Students - 2008 Summer Institute

Media and the Senses

Seventh Annual Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities
An Intensive Introduction to Scholarly Research for Undergraduates

June 23 – August 22, 2008

Overview
Faculty
Students
Schedule
Exhibit & Symposium

Julia Bruk, DXArts

About twenty one years ago in the town of Smolensk, Russia, I was one girl born out of ten children that day. Moving to Seattle at six, I grew up alongside two cultures as well as two mind sets. My background is in molecular biology but I have always been an artist at heart, more so a creator. As a third year in the Digital Arts and Experimental Media program, I am able to explore both loves of my brain, which has lead me to an interest in people's perceptions. My projects involve finding ways to alter people's visual and sensual views to create "aha" moments and cause questioning of environments. In addition, I'm a freelance photographer/ designer and creative writer and love dogs although my spirit animal is the platypus.

Gretchen Cook, Design Studies and Women Studies

I am a senior in Design and Women Studies. My research is focused on how society constructs and understands the birthing process and motherhood. I want to look into how the images and stories we hear about birth affect the outcome and our expectations on new mothers. The US birth statistics are appalling with maternal and infant mortality on the rise; I want to understand the broader implications and possible solutions. I see the opportunity to close the communication gap with different forms of media. I see the right to have informed consent in the birthing process as a reproductive choice. When I am not studying I enjoy listening to NPR (Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is the best!), cooking, knitting, quilting, and spending time with my family.

William Damon, English, Laws, Societies & Justice

I am worried about the future. I find hope in things like critical theory, human rights, subversive discourse, and dreams of social upheaval. I spend my time reading, writing, watching movies, camping, and repurposing public space.

Brittany Dennison, Philosophy and Creative Writing

I am not a Southerner, contrary to popular belief. Saint Louis, Missouri, my place of birth and residence for eighteen years, is in the Midwest. "Chaucer wrote fart jokes" has become my personal motto and mantra (see The Miller's Tale in Canterbury Tales), as it reminds me that, yes, poetry, despite its reputation, isn't all ravens and wastelands and roads diverged, but also farts and hamsters and steak and all the other wonderful topics of life that aren't covered in dust and cat hair. Remember, poetry isn't dead, it's just a zombie, one that I intend to bring back to full health. I'm also interested in exploring the intersections of unlikely pairs, like biochemistry and poetry, psychology and metaphysics, humor theory and philosophy of religion, and how studying unusual combinations can unlock doors of knowledge that we didn't even know existed. In my free time, I think about William Shatner and haircuts.

Claire Fox, Comparative History of Ideas and Comparative Literature

I'm a second-year student in the Comparative History of Ideas and Comparative Literature departments. My fundamental problem with academics is that I'm chronically in awe of the areas I wish to study (lately including video art, portraiture, and pataphysics) and can rarely hold still long enough to respond to set standards or deadlines. My goal for the summer? To harness my airheaded sense of wonder and create something fresh.

Andrew Franks, Digital Arts

I am a senior in the Digital Arts program with a focus in film and video. I have been making films since I was a child and fascinated by the idea of using visuals to convey a story or emotions. Having a strong art background, I incorporate a variety of mediums in the films I make, ranging from building miniatures to designing the sets; anything to personalize and expand the film’s universe. Recently I have been working with 3D graphics and animation and have been researching ways of parenting both 3D and video.

Sol Hashemi, Photography

I am a member of Punch Gallery, a top Seattle artists co-op, as well as the chair of the Students of the Henry Art Gallery (SHAG) Artist's Committee. I am in the Honors Photography program working towards a BFA. Even though I am studying photography and the nature of images, I have no attachment to a single medium. The results of my explorations with the world around me become what I show, in whatever form they may be. I feel that the role of the artist is to be at the forefront of research and new thought in the humanities.

Sohroosh Hashemi, Business Administration

I am studying business, particularly entrepreneurship, because business is a means to achieve something else. In particular, I am interested in using business to enable the creation of art. For the purposes of the Summer Institute, I will examine apparel as a multi-sensory media and how specific audiences react to and interact through apparel. Outside of school, I enjoy screen-printing, running (every once in a while), and sunsets.

