Autobiographical Media Project_Assignment 5.2 – A5 pt2 Studio Review

A5 pt2 Studio Review (Austar Vannak | s3753838)

To begin, the media studios exhibition that we held recently was a major success. The media studio that I enrolled in for this semester, Autobiographical Media was a self-reflective, delightful, and educational adventure. I got to discover new forms of autobiographical pieces of artwork, create artworks and was made aware of a variety of autobiographical concepts and views that I was unaware of before from this media studio. Further to that, seeing everyone’s displayed autobiographical media works has been both delightful and eye-opening. Since we’re a media studio that requires us to share a moment from our personal lives, it definitely takes bravery for all of us to be open-minded and confident enough here to share our media artworks with the general public audience.

Nonetheless, upon reflecting on others’ media work presented on our media studio website, I was particularly impressed by Zoe Nikolakopoulus’ board game ‘Imposter!‘ and Amy Gillies’ film work, ‘Earth To Amy‘. Nikolakopoulus created an autobiographical board game for the artwork ‘Imposter!‘ that takes the audience on a journey through the good and bad of adjusting from finishing Year 12 to graduating from university while also getting to know Nikolakopoulus (the artist). Following that, Nikolakopoulus used the board game ‘Imposter!‘ to explore the concepts of confession and autobiography as she shared the challenges she faced upon entering university, as well as feeling the burden of having imposter syndrome while surrounded by countless talented people in a creative university course. ‘Imposter!‘ was a brilliant concept in general. As a university student going through a similar journey, I found the game to be incredibly witty and relatable. On the other hand, for the autobiographical artwork ‘Earth To Amy‘, Gillies accumulated a collection of old and new personal archives of videos and photos. As mentioned in her artist statement, Gillies seeks to reveal her identity through an exploration of connecting her past and present selves. Gillies, as stated in her artist statement, seeks to reveal her identity through an investigation of the connections between her past and present selves. Gillies relates to the themes of memory, vulnerability, family, and self in relation to autobiographical media insights, which correlate well to confessional and self-portrait media concepts. In a similar way, this film work ‘Earth To Amy‘ was an impeccable way of looking back on one’s life. By comparing her past and present selves, Gilles reflects well on the studio course prompt as stated.

Aside from reflecting and reviewing our own studio exhibition worksite, another media studio called ‘Poetic Video‘ piqued my interest. To briefly describe the media studio, ‘Poetic Video‘ is a media studio that experiments with capturing the every day and potentially unnoticed qualities of our experiences in our world through a poetic approach. Furthermore, this studio seeks to explore and make practical, poetic hybrid forms of media in viewing the infinite qualities of life by supplying this studio as a tool to capture those personal experiences.

Following this, after analysing this media studio website and the works produced, two media works titled ‘The Inner Loneliness‘ and ‘Freedom Fragmented‘ caught my attention. In the work, ‘The Inner Loneliness‘, the artists invite the audience to a six-part Instagram series that explores and embraces the many facets of loneliness in their work. In further detail, this Instagram account series studies and makes forms of art in expressing the feeling of loneliness that we had been experiencing in the struggles living in this post-pandemic world. In correlation to the studio media prompt, ‘The Inner Loneliness‘ associates excellently as this media work archives the moments of loneliness that we encounter every day through an artistic and poetic approach. Further on, the second artwork analysed is ‘Freedom Fragmented‘. ‘Freedom Fragmented‘ is a film collaboration inspired by the Korsakow project. In this media work, the artists correlated scenic videos with interviews gathered from participants involved in this media work in which they expressed their thoughts on how they feel and what freedom means to them. ‘Freedom Fragmented‘ fits the media studio prompt perfectly. As previously stated in the studio’s description, ‘Poetic Video‘ is used to capture personal experiences. Thus, this media project relates well to the studio as ‘Freedom Fragmented‘ records archives of personal experiences through the topic of freedom.

In short, ‘Poetic Video‘, in a way was similar to the key ideas and insights of ‘Autobiographical Media‘, the media studio in which I participated this semester. Although ‘Poetic Video‘ does not require work about ourselves, the studio does include components of expressing our inner feelings in a poetic and banal manner. Ultimately, the media studio ‘Autobiographical Media‘ has helped to strengthen my creative skills and the opportunity to explore and reflect on my life in such depth. Furthermore, as mentioned previously in my past blog reflections, completing this course has taught me to not ignore the ‘just keep living life’ motto, but to reflect and look back on life every once in a while occasionally.

 

Total Word Count: 820 words

 

Reference List

Mediafactory 2022, ‘Imposter! – Zoe Nikolakopoulos’, See Me: a collection of autobiographical work, viewed on 02 June 2022,<https://www.mediafactory.org.au/2022-autobiographical-media/2022/05/31/imposter-zoe-nikolakopoulos/>.

Mediafactory 2022, ‘Earth To Amy’, See Me: a collection of autobiographical work, viewed on 02 June 2022,<https://www.mediafactory.org.au/2022-autobiographical-media/2022/05/31/earth-to-amy-amy-gillies/>.

Mediafactory 2022, ‘The Inner Loneliness’, Poetic Video, viewed on 02 June 2022,<https://www.mediafactory.org.au/2021-flex-poetic-video/2021/12/13/the-inner-loneliness/>.

Mediafactory 2022, ‘Freedom Fragmented’, Poetic Video, viewed on 02 June 2022,<https://www.mediafactory.org.au/2021-flex-poetic-video/2021/12/09/freedom-fragmented/ >.