miltimodal, Susan Walicki

Multimodal Assesment

http://vimeo.com/31040805

I am not confident with understanding my beginnings. The beginning of this sentence, the beginning of this project, the beginning of this class, the beginning of college, the beginning of manhood, the beginning of time, the beginning of me, you, us, the beginning of it... One might call ‘it’ a confusing, even frustrating, endless series of events. Another may declare ‘it’ a heap of conscious and subconscious decisions, survived by all forms of memory. Some simply shout ‘it’ as beginning with Genesis. These attempts at understanding the beginning of ‘it’, have even caused wars, an act that could ironically determine the end of ‘it’. I think ‘it’ is the existence of conscious thought, hence allowing the preservation of the past through varying mediums of recreation. Life as we know it, is solely a reflection of yesterday.


To create, is defined as “to cause to come into being.” When one comes into being, it must have been created, hence indicating a sense of past. Therefore all that is created, is simply a reflection of former concepts and events. History is recounted as a reinterpretation of memory. Contemporary society, is simply an unfathomably large memorial of past events. Whether it is our moral code, the Roman Forum, written words, or told tales, the past exists through its recreations. The reason I created the video SOC 309 was to preserve an important personal experience. The experience is the process of aging and dying vis-a-vis my grandmother. It was important to recreate this emotional experience into a tangible medium so that I could attempt to understand the process of aging and dying without having to do the latter myself.


The title is a reference to a class my grandmother teaches on the subject of “Aging and Dying.” This is important to note because of the great education the process of creating this video provided for me, while in-turn hopefully providing an educational experience for the general viewer through the end product. Although the video is entirely personal, I attempted to not make this obvious, so that the viewer could experience this process for themselves, not solely through my eyes, for this is a process all humans endure. With the lack of obvious connotations such as, familial clues, and personal inclusion, I find the psychic distance between myself and any viewer to be so close that the necessity of knowing my past does not pertain.


The arrival of a train, as well as its exit are not only metaphors for the aging process but also towards the continuation of past events into the future. In their contemporary context, trains represent death through their own history, since today trains are used more and more seldom than before. Images appear through three separate frames at different speeds, representing the different perceptions of passing time as well as reflecting on the act of seeing one event through various lenses. Undoubtedly certain moments in life past faster before our eyes than others. The color intentionally fades from a high saturation to black and white, in order to draw parallels between human death and the changing of the seasons. In the spring colors begin to arrive amidst the darkness of winter, Summer is jovial and youthful, and during autumn the color begins to change and fade, giving way to the grim darkness of death throughout winter.(1 The inclusion of a needle is a personal reference for when my grandmother was prescribed narcotics and sedatives. At this moment her personality died.)

The sound initially is unrecognizable, becomes obvious, and then is blatantly revealed with image. This represents the process of self-recognition, which I see as the beginning of one’s personal experience of life. Once it is revealed that the noise is in fact a train, the viewer is confined to the journey through a physical and temporal space. The sound changes in volume and become more complex in order to create a stronger emotional experience for the viewer as well as to note of the complexity of material and emotional accumulation in life as we grow older. Eventually, the sound fades to only ambiance, representing a piece of mind one hopefully achieves with age. However, this elderly relaxation is abruptly morphed by the alarm of being told when one is going to die. The video ends with ambiance, as to suggest a continuation of nature on earth despite a human presence.

SOC 309 is a video capable of allegorical and literal viewings. Although, my grandmother has yet to die, she has been declared to be close, an experience that has been alarming for all, allowing me to reflect on our personal relationship, as well as the general emotions enticed by the warning of death when its arrival jumps rapidly ahead from once being afar.

*Writing this essay has provided me with a greater understanding of my creative process, current influences, and how I cope with the curves life throws. I am content with the progress of this short 3:39 minute video. I give it an A for aging.

