Annotated Bibliography

Chelsey Cunningham

BIS 499E

4/7/15

Annotated Bibliography

Need to include titles of courses and names of professors, and to use your last name only as the author.

-Cunningham. “Artist Statement for Video Remix.” Milutis, Joe. Arts Workshop: The Art of The Remix, BISMCS 343.

In this artist statement Chelsey articulates the key components that went into her remix video. She explains the conceptual approach to her video and further mentions reoccurring aspects of feminism throughout it. Her short video was filled with old commercials clips from commercials in the 60's. She picked clips that portrayed the stereotypical idea of women. She pairs this visual with an audio from Beyonce's to her song "Flawless". Beyonce originally took this clip for her song intro from a famous ted talk by Chimamanda Ngozi. Chelsey sampled this intro and created a fun contrast to her old fashion female clips. She addresses a video that inspired her work and explains the area of inspiration within her work that reflects this concept. Chelsey used this artist statement to explain her reasoning for this video choice, share her vision of conceptualization and share her thought process throughout the making of it.

I included this artist statement into my academic portfolio because I felt this was one of my first chances to artistically express myself through video production. I felt passionate about feminism and expression through media art. It was fulfilling to express myself by using a new medium of choice. The learning objective was to learn how to use protools, Adobe Premiere and conceptually express myself through a new form of art.

-Cunningham. “Bollywood Final Reflection Essay.” Kurian, Alka. The Politics of Bollywood, BIS 339 A. Fall 2014.

In this final reflection essay Chelsey rehashes the many things she learned throughout this Bollywood film class. She watched several films in class and felt enlightened about various social norms in this complex film culture. Such as, the portrayal of melodrama and 4 hour long films for the sake of escapism. Also, the focus on terrorism, stereotypes and family values. The specific Bollywood rituals made more sense to Chelsey after she grew to appreciate this film culture and respect the differences from traditional hollywood films. She at first thought of Bollywood films as low art and obnoxious. By the end of the class she grew to appreciate the art for the uniqueness it brought to the table. I.e. The constant melodrama.This reflection paper highlights the most interesting concepts to her. Such as: the misrepresentation of the Muslim culture in Bollywood film, the active level of politics in the films and the unique entertainment factors throughout.

I included this artist statement because this class was a unique one to my learning path. At first, I thought this was just going to be a rather easy course that seemed fairly interesting. After taking the class, I felt more aware of the culture behind Bollywood and the significance of the overtly melodramatic culture. The learning objective for this course was to learn about other cultures and other film styles other than just the typical hollywood style.

-Cunningham. “Identity Keyword Essay.” Padilla, Yolanda and Walsh, Camille. Power, Dissent and American Culture, BISMAC 305 A. Winter 2014.

Chelsey was able to learn the true meaning of keywords. Throughout this course she learned about the importance of keywords and the history behind them, such as, boarders and racism. At the end of the quarter she was assigned her own keyword to dissect and philosophically breakdown in essay form. This keyword for her assignment was “Identity”. She chose to break down the word in psychological terms and in the dictionary definition. She posed the question: "What defines it? Who defines it? and How is it defined?". Her paper was designed to play with those questions and create a thoughtful discussion.

I chose this keyword essay because it was a fun way to re-contextualize and reframe keywords from a unique perspective. I never understood the various definitions and interpretations of keywords until I was able to put together an essay myself. The learning objective was to figure out the ways in which language can impact a conversation or reading. There are various keywords that hold several meanings to several people. I learned how to approach readings with a more objective approach by not jumping to conclusions.

-Cunningham. “Midterm paper: Philosophical writing” Bergman, Aeron. Art in Context: Contemporary Art Theory. Spring 2014. This was Chelsey's first attempt writing about a conceptual group of artworks in a philosophical manner. She studied “Two Moon July” a conceptual series of short films, directed by Tom Bowes. She reframed the work from her own perspective. She based her theories off of class readings by Adorno, a famous philosopher and gave her best shot to practice the art of philosophical writing. She didn't take any direct concepts from Adorno, she only took the time to create an essay that was free-flowing and expressed her own ideas about the art "Two Moon July". This was her chance to conceptualize the art of someone else from a critical artist perspective.

I chose this assignment because it was a work that I felt proud of. Writing in a philosophical manner is not easy by any means. This assignment helped me stretch my thinking and writing skills in new ways. Before this class I felt insecure about my knowledge in the conceptual arts world. I felt intimidated as if I wasn't a part of this high art world. Throughout the class I was able to have open conversations with the class and gain confidence about my own artistic opinions. This paper served as an outlet to creatively express my newfound confidence in this subject matter.

-Cunningham. “Paris research paper- based off of Disneyland Paris success rate.” Edwards, JoLynn. Paris: The City and it's History, BIS 417. Winter 2014. This was a thirteen-page research paper that Chelsey put together for a very difficult class. She was asked to develop a research question pertaining to the Paris culture. She posed the question “Disneyland Paris: How successful is it?” She found out a whole lot about a Disneyland Park that she had no idea even existed in the first place, such as the ginormous financial struggle the park faced, the tourist attraction it became, the Parisian culture dealing with an americanized concept and the long process of working through these problems. Her knowledge about the Parisian culture helped her better understand her findings throughout the research process because she was taught about the strict culture differences between Americans and Parisians. I.e. Smiling has a positive connotation in America and in the streets of Paris one is looked at as a fool for smiling from ear to ear.

