FCAT PORTFOLIO

Photography Sample

This is a photograph I took of nonbinary multi-media artist Sammy Chen, mid flow in a spiritual energy-healing ritual. It was part of a portrait series I captured titled LANDSCAPE | INTERRUPTED which was presented as a solo exhibition at Conduit Gallery.

This was my final project from the 2018 Presidents Dream Colloquium on Creative Ecologies taught by Dr. Denise Oleksijczuk. It was created and presented on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples – Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Nuučaan̓uł (Nuu-chah-nulth) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.

Video Sample

I created this video for the SFU School for the Cotemporary Arts. As a contract videographer my primary duty is to create a series of videos that represent each areas of the SCA. These are used for recruitment purposes. This video series is a collaborative project with input from both the subjects, area leads and my supervisor Brady Cranfield.

Writing Sample

This writing sample is taken from an abstract for an upcoming International Symposium on Electronic Art panel which I am a part of. The panel is called Bending the possible (one pixel at a time). Small-file ecomedia for the Anthropocene and is based upon my work with Dr Laura U. Marks and the Small File Media Festival.

Small-File Ecomedia Techniques 

Streaming media have been calculated to contribute a whopping 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions (The Shift Project 2019, Marks et al. 2021). [1] [2] Small-file ecomedia address this problem, providing alternatives to ultra-high- definition moving images. Globally artists are already implementing a wide range of technical and aesthetic techniques that can be adapted and scaled for low- bandwidth mass transmission through existing ICT networks. Small-file media are attractive, memetic, and viral (Steyerl 2012; Goriunova 2014). [3] [4] Practically, steps can be taken in pre- and post-production to reduce the carbon cost of ecomedia intended for streaming, from a reduced color palette to the simple use of a tripod and monophonic sound. Other techniques such as the use of old camcorders, cellphones, and other lens-equipped devices can prolong their life and divert them from the landfill— crucial considering the startling fact that devices account for 1⁄4 to 1/3 of ICT’s electricity consumption—sidestep the carbon pitfall of large-scale media-infrastructure assemblages (Parks and Starosielski 2015). [5]

Small-file ecomedia draws from both do it yourself (DiY) movements and computer-based artistic practices. Datamoshing practitioners can utilize free, cross-platform apps including Handbrake, Any Video Converter and AVIDMUX to compress moving-image content to a fraction of its original size. Some artists use these aesthetic tools to manipulate the granular materiality of digital media objects. The Demoscene movement maximizes the audio-visual potential of miniscule executable files on hardware ranging from vintage desktop computers to cutting-edge gaming machines. While many of the aesthetic qualities of these movements have been appropriated and popularized in HD media, it’s time to reclaim the beauty, integrity, and potential of the small file to grow and foster the flourishing world of ecomedia. 

References

[1] The Shift Project. 2019. “Climate Crisis: The Unsustainable Use of Online Video. The Practical Case Study of Online Video.” Technical report.
[2] Marks, L.U., S. Makonin, A. Rodriguez-Silva, and R. Przedpełski. 2021. Final report, Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Knowledge Synthesis grant. 
[3] Steyerl, H. 2012. “In Defense of the Poor Image,” The Wretched of the Screen, Berlin: Sternberg Press. 31-45.
[4] Goriunova, O. 2014. “The Force of Digital Aesthetics: On Memes, Hacking, and Individuation,” The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 47: 54–75. 
[5] Parks, L., and N. Starosielski. 2015. Signal Traffic: Critical studies of media infrastructures. Minneapolis: University of Illinois Press. 

Social Media Sample 1

This is an excerpt of a longer video interview with Emmalena Fredriksson that I shot, edited and scored. Often I will shoot longer pieces and create an abbreviated version for social media. The post was created using later.com which both pushed the post to SCA socials and creates a link to the longer piece on Vimeo.

Social Media Post 2

This post is of a series of still images captured from the student-led Ascension 2021 dance performances. Media from this session was later used in a series of videos showcasing the performances. I created this post using the desktop version of Instagram.