Experimental Work:
The Stillness project, taken as a whole, has been my first completely transparent video project.  That is, each step was documented online in plain view of the audience.  The culminating step, the video of The Stillness, is now available online for people to download and view.  Many still images from the video were donated from his fans and friends and even strangers in the audience at his performances.  The music used in the project came from both albums that Jacob’s band Good Morning Reality had released and my own private collection of original analog audio cassettes that he recorded in my living room.  This project marks the first time that I have collaborated with other musicians and photographers on anything; I usually prefer to work alone in a veil of secrecy.  I consider this project experimental in that I had never before experimented with collaboration or worked so transparently.  Also, I had never before created something of such multi-media magnitude, spanning web pages, digital audio and video recordings, and writing.  The Stillness is the true coalescence of new media.

Research:
The main thrust of my research this semester was an intense reading of as many Samuel R. Delany books as I could, the end number being eight fiction and non-fiction texts, with three others begun before the end of the semester.  My interest in Delany stems from his brilliant use of the language to explore issues of identity, sexuality, social spaces and the liminal areas where public and private collide, either in a science fiction context or in the many academic non-fiction essays he has written on issues from the revitalization of Times Square to the study of science fiction as a legitimate literary form itself.  Delany’s writing has been the most influential source of my own science fiction writing, a fluid exploration of language, a playful, lyrical juxtaposition of exposition and interior dialogue.  I had the good fortune to carry on an email dialogue with Delany, who graciously allowed me to use a line from his novel Dhalgren as the title of a 9-11 anthology I edited.  In reading his books and conducting research into his life, I found a remarkable set of similarities, although he is an African-American homosexual in his sixties from NYC, and I am a white heterosexual twenty-something from the sticks of Northern New York.  He uses writing fiction as a direct link to his own life, a way to exorcise demons, and in comparing and contrasting his fiction and non-fiction, I was able to see directly how close his works are linked to his real life, regardless of genre.  Researching Delany’s writing has helped me solidify my own exploration of personal issues through the synthesis of autobiography and science fiction.

I extended my research this semester into other reading other science fiction works that explore sexuality and subjective identity formation by reading books by Octavia Butler, Joanna Russ, and Chuck Palahniuk.  Each helped me to more-firmly situate my own writing style in the larger science fiction community.

In terms of researching new media, the most influential book I encountered this semester is The War of Desire and Technology by Allucquere Rosanne Stone, which gave me a better understanding of the history of the internet by giving solid anecdotal evidence of early identity manipulation tempered with an academic analysis of the nuts-and-bolts construction of the vast network that became the Information Superhighway. 

Seminar:
It was my responsibility this semester to create an online message board at offensemechanism.com for our seminar group where we could meet to discuss the issues of the semester, most notably the “Imagining Memory” motif suggested at the Fall 2002 residency.  While at first there where some good discussions, eventually the message board became abandoned as the semester went on.  This was of course quite disheartening, since I had hoped that the board would be filled with meaningful dialogue.  I would suspect that its failure was because of the varying artistic backgrounds and levels of technological knowledge of the members of our group.  Some simply did not want to participate in this public forum, although it was visible only to us.  I had intended to make it a “safe space” for artistic exchange, but was disappointed by the lack of activity.

Practicum:
I did not engage in a Practicum this semester, although I began laying the groundwork for creating a Practicum next semester, which will hopefully be a collaborative video documentary that I will edit and produce documenting the resurrender.net NOLA03 convention in New Orleans, February 13-17.  This will be the first time that members of my online community meet face-to-face, and I intend to document the intersection and transgression of the physical and virtual worlds.  I already have at least five people signed on to operate cameras, and I intend to offer online classes in video capture, editing and final production.

Products:
Webdesign:
http://www.thestillness.com
thestillness.com is a vast archive of material that I’ve gathered since the suicide of Jacob Pete, including his writings, web pages, and most importantly, the most complete collection of audio files from his many hundreds of recordings available online.  I’m fortunate to own over thirty analog audio cassettes that he recorded since 1994, and I took a majority of those and converted them to digital files, then made mp3s of the songs available online.  The tracks are for the most part rare and alternate versions of his popular songs that his audience has never heard.  A pivotal figure in the Northern and Central New York punk rock scene, Jacob’s death touched so many young people that I felt it was my obligation as his good friend and former bandmate to make these songs available to anyone who wanted them.  thestillness.com also serves as a place where people can download and watch The Stillness, my major video project this semester.  I felt it was important to give people a place to listen to his music, download the video, and share stories and photographs of him.  thestillness.com is a gift to a beautiful young man who took his own life and those of us who loved him.

http://www.offensemechanism.com
Originally intended to be a message board service solely for my advising group partners, offensemechanism.com has now expanded beyond the boundary of that seven-member group to offer a place for people from all walks of life around the world to discuss issues of contemporary art.  The site offers space for users to upload and share their scanned, photographed, and digital art with the community.

http://www.resurrender.org
The resurrender message board service was started in May of 2000 as a part of illout.com.  With almost three thousand members and over thirty thousand active threads and 200K posts, the board outgrew illout.com and I recently began resurrender.org.  The resurrender.org system is an active and vital community of authors and artists, from which most of the material on the twelve pages of the resurrender network is drawn.