Jason Hirata, Studio Art and Comparative History of Ideas

I try to define and understand the world through my art. I am interested in the human being's innate ability to perceive selectively, interchangeability of meaning and the language of materiality and perception. I use photography, sculpture, performance, drawing and writing in my art.

Ari K.P. Kirby, Classics, Greek, Linguistics and English

I enjoy academic work which is formally precise and methodologically self-aware with a detailed theoretical background. I dislike purposeful ignorance of empirically collected information and patronizing dismissals of socially critical theories. I enjoy eating very much and I must say I’ve become very good at it.

Seungwha Lee, Art History and Communication

As a student studying both Art History and Communication, I became aware of how people use visual communication to manipulate and maneuver culture. Realizing that images are produced by culture and reproduce culture, it made me think more critically about the representations on the Media today. So through the Summer Institute opportunity, I want to began looking at representation of the marginalized groups in the media and how they shape our society. I plan to develop more comprehensive research project that I will continue to delve into through graduate school.

Kendal Lund, English

As an English major I have concentrated on modern and postmodern American poetry. My research interests include multimedia poetry, sound poetry, and the ways that technology is changing the relationship between poet, text, and reader. I am interested in poetic forms as forms of thought, and how technology has influenced the ways that poets play and think about language. I am also intrigued by sound poetry as a means of dismantling the phonetic units of language in order to rearrange them into entirely new auditory sensations.

Jennifer Mao, Photography and Psychology

My work in photography and art is largely grounded in my interest in psychology and the ways in which the two disciplines can inform or intersect with one another. I am interested in investigating the idea of perception not only in the context of an individual's personal biology and psychology, but how this influences and is influenced by a larger societal context. In doing so, I hope to examine the inherent ambiguity of our surrounding environment, and deconstruct the subconscious ways in which individuals decode the overabundance of information that arises from the world around us.

Nishali Nanayakkara, Comparative History of Ideas

Hello, I’m a CHID major with a focus in visual storytelling, but I’m also interested in how media, the Internet, and technology in general affects and shapes the brain on a neurological and cognitive level. In my out-of-school life, I write short stories and screenplays and am working to get more involved in the actual filmmaking process. My interests tend to spill over into my pastimes, so besides sleeping and wasting time, I love watching films. I enjoy following major plot and character movements and noticing the way scenes are shot – my friends hate watching movies with me.

Laura Paul, Comparative History of Ideas and Digital Arts

Nichole Poinski, Comparative Literature

I am a soon-to-be-senior majoring in Comparative Literature. I am interested in European Modernism and the movement's relationship to past and future eras in art. Libraries, coffee, and pretty things are among my favorites.

Christopher Stevenson, English and Creative Writing

Justin Vice, Comparative History of Ideas

I like sound, especially the way it's organized. I think there's something fun in the
ways we organize sound, and all vibrations, so I want to spend some time in an auditory
sandbox.

Regina Wandler, Community, Environment & Planning and Comparative History of Ideas

I am a native Cascadian who considers myself a feminist(humanist)-environmentalist who loves reading and playing in the woods. I'm a double major in Community Environment and Planning and Comparative History of Ideas, which complement each other perfectly. My minors, Architecture and Program on the Environment, are legacies of my previous education program misfit experiences, but I still love them anyway. I'm interested in dialogue, education, gender constructions, sexuality, fantasy, natural resource management, policy, how communities function and empowerment, and how each of this things relate to each other and to the larger world. My favorite authors at the moment are Irigaray, Cixous, and LeGuin, and when I'm not in class this summer, I'll be reading them and others or camping. After that, who knows? I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do, but I'm not too worried - I'll figure it out someday.

Sarah Wang, Informatics

I am a junior beginning to study Informatics. I am part of the Asian American community; Chinese/Taiwanese American, to be more specific. I am not native to Seattle, but nor am I genuinely native to any other places; I am a cultural hybrid due to numerous family relocations. I am not a keen reader, but nor am I genuinely keen in any other perceptual activities; I am a sensory hypocrite due to information overflow. I am well fed, yet I hunger at the same time. I think I am interested in analyzing the relation between learning and media usage, between our identity and media consumption, between social inequality and media exposure. I guess I still think.
I blame on the media too much.