Media, Art and Community
Working at the Intersection of the Arts and Identity to Build Inclusive Communities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kendra Wheeler
This paper considers how identity is expressed in every aspect of our artistic outputs—they cannot be separated from one another. This argument comes to fruition through an unraveling of the following concepts: identity, intersectionality, privilege, and Critical Race Theory (CRT) by drawing upon the contributions of thinkers such as Stuart Hall, Simon Frith and Audre Lorde, among others. The hope is for the concepts, theories, and issues presented to be internalized and applied towards all classical, contemporary, and new music communities—the arts as a whole. I also suggest ways in which we can move forward and form more inclusive communities and better practices. Many schools and colleges of music in higher education institutions are attempting to increase their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in response to the momentum from the recent socio-political happenings, but in order for real change to be made, it must start from the bottom up, rather than the top down. The creation of truly inclusive musical communities cannot come only from policy changes and the implementation of committees, it must start with the people that make up said communities, it must start with the people that institutions serve, with us as individuals, so that when we do come together, we are able to empathize with one another, and see value and richness in differing perspectives. Fighting for equal representation and diversity is meaningless until we address the intersection in which all oppression and privilege meet—sustainable, equitable, change cannot be made without this.
All For a Helen View Digital Media
Creative Practice Showcase Kakia Gkoudina
“For a Helen” is a multimedia work for film, sound, and electronics. It is the outcome of an ongoing research in the narrative abilities of the aforementioned media when used in tandem. The syntax of the work is characterized by parataxis - the placement of stimuli one after the other “without coordinating or subordinating connectives” (Merriam-Webster), thereby generating a spectrum of narratives by the very association of the stimuli to each other. This form of syntax provides a freer platform for the exploration of the media’s expressive as well as time construction capabilities. Both the visual and audio parts of the work were composed at the same time. I consider all three as different sides of the same tool of expression and picked each medium according to their individual characteristics that fit the part of the overall narrative the best. The paratactic syntax and the treatment of the media as equals, made me realize the different “experience of time” that audio and visual stimuli construct and the intricacies that arise when putting them together. In a hypotactic syntax, there is a hierarchy between the media, and the one on top defines - for the most part - the time experience of the work. In a paratactic syntax, time is shaped by the interjection of each medium’s individual time experience in the service of the overall narrative direction.