Multimodal - Zach

Finding Peace on a Dirt Road

            Life has its way of throwing troubles and worries my way. Whether it be something in school, a family issue, or a girl I can’t seem to get off my mind, I seem to always have something tangling up my thoughts. I’ve tried all the classic methods of relaxation you can think of, but none of them ever really work. One thing that does have an almost magical power over my mind however, is the country. Something about driving down an open dirt road, surrounded by tall green grass, with a fresh breeze of air blowing through the window calms my thoughts. There’s been many occasions in my life where I’ve had to drop everything I was doing and just hop in my car to drive out to that spot where I could escape the pressure of life happening all around me. There’s also been times where I’ve stumbled upon a secluded country drive in the middle of nowhere and still I feel like I am right at home. When I add music into all of that, the countryside becomes a solid place of refuge where I can find peace.

            I remember one occasion that drove me out into the country quite vividly. It was my senior year of high school, I had been in an off and on relationship with a particular girl multiple times. We hadn’t talked for a few days and so when I got a text from her I knew it would be interesting. For the sake of too much detail, I’ll only say that the text upset me greatly, and came at a very bad time. I immediately grabbed my keys, ran out to my car, and tore out of the driveway. I was gone, speeding down the highway to get to my spot. The only sound in the car was the humming of the engine, and the tires against the road as I made sharp turns along the way. I was motionless, my hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. The sun was just starting to set behind the mountains, the orange and blue color caught the corner of my eye. I rolled down my window and turned to my left to look at the sunset. The warm prairie breeze rushed in through the window and ran quickly through my lungs, sending a calming sensation throughout my mind and body. Time suddenly slowed way down, and without realizing it, I had forgotten what had just drove me out here. I didn’t care about her at that moment. I was in love with the beauty of God’s country.

            I drove a little further and found a turnoff where I could park. I turned on some music, got out and walked to the back and popped the tailgate to sit down. I gazed west into the sunset. I could hear the sound of birds chirping all around, the tall grass whistling against the wind. I was lost in the moment. I sat there for a good while, the darkness began to settle in. I stood up and took one last look around, trying to gather a snapshot of this place, my place, so that I could come back to it later. I got back in the car and headed back home. When I got back home the thoughts of her started to make their way back into my head. I plopped down in bed and turned on the music again. The music took me back to my place, and as I slowly dozed off the worries shed away once more. And once more, I was in peace out there on that dirt road.

            

Hailey VO Multimodal Narrative

At the age of raging hormones, when most of my classmates were giddy with petty juvenile crushes, I experienced my first love. Parents and friends initially dismissed our relationship as a typical case of short-lived puppy love, but as time went on it became clear to everyone that it was something real and different: it was young love. For the entirety of my pre-teen youth Dylan and I were constantly together, but as the end of our freshman year of high school neared, it was abruptly cut short. I was moving to the opposite side of the country. We were completely distraught, nevertheless, we thought it best to block each other from our thoughts, move on, and experience new things and new people. Throughout my remaining years in high school I did my best to suppress the mess of unresolved feelings my heart held as a result of the relationship ending so suddenly, but as I grew older they only grew stronger and added to distant fantasies conjured up in my head. I imagined us seeing each other for the first time again and being whisked back into a fairytale romance. I imagined the life we had invisioned as kids. I imagined us growing old together. My daydreams, however, were tainted by the occasional news from my friends back home that Dylan wasn’t acting right; that he seemed sad. This news only fueled my fantasies and he began to relentlessly haunt my dreams night after night. Sometimes these dreams blissfully embodied the fabrications of my emotions but sometimes they epitomized my worst nightmare where Dylan would walk by while I screamed for his attention, as if I didn’t exist . As it turns out, these nightmares were not far from the reality that was taking place miles away.

As the years passed, old friends began to express serious concern. Dylan was becoming antisocial, they said. Dylan was talking to himself. But being so far away, these odd behaviors were hard for me to imagine and it was easy to dismiss them and keep up with my childlike fantasies and memories. Time progressed still and my inquiries about Dylan brought more bizarre stories. Rumors spread and speculations gathered. The school even had Dylan drug tested.

