had of the two of us.  Then I expanded the idea to how music has effected basically every significant relationship that I have.

As I presented, I really felt like I was able to express myself in a surprisingly personal way.  The amazing thing was that everyone was able to do so.  What I most appreciated was how open everyone was about  things that were really personal to them.  Deep down, I really got the impression that everyone wants to express themselves and be understood, but we are normally too afraid of doing so.  I think that that is the reason why most of us struggle to communicate through any medium.  There are always technical things to be learned in order to practice a craft effectively, but no matter how effective we are as craftsmen, we have to communicate honestly.  The fireside chat was an incredible opportunity for all of us to really open up to one another and experience a really unifying thing.  That thing is still beyond my articulation at this point, but it was great to experience.

Something else that surprised me was how much fear I felt while watching some of the performances. I think that some of that fear was because of a lack of trust on my part to receive something so personal from someone I don't know very well.  However, when those whom I do feel I know well presented, I felt much more comfortable while they presented.  I think that this explains why I sometimes have a hard time with a lot of art forms.  When we experience something new, and the author is someone we don't know, it makes sense that the experience results in some dissonance.  So I hope that from now on I can give every piece and every person more of a chance to express themselves.  I'm really grateful for the chance that I had to express myself.

Concerned Citizen

David Wright is the director of the Provo Community Garden located just south of the BYU campus.  This garden is situated on a street corner lot that looks more like an empty plot of land meant for developing than it does a garden, but that is probably because it is.  David and his team asked the owner if they could garden the plot instead of just leaving it there unused while the land waits to be built on.  As he puts it, the ground can either sit as an “eye sore” or be put to good use now.

Everyone who chooses to participate in the gardening process does so for a number of different reasons.  We live in a world where we buy all of our food at a grocery store and then work it all off in a gym, where we pay a membership.  But gardening in a community garden costs nothing, allows you to produce your own food, and get a workout all at the same time.  Many also use the experience as a form of physical and/or emotional therapy.  Being outside and working in the dirt provide a sense of fulfillment and feelings of peace.  David even says in the video that some who struggle with schizophrenia are able to cope and even partially recover from their illness through gardening.

This organization does more than provide a little bit of land for gardening.  They also give classes on gardening, which teach skill that can be applied to home gardens in the future.  It also gives community members an opportunity to bond with one another and expand their gardeners’ social circles.

Like the reading by Arlene Goldbard discusses, this community garden in a perfect example of how allowing people creativity and expression is a better salve for society that legislation or coercion. The members of this community from a bond fused by their own collaborative experts. Those who are typically marginalized by society at large feel comfortable coming out and participating in this creative-nurturing process. This forms a more tightly knitted community than any legislative action could induce.

An example of this effect from mass media is the film Freedom Writers. In this film, students from an inner city school are fused together despite their various cultural differences, through the efforts of their English teacher. The students bond through the process of writing. After given the power to express themselves creatively, tensions and grievances within the group are allowed to melt away. Here once again the allowance for creative collaboration and expression has a greater effect than rules forced upon the students.

In conclusion the Provo Community Garden is busy forming a bonded community that cannot be formed stronger in any other way. It allows for people from all social standing can work alongside each other in a creative effort where they can all benefit in the spoils.

PTSD Text-Based Game

Click (or copy-paste) to Play Game: http://www.philome.la/kentthalman/ptsd

PTSD:

This is a text-based video game in which one explores the struggles of PTSD which many veterans experience today.

World Building: Dead Labor and Response

The top is a PSA discouraging the trends leading to more reanimation of the deceased for free labor.

The bottom is a poster created for a billboard which promotes a private corporation's service of ensuring the dead for purposes of familial preservation.

Dhane Taylor

Ian Hawkes

Kent Thalman

In the world of the composed dead, there are many solutions proposed, but none without controversy.  Several political and religious factions do much by way of persuasion in order to rally others behind them.  There are those in favor of cremation, others that propose reanimation, and several others who are in favor of simply preserving those that have passed on.  The politics as they relate to aesthetics has much to do with the motivations behind each group’s proposition.  For example, if those in favor of preservation are heavily opposed to “dead labor,” then their arguments take a moral aesthetic tone.  You could almost call it a play toward our sympathy and guilt at the same time.  Conversely, the groups in favor of cremation seek a more informative and realistic aesthetic tone.  There is no need to guilt anyone into burning themselves after death.  Rather, their stance is a logical one, seeking to achieve social reform through spatial practicality.  Finally, those who wish to reanimate the deceased more often than not will take a similar tone to logic.  The aesthetics therefore will relate, much to the outrage of extremist groups that find reanimation immoral.

