In my third semester at Goddard, I intend to step away from the rigid and somewhat limiting production of lengthy narrative digital videos and instead focus on advisor Pam Hall’s concept of “rigorous play.”  Since I first began working in digital video, my artistic practice has always been fundamentally rooted in the production of end products.  This semester, I intend to produce several dozen shorter pieces that instead of consciously dealing with a particular issue, as my previous projects “To Wound” and “The Stillness” explored loss, suicide, resignation, and surrender, return to the playful exploration of the digital medium itself.  I feel that this is a critical part of new media that I never truly recognized or approached in much of my previous work.  I am in essence taking a creative step backwards to “play” with the medium so that I might incorporate what I find during this less-structured exploration of digital video into future projects.

 I envision this playful spirit as a series of much-shorter works that do not directly confront narrative, time constraints, or my prior creative motifs.  This will be a conscious departure from my earlier darker themes in favor of simple explorations of what the digital video medium can accomplish.  I would like to explore animation, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional, with graphics, objects, sculpted figures, etc.  As my “Happy Kitten Jamboree” G2 project implies, I do have a sense of humor that does not often make an appearance in my visual work, so I would also like to incorporate more of a sense of humor and wonder into new videos this semester.

 In addition to a playful exploration of short digital videos, I intend to continue writing science fiction and exploring the creation of identities and my unique voice in the world of speculative fiction.  I have just begun the third novel in my silver series, Broken Tomorrows.  In this book, for the first time Paul Hughes is a character in the novel, which presents many opportunities to discuss and explore issues of subjective identity formation, virtual versus physical worlds, and the issue of incorporating autobiography into fiction.

 To help me address these issues, I intend to continue my intense reading and analysis of author Samuel R. Delany’s body of work.  As evident in other semesters, Delany’s writing has been the most directly influential of any author’s on my own writing, and my reading of his speculative fiction and academic articles on everything from the meaning and implications of sf writing in a greater literary context to how the revitalization of Times Square has drastically affected interactivity within NYC queer culture has been absolutely fascinating and truly informative for my own writing practice.

 This semester, I also intend to conduct my practicum, a collaborative video project dealing with the issue of what happens when a virtual community suddenly becomes a physical community, and then what changes that transgression of worlds effect within the virtual community when we return from the physical.  Since 1996, I have run a network of webpages for writers and artists at resurrender.net.  From February 13-17, 2003, there will be a resurrender.net convention in New Orleans at which for the first time, members of the virtual community will meet face-to-face.  I feel this is an amazing opportunity to document the collision of virtual and physical worlds that has been an underlying theme of my Goddard study thusfar.  I intend to distribute digital video cameras among participants at the convention and have them record fifteen to twenty minutes each on the question of community: What is the meaning of community?  Is a virtual community a “legitimate” community?  What are the implications of bringing a virtual community into a physical space?  What changes occur within the virtual community after it has returned from that physical space?  My role in this project will be facilitator of discussion about community and editor of the raw footage.  This practicum is a stretch for me because I have never before acted in the role of facilitator when working with digital video; my projects have always been intensely personal, and I’ve always taken all my own footage and done all of my own editing.  Relying on other people’s footage and using the voices of others will be an interesting and truthfully, daunting departure from my usual practice.

 In terms of resources this semester, I intend to continue my study of new media fundamentals, but this time with a distinctly non-Western approach to digital media, the internet, etc.  For example, the work of Lev Manovich explores issues of community and interaction in the online world from a Russian perspective.  My reading so far has been based primarily in American perceptions of the online world, and I’d like to step beyond that to gather varying opinions and understandings of new media.

 Play is hard work.  I intend to work hard at playing this semester.

 
Paul Evan Hughes
MFA-IA, G3
Preliminary Resource List: Spring 2003.
 

Bender, Gretchen and Druckrey, Timothy. Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology. Seattle: Bay Press, 1994.

Coyne, Richard. Technoromanticism: Digital Narrative, Holism, and the Romance of the Real. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999.

Efimova, Alla and Manovich, Lev, eds. Tekstura: Russian Essays On Visual Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Lunenfeld, Peter. The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: London: MIT Press, 2000.

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media.  Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002.

Rutsky, R. L.  High Techne: Art and Technology From the Machine Aesthetic to the Posthuman. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

Schaffner, Ingrid.; Winzen, Matthias., et alii. Deep Storage: Collecting, Storing, and Archiving in Art. Munich; New York: Prestel, 1998.

Weibel, Peter and Druckrey, Timothy, eds. net_condition (Electronic Culture: History, Theory, and Practice). Graz, Austria: Karlsruhe, Germany: Cambridge, Mass.: Steirischer Herbst; ZKM/Center for ART and Media; MIT Press, 2001

Weiss, Allen S., ed. Experimental Sound and Radio. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001.