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MADT festival and other various works(now with pictures!)

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For the last little while, there has been work on the walls all over the school and in the main mall, but just tonight the MADT festival started at 4pm and I must say I was pleased with what was displayed. After a quick walk through the displayed works, I headed into the “sound” room, in which I stayed and listened to various works done by Kay Burns’ MADT 101 class. The sound projects that stood out most to me were “Out of Touch”by Erin, “The Radio Box” by Graeme and “Rush Hour” by Sarah, although all were good in their own ways and I would recommend taking some time to just sit and really listen, something I saw almost no one doing.

After my odyssey into the soundscape, I decided to retire upstairs to room 595 to view the continuously running video compilation. I couldn’t waste all my time in the room watching videos, unfortunately, so I stayed around for about half an hour before leaving. In the time I was there though, I saw quite a few great, and some just plain weird, video projects. I would recommend (from what I saw) taking a look at the “Raymond” documentary (don’t know the real title, sorry) which is a monologue which discusses the importance of someone, or some essence, known only as Raymond by point-of-view of the girl talking. Also, two works done (or at least showcasing) by Michelle Sykes particularly caught my attention, one an animation entitled “The Game” which I found to be very creepy, but kind of reminded me of something I can’t put my finger on. The other work was a short called “Let Me Entertain You”, which starts off very sensual, and leads up to a most unexpected climax when we see the full figure watching the woman teasing him. The last one that got me I was not able to catch the title or creators of, but it involves various imagery with text at the top and bottom of the screen scrolling by. All in all, if you have a chance, take a seat and watch for awhile.

The rest of the MADT department work was not as “time-based”, which constitutes them being all kind of lumped together in this part of the post. The first piece I can remember the best was called “Installation” by Anna Michalska(1-01) because I thought it was very clever and pretty funny, as well as bridging the gap between new media and traditional art forms. Beside “Installation” there were a couple works by Jon-Jon Atienza, my favorite of which was an image entitled “Oh My! Giant Robo!”, although all his work is worth a gander. On the same wall on the opposite side, there are pictures of the 3D rendered masks(1-03) of Mahshed Hooshhmand entitled, respectively from left to right, “Mask – Rampage” “Mask – Innocence” and“Mask – Silence” all three of which are very cool looking. The last thing that really caught my attention in the large room were the works of Riley Iwamoto, specifically two “digital paintings done on scanned charcoal”, one untitled and the other called “Imbalance” (1-04).

On the walkway that connects the MADT hall to photography, above the main eating area, there is a piece entitled “://mus_musculus” by students Vicki Chou, Traudy Chang, and Dat Tron. The piece has a computer monitor, which has the picture of a cat chasing/about to eat a mouse on it. Attached to the monitor is a trail of wire, which is split up into lightboxes with a picture of a little muse running on them. The end of the piece shows a computer mouse in a mousetrap.

A room that was interesting was the room filled with interactive works(1-05, 1-06). Now, granted alot of them either didn’t work or I had no idea how to work them, but they looked very cool and am sure are pretty fun to use. The one that worked the best was the spinning disk under a stationary wooden spoon contraption(1-07), although the power dial is very sensitive and I could see it being scary if turned up too high (which is like a half a centimeter turn above the recommended dial position). Among the others worth mentioning are the drawing device (1-08), what looks like a mechanical hand that I wasn’t able to se ein action (1-09) and this piece thats built out of wood (1-10). Maybe when I go back tomorrow for a bit I will get to see some more and will update then.

Of course, the MADT hallways are not the only ones with spectacular work to check out, and a walk down the painting/printmaking hall (2-01 to 2-06)proves this to no end. The main mall also has quite a few displays set up with a variety of works from all mediums in the school (my favorites of which are pictures 2-07 to 2-10), not to mention the stairwell(s) (2-11)There are some really talented people in the school and as long as they keep making great work, they will continue to inspire and fill the school with inspiration for others.