A social reality today is centered not around the time of death as much as near birth.  Abortion is a topic with very difficult texts to navigate, and is a current and important topic of discussion.  While the issue of reanimation is fictional, it can be related to the complexities of current issues such as abortion, illegal labor, xenophobia, etc.  Are not some people treated as if their lives were less important than the high-born today?  And are not others feared because they are considered the “other.”  This happens in every society in today’s world.  Such a discussion potentially navigates and communicates within the confines of this invented reality.  There are potential limitations as well, as is the case with nearly all narratives or artistic platforms.  But the benefits of such a communicative platform is its reach.  Such a fantasy can cause reflection within those who would otherwise refuse to grapple with said issues in the real world.

One example our group drew from in class specifically is that of Effie Trinket and the Capitol’s absurd focus on fashions around a death game. It creates an aspect of the Hunger Games world that wasn’t as explored in the film. It is an advertisement those people would see every day and influence their menial decisions. Comparatively, the people of the world where the dead refuse to decompose would be so accustomed to the bodies that many would not have a strong stance as to what to do with them. With our endeavour, we created public service announcements, government issued messages, and juvenile placards. Each of these were to represent a different decisive extreme aimed at swaying the average citizen’s opinion.

The creation of a world within a fiction piece is always daunting and exciting to me. I will always remember the first time I read ‘Dune’ by Frank Herbert. I was absolutely enveloped in the science fiction world he created. What I thought was most impressive with Herbert’s work was how each of his characters were driven by actual social pressures, that interplayed with one another and had correlating sponsors, enemies, and followings. Herbert created a complete system of government, trade, and religion, and his technology and characters were based off of these constructs and felt as though they had grown organically from the world. We tried our best to bring this type of believable culture into our world. We quickly realized that not having bodies decay would lead to a great deal of religious complexity, as well as social problems with responding entities who try to solve those problems. As different viewpoints became clear to us, it seemed natural to break our group into factions, having each of us create artifacts from that certain social view. I feel that in this way we have managed to create a world which is populated with actual social questions that seem relevant and human.

Webspinna Artist Response

The idea of a Webspinna Battle was so foreign to me at first that I really had no concept of how to begin.  After some time, it became evident that my ignorance was perhaps not only exclusive to me, but beneficial in my coming up with a unique approach to the medium.

Admittedly, my work tends to consistently fall on the topic of film, which is neither bad nor good.  Or maybe it is both.  But as far as poaching is concerned, there is likely nothing I know better other than music.  However, if I have learned anything in school, it is that there is so much out there to read, see, and hear, that I will never know it all.

Jonathan Lethem's article titled, "The Ecstasy of Influence" perfectly describes this process of endless searching.  There is so much to know, and we will never know it all.  He describes how he has hunted for sources for hours only to find that a finite source can never really be found.  Which makes this assignment a very appropriate follow-up to the textual poaching of last week.  Everything has meaning because of what has preceded it.  And that which is to come will only re-contextualize and revitalize what has already been done.  Perhaps there is something archetypal about a person being born, living, asking questions, and then dying.  Then someone else doing the same thing in a different age, asking the same questions, then accomplishes something that seems totally new to her contemporaries.  But really, there is very little revolutionary thought, and mostly a lot of translation of the old into new.

Ben and I decided to do silent cinema vs. sound cinema.  Really, contention shouldn't exist between the two types, but the battle perhaps illustrates the fact that they would be formidable one to another should some sort of argument arise.  Frankly, for the purpose of humor mostly, we contrasted the sound effects of modern cinema with the would-be equivalents of folley sound of the silent era.  In other words, a "boing" would be comparable with a punch sound.  One seems pretty innocent, while the other seems to hurt more, and when contrasted, the difference is laughable.

