Ideas for Audio Tour

Midtown slogan: "This is city life"

** = favorite ideas

1) Diversity in a block of Midtown - humorous maybe, go from the Wild Orchid to a yoga/wellness studio. Mostly my voice with sound effects.

**2) An auditory experience of taste, walking to several restaurants in a block or two of midtown and describing the place and what I order and what it tastes like in great detail. You'd walk to the restaurants and probably be really hungry by the end of the tour. This could almost serve as advertisement. Really detail oriented, what's the food look like? The vibe of the restaurant? My view, as a vegetarian foodie?

** 3) Five minutes in the life of someone walking around in Midtown, what types of things do you see or smell or witness...you'll probably experience it similarly to the audio description when you're walking the streets yourself. I like this idea because it's something that at times can be humorous (you see a woman dressed in a furry orange hat and a red mini skirt with combat boots) or something really upsetting (a homeless man wandering around, maybe asking for spare change). I think taking someone through the emotions one could experience when they really look at the scene and the details around them could be very interesting.

I think it would be really cool to repeat every so often "this is midtown, this is city life" or vice versa on order (something I could have done in my coffee tryptic).

5 Original Sounds from Phone

Map of sounds -

Focused on coffee shops, scanners and a couple randoms.

Cityscape Through Coffee

Triptych time!

Cityscape Through Coffee is about discovering a city through its coffee shops. The warm feeling, the broken conversations and the small escape are all things to notice and invite while viewing the triptych. The clips, and photos, were shot in Reno and San Francisco. By going to these two radically different cities - nothing changed. Coffee, its allure and the attitude it has, is the same everywhere. Overall, this project was about celebrating the things I love - simple and questioning how much time is spent in coffee shops. The shots moving and repeating try to explore and convey time.

The music was street music in San Francisco - it gets louder because I am walking closer to it. All the coffee shop type sounds are collected from probably 8 coffee shops in both cities.

Each piece is a different length so the viewer does not have the same visual or auditory experience each time its watched.

UPDATED MICROWAVE

Expand browser until there are two rows of video and the title is centered over the microwave.

Video Mixer Final

"Microwave Me" is a video mixer made from many combined, edited and rethought found video. The purpose for using existing video rather than shooting it myself was to follow the instructions: "do not try this at home." I decided that the people who had already ruined their microwaves and truly went big for each individual microwave subject produced a better visual product than I could have achieved at home - keeping my microwave in tact. That said, each video was cut, cropped and edited with possible effects. The gremlin video, I made.

The constant microwave sound heard throughout the videos is recorded from my own microwave, along with the beeps. I had intended not to use any voices or reactions but found some here and there added to the viewing experience. If you play each video individually, the sound may be broken and you may miss the sound of a crinkling marshmallow bag. This was done purposefully. I feel that we expect certain sounds as we see an action, I took some of these away to try and engage BOTH sight and sound to comprehend what's happening. In addition, I did this so all the videos' sound would not be overwhelming. I wanted the viewer to get bits and pieces of reactions and produced sounds along side the constant (playing between the videos) hum of the microwave. The blue tile background was meant to resemble kitchen tile backsplash. The white box encompassing the video was meant to great a microwave itself.

The start button is where I hope people will start but it will work either way. The print is so small in this video to make fun of the "fine print" associated with appliances. Obviously, they're not meant to set someone's hair on fire or put on a Christmas light show.

http://www.unr.edu/art/digital_media/345fall2013/Erin_Meyering.html

Video Mixer Ideas

Repurposed video?? 1) Reno Air Races coverage 2011, news is incredibly sensitive and in your face, especially with disasters. The visuals of this are compelling and sometimes (like the project's nature) it's chaos and nearly inescapable if you're to watch. Affected me immensely. Some video of the footage, some simple audio extracted, some reactions shot by me or sent to me through friends and family. 2) Totally other direction - unique things to put in a microwave that do something interesting, ex: marshmallow expanding, shell explodes on an egg, soap bubbles, gremlins, etc. The sound of a microwave is iconic, expected - the image isn't. All shot by me or sent in through friends and family.

Exhibition

An Interactive Home

Overall I found the entire exhibition powerful because I had never been to an entire show that seemed to be so hands on. The artwork was encouraging people to “play” and not just in a supervised manner. This form of play was meant to be discovered, uncovered, confusing, celebratory, and basically whatever the player wanted it to be. Although there was artwork such as Sheila Malone’s “Simply Knot: A Queer Performance Video,” that didn’t have a particular “play” or “active” aspect to it, it was still engaging and thought provoking.

My favorite piece, and somewhat an unexpected favorite piece, was “Siena” by Vera Fainshtein. The light projection on the three-tiered cloth was so simple but truly drew me in. It was a piece that again, was thought provoking in a light, airy and not in your face way. This may have been because this was one of the more “quiet” pieces in the show or it may have been because it was secluded and almost secret from the rest.

I loved this piece because it was curious and thinking about it (or not) was still enjoyable. Either way, I thought the piece was visually striking but when I read up more on the meaning – basically that through time-lapse and special technologies, it is possible to sort of transport a person to a place. For me, the calm, idyllic and unchangeable characteristics of Siena are also displayed by the installation. The sense of time disappeared watching the piece, in its own way “perform.”