Audio Essay: Only White People Can Be Part Indian
Creator(s):
Brain Broome
In this story, Brian Broome interrogates why his family wanted so desperately to claim Native American ancestry. He takes a DNA test to find out if it's true.
Digital Media and Pedagogy
English Department, University of Pittsburgh
Digital Showcase Fall 2019
Audio Essay: The Kitchen Is Home
Creator(s):
Laura Condon
Audio Essay: The Sound of One Tooth Chewing
Creator(s):
Megan Donnelly
Audio Essay: Torchsong
Creator(s):
Josh Palmer
Audio Fiction: Sleep Deprivation and the Will to Swim Through It
Creator(s):
Martin Kovalik-Haas
This piece is a work of fiction which I based off a couple of separate encounters that have happened to me over the years. It follows my character recalling an account of when they were on duty as a lifeguard under extreme sleep deprivation.
Digital Poster: Takeoff
Creator(s):
Zachary Holcomb
Image:
The Takeoff Poster is a creative abstract work to represent the complexities of such a simple word in "Take-Off." When one says the word "take-off" it can mean so many different things and this digital poster creatively displays the many different ways the word can be used.
Multimedia Essay: The Art, The Artist and the Athlete: How Tattoos Are Complicating the Copyright and Video Game Industry
Creator(s):
Jon Shaiken
Live link:
Multimedia Map: A Handful of London Peculiarities
Creator(s):
Emily Starr
Multimedia Map: Freemasonry
Creator(s):
Lindsey Aranson
This project stands out for its mixture of archival material and contemporary filming done by the student.
Multimedia Map: Paranoia
Creator(s):
Shae Stout
Narrative Podcast: Wednesday Morning
Creator(s):
Benjamin Rucker
OMEKA Website: Science Fiction Fall 2019
Live link:
The exhibits shared on this site were entirely produced by the students of Dr. FitzPatrick's 2019 Science Fiction (SF) course. These student authors activated archival methods and methodologies to collect and publicize metadata and construct contextual narratives that make evident thematic, historic, and cultural connections between archival objects in the University of Pittsburgh's Special Collections.
Photo Collage: What the Photograph Reproduces to Infinity Has Occurred Only Once
Creator(s):
James Fenn
Live link:
One part of the reading that caught my eye was the quote "What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once." I decided to use this as an excuse to do something different and create a file that doesn't exist again after it is used. This gave me the opportunity to experiment with a different programming language and approach that I had not tried before.
Short Film: Cats
Creator(s):
Melanie Pantano
Student directed, shot and edited project. Aim was to explore voiceover as a tool to explore interiority.
Short Film: Continuity Exercise
Creator(s):
Benjamin Asciutto
My silent short film is based on a seemingly common problem among college students. I wanted to take it to the next level by highlighting the lengths my protagonist would go to find what she is looking for.
Short Film: Doors Cannot Hide
Creator(s):
Sean Jamison
This film was intended to show a darker side to the higher education system. The protagonist constantly runs from a shadowy figure that resembles himself. The figure is supposed to represent the promise of a better, more successful person who has graduated college. However, the figure is only a facade to get the protagonist to pay high prices for a degree that may or may not help him in the future. I love college, this does not reflect my own personal beliefs. However, I feel often as though the education system is flawed. This is the main theme of my short film.
Short Film: Flip
Creator(s):
Caroline Salwen, Kit Conway, & Fern Zechiel
A passionate teenage songwriter harbors a crush on a student in her class, but things aren’t as innocent as they initially appear.
We wanted to create a short narrative where appearances would be deceiving. We tried making an initially innocent scenario of a girl harmlessly crushing on a classmate into something much darker. The film touches on the theme of love vs. obsession, with a brief nod to Wuthering Heights.
Short Film: IMAGO
Creator(s):
Ian Bennett
Initially when sketching out the project it was done around the idea of “music takes me to my happy place.” Producing is something that means quite a bit to me, and when I’m in the moment it’s as though everything simultaneously comes alive and disappears, if that makes any sense. I wanted to find a way to express that concept visually—hence my juxtaposing times of strife in the black and white segments with times of joyful music projection in color.
Short Film: More Than Dancing and Words
Creator(s):
Julia Rocha
I want to, one day eventually, translate this bizarre and somewhat violent catastrophe that constitutes coming into oneself or coming into being. I think what I mean to say is - the more we let go of what we think we’re supposed to be like, the more space we take up, then the more likely we’ll connect the otherwise spread out and broken fragments of light.
It’s all just, I don’t even know how to explain it - “more than dancing and words,” and hinged on the possibility of the otherwise impossible.
Short Film: Not Naming Any Names
Creator(s):
Matthew Lawhead
A series of shots from various parts of Pittsburgh with as little usage of people as possible. I view the world through a combination of architecture and nature, so I wanted to show the city in the day and the night in the most and least "built up" places I could access.