Audio:
“Call Me Back.” (00:08:00)
A composition created from assembling thirteen guitar track segments taken from various Jacob Pete albums, my own guitar compositions, segments recorded from my collection of analog audio cassettes of Jacob, and audio recorded from my answering machine, “Call Me Back” became the soundtrack to The Stillness video project.  It was my intention to create a haunting, visceral soundscape that would allow the listener to hear what has been echoing through my head since his suicide: a confusing and heart-broken assemblage of song, conversation, and self-destruction.

Video:
“Happy Kitten Jamboree!” (00:02:00)
A short video assembled from extra footage I shot for The Stillness, HKJ! is an exploration of textures and emotions.  Basically a series of close-ups of young kittens with fading transitions, I decided to place the video over Charles Koechlin’s “Choral sur le Nom de Faure,” a moody and dark orchestral piece.  It was my intention to evoke a sadness in the audience that would perhaps make them anthropomorphic emotional judgments on the innocuous kitten footage.  The kittens in the image themselves have no innate emotional value, but in conjunction with the somber music, I’ve found that most audiences apply a judgment of sadness to them.

“The Stillness.” (00:08:00)
My major video project of the semester and the culmination of six months of writing, audio, and video work, The Stillness explores issues of loss, depression and confusion in the wake of suicide.  It is not meant as a judgment against those who choose to commit suicide, but rather celebrates the life and music of my dear friend Jacob Pete, who hung himself with his own guitar string in June 2002.  My intention was to pay homage to him and provide the audience with some idea of how I’ve been affected by this traumatic event.  I chose to create an audio and video montage that at times is confusing, suffocating, disturbing to watch, while at the same time providing the viewer with still images of those things Jacob found beautiful.

Creative Writing:
The Stillness Journal (http://www.dyingdays.com/paul.html)
The Stillness Journal is an online journal in which I documented my mourning process after the suicide of my best friend Jacob.  It is an ongoing project.  I used material written for the Stillness journal as crossover material in both broken tomorrows and my The Stillness video project.

An End. (http://www.silverthought.com/anend.html)
Begun on January 1, 2001, completed in summer 2002 and published this semester, An End  is the second entry in my silverthought science fiction series.  I have been active in marketing and distributing this novel, the much of the second half of which was written under the guidance and critique of my G1 advisor, Ruth Wallen.

broken tomorrows (http://www.silverthought.com/paulhughes.html)
This semester, I began writing my third science fiction novel, broken tomorrows, the final entry in my silverthought series.

Resources:
Atlantis and Other New York Tales: Samuel R. Delany reads at the Judson Church.  Videotape. Dir. Eric Solstein. Voyant Publishing, 1999. 82 min.

Butler, Octavia. Xenogenesis. New York: Guild America Books, 1987.

Delany, Samuel R. Babel-17. New York: Ace Books, 1966.

Delany, Samuel R. Driftglass. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1971.

Delany, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan, 1967.

Delany, Samuel R. The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Essays on Science Fiction. New York: Berkley Windhover, 1977.

Delany, Samuel R. The Motion of Light In Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965. New York: Arbor House/W. Morrow, 1988.

Delany, Samuel R. Nova. New York: Doubleday, 1968.

Delany, Samuel R. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Delany, Samuel R. Triton. New York: Bantam, 1976.

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: Henry Holt, 1996.

Russ, Joanna.  The Female Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986, 1975.

Stone, Allucquere Rosanne. The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.

Goals:
My second semester study was a continuation of the goals I set in my first semester: to situate myself and my work within the broader artistic community while developing my own distinct style and voice, learning about the fundamentals of new media while pushing the boundaries with my own art, delving into the real/illusion and public/private dichotomies, using this entire process to create a form of closure and healing with the very disturbing and difficult events of my personal life.  I hoped to achieve the same level of success with my Stillness project that I achieved with my G1 To Wound project, and I feel that I have.

Art Practice:
My work this semester has made me realize that my video art is a valid and worthwhile part of a greater artistic community.  I have gained an unbelievable amount of confidence in my personal aesthetic and ability to translate my vision into a coherent and striking end product.  I now realize that there is a need for this particular type of art in the world, work that doesn’t shy away from exploring difficult and painful issues in a public forum.  I provide the audience and the members of my online community with the knowledge that one can find solace through creation.

Assessment:
I am pleased with my progress this semester.  I feel that I have made significant improvements in my art practice and my ability to translate emotion into a visceral, sympathetic visual medium.  I am now beginning to realize my position in a greater artistic community, and within that context I am now working to further solidify my own personal aesthetic.

This semester, I found my exploration of the writings of Samuel Delany and Allucquere Rosanne Stone to be particularly helpful in situating my own writing and participation in online communities as a valid artform.  Equally important to developing my personal aesthetic and practice further was my continued mastery of digital video cameras and editing systems.  I have stepped beyond worrying about technological breakdowns and now am able to focus directly on creation and honing my art.

I greatly value the relationship I had with my advisor, Catherine Lord.  I find her to be a striking and intriguing individual.  Her responses to my packets were always helpful, filled with valuable resources and suggestions for pushing my thought and creative processes further.  In her, I found a sympathetic kindred spirit as we were both dealing with issues of loss this semester.  With her guidance, I found a way to sort through the vast archive of material with which Jacob had left me and use it to create a cohesive, emotional product.  I hope to work with Catherine again during my time at Goddard.

In all, I am confident that the work I produced this semester is the best video art, web page design, and writing that I have ever done.  I look forward to pushing the boundaries of my abilities again next semester.