Concerned Citizen

“What is it that you want to do with your life?” 

“Well, I want to be an artist.”

“Ha, no really. What are you doing with your life?”

One of the tragedies of modern American education is the way in which art is trivialized and downplayed. Many aspiring artists (including the authors) face a great deal of internal conflict between passion and “reasonableness.” And yet a world without art is empty and colorless. Art is a way of expressing things that can’t be expressed in any other way. It’s a kind of general human communication that strengthens and adds value to communities. 

Arlene Goldbard wrote an article wherein she describes a “Storyland”--a place where culture, history, and art are embraced and embedded into the framework of society. It is this paradigm shift, she argues, that will free up the hearts and minds of the people and generate empathy and emotional development to keep up with the rapid advances in cognition. In other words, art, or at least creative expression, is the key to a healthy society. 

In creating A Chance to Speak, we were interested in the relationship that art has with the community at large. How do they inform each other? In what ways is there an added value or contribution? Why is art important, and are we appreciating that? In some ways it was also an effort to validate our own artistic pursuits in a culture that very much encourages concession to pragmatism. We interviewed Cori Nelson, a BFA student at BYU, for her thoughts on art and community. She just completed her senior project, which is showing in the Harris Fine Arts center through the end of March 2016. For Cori, art is an important aspect of finding voice and expressing oneself through visual mediums. 

The original inspiration behind our documentary was our dual observation that so many students and staff walk by the beautiful pieces of artwork in the HFAC without a second thought. We wanted to hear an artist’s perspective on this dismissal and how he or she might prefer their work to be observed. After tracking down Cori, we learned about her enthusiasm for art as a mode of creative communication and her views regarding art’s value in relation community interest. 

Cori gave us so much golden content, it was very difficult to cut everything down to a three minute video. Our discussions ranged from the purpose of art in society to the deeply personal anxieties that plague artists within their perspective communities. It was hard to pick a concrete stream of ideas and concepts to follow, but we ultimately chose to include those sections of our interview that dealt most specifically with Cori and how her art plays a vital role among artists, students, and even humanity as a whole. The principle inspiration for the construction of our documentary was the Beehive Story we watched in class. We understood we had wide array of information to address, but just like Brad Barber’s distillation of Iron County, we had to make an honest attempt at justly exhibiting one paramount character who is initiating change within her community. 

World Building

Design Fiction and Deseret 

“What if…” is often the beginning of a form of art called design fiction, a term coined by Julian Bleecker in his essay of the same name. What if the world was fundamentally different? What would it look like? H.G. Wells was a master in design fiction, particularly with his novel, The Time Machine, in which he describes the future state of mankind. It’s not real, but it follows real patterns and rules. It’s a fantasy world, but it has its roots in real science. So it is with design. Artifacts from these manufactured worlds both augment and represent a kind of parallel reality displayed in the world from which they come.

So what if? As students at Brigham Young University, we have a natural interest in our Mormon roots. At one point in history, a state of Deseret was proposed. It never happened because of issues with the U.S. government regarding polygamy, but what if? What if the South won the war? What if the Union was so fractured that they didn’t care about a burgeoning community far in the west? What if the Mormons pulled it off and gained sovereignty?

               The 1860s would see a drastic change in the world when the South would end up winning the Civil War.  The members in the state of Deseret would take this chance to seriously begin building their nation.  Part of being a sovereign state meant they would need their own currency for the exchanging within its economy and government.  This Currency would reflect the events of Mormon history and significance to the nation of Deseret as well as its prominent leaders.

Because of industry in the West, and the lack of Power from any opposing country, Deseret would thrive. The country would benefit from its strong support of immigration, its control of the railroad, its trading of oil and gold, its organization, its colonization, and its immense population growth. By 1900 Deseret would have become a world superpower, a land filled with promise and a community bent on growth, forward and upward. A sense of religious nationalism would have been deeply rooted, and many would frame or carry defining documents, as Americans might with copies of their constitution. 

“Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.” - (Doctrine and Covenants 45:70)

In fulfillment of this prophecy, the people of Deseret would take a strong defensive stance during the conflicts throughout the 20th century. Though their ambassadors (i.e. missionaries) would still be sent out, they would also employ military force toward any country that sought harm to their congregations. The evolution of this thought might be expressed in a new flag. The twelve stars, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, point inward toward deseret, a honeybee, the protector of the hive. The red field represents the blood of the righteous calling for justice. The flag is a symbol of the state’s fierce defense and retribution against any that dare to come against God’s people.

Many events of our world would still “come to pass” in this world.  Hitler would still try to dominate the planet.  But what if Einstein immigrated to Deseret?  What if revelation was given to our military leaders just as Captain Moroni received it in the Book of Mormon?  Deseret would emerge as a world power.  We also read of the pride cycle in the Book of Mormon.  If Deseret prospered for too long there would likely be much apostasy.  Different factions of the faith would compete for power.

  

Webspinna Battle

“I want my son back. I–I–my son–my son–“

“You can’t have him. You can’t have him–can–can–wicwic–can’t have him”

Two couples argue to some funky electronic beats, their voices scratching like an old record. First it’s Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep from Kramer vs. Kramer. Then Adam Sandberg bursts in with angsty clips from “Threw it on the Ground.”  Then it’s the selfish seagulls from Finding Nemo shouting “Mine!” while Alfalfa and The arguments are thrown and remixed back and forth from one computer to the next. It sounds like a mess. 

It’s a fight to the death. 

A Webspinna fight to the death. 

Unfortunately the fight ends with King Solomon suggesting to cut the child in half, which is obviously an impossible task for the two parents, both of whom have legal right to claim the child.

Webspinna is an interesting concept. It’s performance art, the kind you only get to experience once because it happens live and is impossible to re-create exactly. No video cameras––no cameras at all, actually. The experience is recorded in memory only. But it's art. Or rather, a memory of art. 

Tabby and I had the idea to portray adults fighting the same way kids fight. We wanted to show how we don’t change all that much, particularly with things that strike deeply. The idea morphed into a child custody case–a very painful reality for a lot of people. There are no easy endings and the process is rarely clean cut and evenly mixed. A live battle of Internet audio was the perfect medium. It didn’t go at all as planned; the funky beats ended three quarters of the way through which left us going back-and-forth a Capella. But it was honest. And it worked.

Coming up with content to tell our story was surprisingly easy. So much of our vernacular is not our own. Author Jonathan Lethem wrote an article detailing how plagiarism is an everyday part of how we communicate. Our words and how we use them come from infinite sources that we are unknowingly immersed in. At home, my family and I communicate a lot through movie quotes. My mom challenged us to go a whole day without quoting any movies. It never happened. Lethem explains that we may conceive of an idea quite honestly and fail to recognize the source from which we are robbing. So we rob, then we take what we’ve robbed and we put it through our own lenses to communicate something uniquely ours. It’s not new; it’s just reorganized and juxtaposed material. 

Probably the best analogy to a Webspinna battle is in Scott Pilgrim v. The World. The movie is rife with references to pop-culture and it’s ancestry and includes seven epic and totally ridiculous battles between Scott and various archetypes. Everything in the film came from somewhere else. But what make it unique, and what makes our voices unique is how its all assembled.