Did God really create anything anyway?  The word "create" means to organize.  So, taking the liberty of using our own religious vernacular, intelligences always existed.  God merely organized them into spirits.  The materials which make up our planet and universe are likewise eternal.  But Jehovah organized those as well into what we know now.  So God basically remixed, or re-contextualized existence as we know it!

The question remains, has the advent of sound caused us to consider different issues or weightier subjects in cinema?  Or was and is silent film just as vital to our vocabulary?  When a film like Yoyo by Pierre Étaix is watched, what do you call it?  It starts as a "silent film," which transforms into a full-fledged talkie, and by itself feels like a remix.  But the film tastes like a parallel, in which the father and the son live in the same mansion, which mansion damns the son to the same loneliness experienced by the father at the beginning of the film.  In the end, only the liberation of family and poverty really free either of them.  So we, and the film, come full circle.  The Webspinna, the poaching, and the remix combine the validity of the old and the new, into one conversation.  That which the father lived, so shall the son.

Maybe Malachi was on to something.

Textual Poaching: Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg may be the man most responsible for my interest in becoming a filmmaker.  As a result of reading his biography in the fifth grade, I suddenly began to understand the general process of planning, shooting, and editing a movie.  I can't say that he is the greatest filmmaker ever, or even living, but I will never be able to dismiss the impact that his career and his films have had on me and my idea of film.

The reading this week, "How Texts Become Real," explores what I am trying to capture in this remix. Often, as children, we are enveloped in something that becomes real life to us, although it is only a representation of it.  In fact, many Hollywood films are so far from real life, that it causes us to wonder why we believe them so easily.  But as a child, I wasn't as concerned with verisimilitude as I was with being told a beautiful story.

The clips that I put together were of a speech that Steven Spielberg gave a while back, and shots from two movies: Super 8 (Abrams) and Buster Keaton's The General.  Both of these films depict huge train wrecks, and both films have had very recent effects on my view of cinema.  Buster Keaton opened up my mind to the world of silent cinema about three or more years ago.  Super 8 on the other hand caused me to reconnect to my Spielbergian roots, which I had been in the process of severing myself from at the time.  Dean Duncan recently described to me the process that he often has gone through of loving a film or filmmaker, realizing that they're not perfect (the film or director), and then later learning to accept that art or artist once again.  Such was the experience that I underwent with Steven Spielberg, which I have tried to capture in this remix of media.

The part of my identity here that is discussed/represented is that of being a filmmaker.  Honestly, I identify with Steven Spielberg only because of the films that he made which effected my childhood.  However, in few ways to I connect with him now as an aspiring practitioner.  No matter what, I hope my life is nothing like his (speaking of his personal/family life).  It is a far cry from the worst celebrity life style that most of us have heard of, but frankly, if it comes down to a great career and my wife, I'll choose my wife without hesitation.  As far as the films that he makes, I can see myself making films like those that he has, but often I feel that it is a very imperfect profile of my full aspirations as an artist.  We are two different people.

I remixed the audio with that of scenes from Super 8 because I feel that J.J. Abrams has almost totally lost his voice as a filmmaker as he has sought only to follow in the exact footsteps of his predecessors.  This is noble, but not particularly artful.  I don't really know much about him or his beliefs than that he was apparently as much of a Spielberg fan in his youth as I was.  And I included The General because it was probably one of Spielberg's great inspirations as a youth.  At least we know from the speech that Cecil B. DeMile's The Greatest Show on Earth was.  So there is a sort of artistic genealogy happening.  And as I am not the same as my father, who is not the same as his father, each new generation carries the banner in their own way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AysaJ4vM62s&feature=youtu.be

Reading

Reading

by Kent Thalman

Published: February the twenty-fourth

of the year two thousand and fifteen

This is an interesting thing which you have come upon. First off, it is in fact a pamphlet, and not simply a paper. You may recall that once upon a time this was a common form by which articles were published if not in the newspaper. These days however, if something important has happened, then all you have to do is watch the news or listen to the radio (if you happen to be old). But perhaps something that we hardly account for anymore is if what we want to know isn't an important event or a bit of information that will simply make life easier. What if we were asked to read and consider a very important idea that someone has taken the time to write down?