This project was composed during the City Symphony unit of Film Production and Criticism where we wanted to focus mostly on our ability to compose shots and capture an idea. It was also a chance to learn how to edit alongside music in an interesting way.
Short Film: Popping In The Life
Creator(s):
Ruixin Feng
Short Film: Put On A Happy Face
Creator(s):
Jack Hatajik
For this film, I wanted to express an emotion that everyone has experienced before in a social setting. We often create plastic emotions to wear over the pure and natural emotions that tend to push people away. You don't want to show everybody how awful you're feeling that day and so you fall under the pressure to "put on a smile." I think it's important to show any pain or sorrow you're feeling so that your friends and family can help accordingly. We need to remove the masks we wear too often and come together with unadulterated empathy.
Short Film: The Social Butterfly
Creator(s):
Samantha Moser
I initially chose the topic because I thought it would be easy to cover. I had originally selected another topic that interested me more personally, but after a little brainstorming I think the idea for “The Social Butterfly” came together and shows something that I think is relatable to myself and a lot of others today.
Short Film: Walking Through A Dream
Creator(s):
Tabitha Barnes
Short Film: You Can't Beat The Beat
Creator(s):
Afton Aulick
The assignment I was given in Film Production and Criticism was to create a continuity film centering around a “problem that can’t be ignored.” I immediately thought of being caught in a compromising position. Some dance moves and funky tunes later, my short film was born.
Sonic Autoethnography: Untitled
Creator(s):
Kiersten Monroy
For this assignment students were asked to narrate and reflect on a meaningful musical experience in their lives. This sonic autoethnography primarily focuses on a summer road trip that was soundtracked by the music of Orville Peck. At the heart of the piece, the author untangles the web of meaning (musical and extra-musical) of Orville Peck’s music, a burgeoning queer country artist.
Sonic Autoethnography: Untitled
Creator(s):
Joe Melillo
This sonic autoethnography concerns a John Mayer concert, representing his embodied understanding of his musical experience and how the themes of Mayer’s music resonated with him at that moment.
Sound Collage: Untitled
Creator(s):
Alyssa Davidson
For this assignment students used sounds as a vehicle to perform an argument relevant to topics in digital rhetoric. This student’s piece focuses on the feeling of being constantly bombarded by news regarding crises and calls to action in our always-on info environment.
Soundscape: A Haunted Halt
Creator(s):
Fatema Quaid
This is a story of a girl who faces an unexpected halt in the middle of her road trip to her parent's house. Seeking help, she walks towards a deserted house by the roadside. Little did she know, that the house would welcome her with the most terrifying experience of her life.
Soundscape: Gotta Believe
Creator(s):
Julianna Latini
This sound narrative conveys a story of a terrible car accident in which the driver ends up in a coma. You are brought into the mind of this coma patient who is still able to hear and understand his surroundings. The one-way conversation between a distressed mother and "unconscious" son leaves you wanting to believe he will wake up.
Soundscape: Untitled
Creator(s):
Colton Bove
For this assignment students were asked to recreate a soundscape from everyday life, mixing mimetic and affective uses of sound to evoke a sonic environment. This is a soundscape done by a student who, in addition to being a computer science major, is receiving a minor in music composition. He has coupled very crisp, clean field recordings of camping during the day and at night with music he composed, with the latter instilling in the listener the feeling of what it’s like to camp at both hours in the day.
Twine Game: Milkman
Creator(s):
Will Stewart
Twine Game: Tempo
Creator(s):
Gabriel Aoki
Twine Game: The Adventurer's Cottage
Creator(s):
Bryson Myers
Twine Game: The Legend of the Mothman
Creator(s):
John Hansen
Twine, as a medium, exists to support unorthodox narrative techniques. Similarly, the “podcast boom” of recent years has also assumed this role of unconventional storytelling. While there do exist quite formal podcasts, such as those produced by National Public Radio, there is a niche of “informal” podcasts.
Twine Game: Tithe
Creator(s):
Sarah Maenner
Visual Argument: Radiate
Creator(s):
Emma Knaub
Image:
In my visual argument, the lights represent each person's "soul," and the brightness of the light represents the goodness or pureness of the soul. I'd like to leave he rest of the meaning up to the viewer's interpretation, but I have some guiding questions: If people's "lights" were all that anyone could see, would you be a better person? Would you try to make your light shine brighter? What's stopping you from doing that right now?
Visual Argument: The Extinction Crisis
Creator(s):
Fathima Shabnam
Image:
Website: Postpartum Depression in Asian Communities
Creator(s):
Grace Kim
Zine: Provost Academy Secret Pittsburgh Zine
This zine is the product of two Provost Academy classes of incoming freshmen students, who participated in intensive one-week versions of classes (with topics like Urban Art and Secret Pittsburgh) and orientation activities. The cover art, and preface, is by the Urban Art students, with the rest of the zine by Secret Pittsburgh students.