Between the incessant love I had been clinging on to so deeply and the inconceivable stories surrounding Dylan, my emotions were so confused and frustrated that I was completely exhausted. The chance to see Dylan and put my unsettled feelings to rest, however, finally arrived during last year’s summer, when my brother was to be married back in our hometown. My hope was either that, upon seeing him, I would discover that my feelings for him had diminished and I could move on, or, we would be struck by our love once again and create the fairytale fantasy I had been invisioning all these years. Whatever the outcome, what I truly needed was closure, yet the reality of the situation was something I could never have anticipated. The Dylan that arrived at my door was not the Dylan I had dreamed about. This Dylan was barely recognizable from the one I’d fell in love with. This Dylan stood like a statue when I reached my arms around to hug him. This Dylan stared vacantly ahead as I did my best to initiate small talk, unmoving, as if he hadn’t heard me. His eerie calmness scared me. I spent the rest of the night doing anything I could to provoke some sort of response out of him, but he barely blinked.

During the next few days of my trip I analyzed obsessively about what I had just experienced. My initial reaction was anger. Why was he doing this? Was it for attention? Why haven’t his parents done anything? Why couldn’t he just say something? I continued to see this new, stone-like Dylan each night with no success of having these questions answered. I waited for him to snap out of it, hoping to break him and find the old Dylan underneath. Finally he spoke. He told me he went to see a psychiatrist that day and that they performed a scan of his brain. What they found were severe abnormalities within his neurotransmitters possibly caused by a serious head injury. This hit me so hard that it knocked the wind right out of me. Something was seriously wrong. I felt so stupid for not realizing it sooner and disgraceful for being mad at him. I felt scared, not knowing how to react or talk to him. I became overwhelmed as the realization set in; that all the things I had imagined my whole life would never happen, that the Dylan I knew and loved was never coming back.

It’s an odd thing to grasp that someone doesn’t have control of their own brain. I’ve spent infinite hours trying to imagine what it would feel like to slowly feel your own mind slip away from you. What I’ve learned since then is that Dylan’s condition caused him to fall into a severe depression leading to a catatonic state. Like a person in coma, they are neither alive nor dead, and the grief from this sort of living loss I’m afraid will never fade. Although it is comforting to know that after years of uncertainty he is finally diagnosed and receiving proper treatment, it is an ongoing struggle to sort out and confront my emotions, as I feel uneasily stuck on the brink of a moral dilemma: Is this the time to be there for Dylan when he needs it most? Does he even know who I am? Does he remember what we had? Does he know who he is? Or, is this my chance for closure; to accept that the hilarious, smart and caring Dylan that I fell in love with no longer exists, and move on? My brother once told me that first loves last forever, however, in the case of my first love I’m not sure how forever fits in.

Multi-Modal

"Just Breathe"

Just Breathe

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday- that’s busy week. I have a paper due tomorrow and I haven’t even started. Shit…two of my projects this week are being critiqued and all of that on top of a damn midterm. I hate school. Everything will be so much better once I graduate and get a job that I love (hopefully). That reminds me, I need to start filling out those applications. Sometimes I think life would be ten times easier if I just won the Powerball. That is a lot of zeros.

Breathe.

This is what I imagine comes from the minds of each and every person I run into these days. I have this to do… I have that to do… Let me check my schedule. Hardly anyone has the time to sit down and think, much less take the time to breath. I cant remember the last time I sat down and focused on something other than what classes I have for school, what’s dues this week, or what I have to get done later tonight. The doctor asked me the other day if I wanted to schedule my check up in advance for two months from now. I told her I couldn’t because I hardly know what pile of plans I will have next week not to mention next month. My mind is constantly roaming like a racecar but eventually I need a to make a pit stop. Don’t we all?

Breathe.

I encourage you to drop your pens, close your books, silence your cell phones and shut your eyes. Inhale once and exhale everything building up inside of you Forget the last text message you received. Don’t worry about the tests you have coming up in your next classes. Disregard the fight you got into with your girlfriend or boyfriend last night, they’ll get over it. The real troubles in your life are going to be the ones that never crossed your mind. If you can, stop thinking, and focus on your body.

Just breathe.

Untitled from Tony Matovina on Vimeo.