I chose this research paper because it took a decent amount of time, consideration and hard work. I found myself very intrigued by this topic and came across many scholarly sources. To be more specific, I found an article by Time magazine through EBSCO host by Peter Gumbel titled "The Not So Magic Kingdom". The learning objectives of this research paper was to pick a topic of interest in Paris and learn more about a specific facet in relation to the course lectures.

-Cunningham “Final Project Artist Statement.” Milutis, Joe. Arts Workshop: The Art of The Remix, BISMCS 343. Winter 2014.

This was an artist statement for chelsey’s final project. She created an abstract blog page that challenged the idea of “Real women have curves” and other renditions of this phrase. To contrast this idea she also included the idea of “thinspiration” a popular phrase used in search engines for obtaining unhealthy goals becoming too skinny. This piece was able to depict the two in the same blog to showcase the flaws in each argument.

I chose this piece because this abstract art was able to showcase my ideals associated with body size. I believe that the media plays a huge role in what society accepts and I thought the visual would make for an interesting project. The learning objective was to use blogs as a medium of conceptual art expression and to curate an online page with a desired effect in mind. My blog was supposed to create a feeling of uneasy objective like thinking to a controversial topic.

-Cunningham. “Sublime Essay.” Lambert, Amy. Topics in Environmental Studies: Art and Climate Change Ecology, BIS 397 A. Winter 2015.

The Sublime essay that Chelsey wrote was something that was very different for her. She wasn’t used to combining environmental science with abstract art ideas. The term sublime had a confusing definition and this essay required a lot of thought and reflection. Now that she understands the meaning of the word sublime in relation to art and climate change she is able to better understand the meaning of this assignment. She now views sublime as a cross between excitement and danger. For example the feeling of being in an ice cave might be scary but fill you will a sense of wonder.

This essay helped me to reframe my thoughts and to better understand the idea of the Sublime in relation to climate change. The learning objective of this assignment was to conceptualize the class lectures and to create a personal reflection of what the word sublime meant to us in context to art and climate change.

-Cunningham. “Outline of Student led teaching session.” Kochar, Kanta. Topics in Performance Studies, B IMD/BIS 322. Fall 2013. This student led teaching session took place in Chelsey’s first quarter at UWB. She was able to facilitate a class discussion and guide the students about the fundamentals of story telling. This teaching session was in relation to our class lecture about interviewing skills, gathering information and storytelling. This session helped the other students review class material, such as class lectures and past class discussions in an interactive way.

I really enjoyed this assignment because I was able to teach the class about the importance of interviewing people. I was also able to assist and give tips on how to conduct successful interviews based off of this knowledge. It was fun to add interactive visuals to the class readings. The learning objective was to effectively convey an idea through the use of the white board, the powerpoint and the use of Youtube clips for the purpose of practicing classroom knowledge accumulated. This helps us teach each other and teaches ourselves at the same time by reviewing.

-Cunningham. “Ader Group Summary.” Bergman, Aeron. Arts in Context: Contemporary Art Theory, BISCLA 380. Spring 2013.

This assignment was very fun for Chelsey. Although she doesn’t typically care for dense readings and/or group work, she was able to move past these preferences and challenge her way of thinking. For example she read dense and intimidating texts, spent time dissecting something as little as a sentence and talked about it with class mates to dissect the meaning of something so short, but so packed with ideas. This assignment shares some of the sentences we pulled and shows each of our opinions about the section. This assignment allowed us to see how each other interprets things similarily and differently.

I loved this group assignment because it helped to give me necessary skills that would benefit the rest of my education at UWB. The learning objective was to learn how to read philosophy in a critical and at the same time relaxing way. This was supposed to take the intimidation out of reading dense texts.

-Cunningham. “Final Reflection Paper.” Kochar, Kanta. Topics in Performance Studies, BIMD 390/BIS 322. Fall 2013.

This final reflection paper was beneficial to Chelsey’s learning because she was able to process a confusing process and understand the benefits of a strange and non-conventional curriculum. She was able to process the aspects that were challenging and rewarding throughout the quarter. For example, we had to build a story booth, collect interviews on campus through audio recording devices and through drawing's. We transcribed these stories and memorized the stories as monologues. We had a "Story as Art Cabaret Show" at the end of the quarter where we performed these stories through monologue reenactment, dance, singing and mini skits.

I enjoyed this reflection paper because I had a struggle or two with this class for the majority of the quarter. I was extremely confused most of the time but trusted the teacher’s guidance and kept pushing forward. I learned a lot about community engagement and storytelling. The learning objective is to learn how to effectively gather stories, organize them and how to share them with others with various mediums of performing arts. I.e. Internet, song, dance, acting, print, etc.