During undergrad, I completed Experimental Video, a course where we built a series of short videos prompted by topics and genres relating to the history and evolution of video art and experimental film. We learned how to film using DSLR cameras and edit in Adobe Premiere Pro. The goal was to become familiar with this new art medium’s history, theory, and aesthetics and gain experience in making, critiquing, and exhibiting original videos. My work from this class can be seen below.

For our thirty second static self-portrait video I decided to film myself lighting a candle at the grotto. I did this because I like to live my life by the above Eleanor Roosevelt quote. I believe it is important to choose to move forward and create something positive from a negative experience. After losing three relatives in my family to suicide I stumbled upon this quote and it became my families mantra. We have taken terrible tragedies and decided to light a candle, working with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to educate the world today about mental health and work towards a world without suicide.

Decollage is a form of video art when you splice together several different clips to try to covey a certain message. I chose to do my decollage project with clips from the over 22 seasons of the ABC hit show The Bachelor. In my decollate I am trying to get viewers to consider the mental health of the contestants throughout the show. The Bachelorette and Bachelor are far more than roses and fairytales, those on the show are put through an emotional roller coaster that without a doubt affects their mental health.

A 5 x 5 video contains five clips, five seconds long that compiled together make a short 25 second project. The theme of my 5 x 5 was Siena College Men’s Rugby. Each clip has something to do with rugby from kicking and throwing the ball to lacing up cleats for a game.

We each were given a Yoko prompt at random. Mine was “Painting for the wind. Cut a hole in a bag filled with seeds of any kind and place the bag where there is wind. 1961 Summer.” I chose to take a less literal approach to this prompt and watched what happened when I released some “Seeds of Kindness” on a windy day.

For this piece we were given an artist and asked to make a video in the likeness of their works. The artist I was given was Eija-Liisa Attila and I chose to use her piece “House” as inspiration for my own piece.

For my performance piece I decided to use action and show endurance by having some awesome friends do one thing everyone hates to accidentally do let alone do on purpose, walk on the childhood favorite LEGO bricks.