Thursday, October 23, 2014

Video Triptych - What Dreams May Tell

Dreams are said to be an unknown realm. Some believe that in the end, dreams may mean nothing after all. Others believe that dreams hold significant meaning and can act as guides or foresights. I made this video to portray both the strange mysterious quality of a dream as well as the feelings that occur when one cannot remember or remembers very little of the dream. The video effects were inspired by Nam Jun Paik and the audio/visual interactions were inspired by Christian Marclay. The left and right videos portray the strangeness of the dream while the center video keeps us centered on the reality of the situation. The left video is noisy and choppy representing the tendency to both forget dreams or remember fragments of it. We never get the whole. The right video is meant to be a foil as it is soft and one constant video meant to be a journey. This video is meant to be subjective and meant for everyone to find their own interpretation and meaning.

Video Triptych - Videos

What Dreams May Tell - Rest from Jasmine Alicea on Vimeo.

What Dreams May Tell - The Walk from Jasmine Alicea on Vimeo.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Musical Scores


Shown above is the musical score created for my whistle by David Kohut. Thinking about the nature of my whistle and the patterns this score created, I decided to read this score like a faint whisper. The three densities of the lines I saw on the score I assigned to one of the three workable blow tubes on my whistle. From there, I read the score very much how I would read or hear something like Morse code with the sounds the different tubes made and the changes they made when certain tubes were plugged. In the end, I played the score very much how I would want a faint message or tune to sound, and I aimed for the audience to concentrate so hard that it did cause a slight headache.


Shown below is the musical score I made for David Kohut's string balloon instrument. His instrument could make certain noises with the balloon under the strings and well as be controlled enough to create a reverb in tune. I aimed for the score to be in essence a downhill spiral with the sounds and noises getting softer and more distanced as the score was played on. In the end, I also wanted to create a sudden pop of noise via the popping of David's balloon. The idea was to start out strong and clear then get slower and softer as time went on until the audience loses attention. At the end, the pop was meant to bring attention back suddenly as well as give a fitting end.

Artist Instrument


For my artist instrument, I wanted to design something a bit different than the normal rubber band string instrument. I found myself really inspired by instruments like the ocarina and the whistle, and I wanted to create a wind instrument that was both quiet and soft like the wind yet held different pitches with each blow tube. Through the use of the 3D model maker, I was able to design this whistle. This whistle is unlike the rest as the sound it produces is faint and one needs to listen closely and concentrate to clearly make out the pitches. It is representative of the small things we fail to hear or see in life as we are surrounded by a fast life and loud noises.