"Oh!" you may conclude, "you mean like reading an email." True, writing and reading emails is a great form of communication, but how is this different? Usually emails are for the sake of fast communication, and a single reading after which the document can be discarded or lost in cyberspace. But great documents of thought and literature were and are meant to be read, kept, revisited, and carefully considered. But given that this must be such a difficult task for many of our young folks these days, I suppose I will write my thoughts in the way that you will read them anyway, so as to not waste time and energy.

"What difference does a pamphlet really make?" Well, your very life may be totally shaped by the things that have been written down and then read in pamphlets! I ask you to recall the man Thomas Payne. Sound familiar? You have probably learned of or even read his 1776 pamphlet titled, "Common Sense." This was Thomas' ideas concerning the importance of declaring independence from England, which at the time, most people living in the American colonies were still on the fence about. So this is significant. By recording and distributing his ideas, the whole world was changed. But he wrote more that just that famous article. There were several. John Adams said of Payne, "I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine." Today, it has been written of him as follows: "In an age of political pamphleteering, Paine had become the most influential pamphleteer of all. His writings remain classic statements of the egalitarian, democratic faith of the Age of Revolution" (http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/thomas-paine). In other words, everything that you and I enjoy about being Americans may not have even been possible were it not for the written thoughts of one person.

At this point in the pamphlet, you may be very interested. But you may also be pressed for time. Likely is the chance that you did not fully anticipate reading this whole pamphlet at this exact moment. You want to think that you will come back and finish it when you have time, but we both know how that works. This will just be placed somewhere important, like at the bottom of a backpack or briefcase, or on a bookshelf between two books where it can't be seen, and never will be again. But I'm being dramatic, aren't I? Some of you will stick around because you do have the time. Great! By now, you may have been so impressed that you underlined a couple of things in the pamphlet. That is one novel thing about paper which you can't do in an email!

Anyway, I digress. Many others have used this form of communication to help transform history, thought, and all of us. There are too many to mention, but one champion of literary thought that comes to mind is J.R.R. Tolkien. His name makes you immediately remember Middle Earth, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings books. Admittedly, you probably thought first of the movies, but maybe that is unfair. After writing The Hobbit, which was a book intended for an audience of young folks, he began work on his trilogy of books mentioned above. The sequel to The Hobbit, however was proving to be much longer and in depth than was previously anticipated, which at the time was a problem. Mr. Tolkien knew that the popular thought of his time was that fairy stories were meant exclusively for children. And what he was then writing was not exactly a childrens' book. Therefore, he determined to first put at ease the minds of the publishers, who would no doubt have their reservations concerning the idea of publishing a series of fairy stories that adults were expected to buy. What resulted was an article or thought titled, "On Fairy Stories," which was a landmark in literary, religious, and fantastic thought. Literary, because it paved the way for what is now an explosion of fantasy novels and movies. Religious, because in this article Tolkien consolidates Christian thinking and fantasy reading. And "fantastic" because of the genre-shattering effects that his works had and still have on all things fantasy.

So what's the point? I guess it's that these things called pamphlets do make a big difference things called pamphlets do make a big difference things called pamphlets do make a big difference things called pamphlets do make a big difference oh no... you're falling asleep. That's fine I guess. You've made it most of the way, and you've probably gotten a pretty good idea of what I'm trying to say anyway. You are getting the idea of what reading pamphlets is all about.

Since from here, you'll probably just skim to the end, then I will try to hit the main points for you.

...over here I'll say something about T.S. Elliot's article, "Tradition and the Individual Talent." Just read it.

...then again, if you're skimming now, you'll never make it through that one.

... this part is boring...

...booooring...

You know, reading used to be a pretty significant experience. We probably don't think that it is as important because based on what we're reading, it really isn't.

We sort of know that the blogs and websites that we read are mostly garbage anyway. "The sources are probably all bunk too," (famous person, 1997).

...so we just skim, peruse, and then quote what we remember from it all as if defending our deepest religious beliefs.

By now, you're confident that you get the idea, so you skip to the end. Now you can write that paper, or at least say that you read this. Congratulations!