Category: Creative Works

Art Makes Science: Making Visible the Invisible

Presenters: Jacob Armas, Mara Elise Peasley, Cortelle Pletcher, Morgan Janes

Faculty Mentor: Robert Voelker-Morris, Julie Voelker-Morris

Presentation Type: Creative Work 9 (GSH 117 Corridor)

Primary Research Area: Fine/Performance Arts

Twelve students participated in a First-Year Program seminar, Art Meets Science: Making Visible the Invisible, during Winter 2016. Throughout the seminar, students examined ways in which images, whether of the human body or the universe, are visually and artistically represented in public spaces. They further explored how such imagery tells us stories about our lives related to science. Students came to understand that, when placed within artistic contexts, scientific images change meaning over time and become part of our visual culture. Each student researched and analyzed a specific artist and area of scientific influence in that artist’s work. From this research, a final paper and online formal visual presentation was developed. Overarching findings and conclusions from this creative research process included the students discovering the implications of their individual research bias in the presentation of both scientific data as well as larger scientific and artistic philosophical arguments. Specifically, they better understood the abstraction of articulating physical, biological, astronomical and technological phenomena. Select research and artistic presentation of student work will be presented during this open session.

A County Divided: An Investigation of Race Re-segregation in Lane County Oregon Public Schools

Presenter: Anne Kloos

Faculty Mentor: Laura Smithers

Presentation Type: Creative Work 6 (GSH Great Room)

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: Education Foundations

Schools have become more segregated now than before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. That groundbreaking decision, which initiated the end of school segregation and helped to launch the Civil Rights Movement, was followed by policies and political actions that eroded the rights set forth by this legal action. A shift from federal to state oversight further diluted the progress of desegregation. This research investigates the issue of how and why our school system has become segregated again, specifically looking at Lane County schools. Through the use of primary literature this study looks at the nation as a whole and the historical context of segregation, then explores the history of Oregon’s racist laws and policies that have detrimentally affected the lives of non-whites within the state. Additionally, current demographics of public schools in Lane County are reviewed for race, class, and school achievement levels. Based on this information, schools in Lane County are currently segregated based on race and class levels; Schools that score high for achievement score low on diversity. Segregation is an issue that continues to impact the lives of individuals in Lane County and beyond.

Creative Exploration of Making an Effective Performance

Presenter: Evan Kline

Faculty Mentor: Chet Udell

Presentation Type: Creative Work 5 (GSH Art Gallery)

Primary Research Area: Fine/Performance Arts

Major: Music Technology

The problem that a lot of electronic musicians face is that their performance isn’t always intuitive to their audiences; the devices and gestures used don’t always translate into an understanding to the reactions of the performers actions. I created a thermal wand as a way to explore an alternative way to interact with sound. The motivation wasn’t to solve or collect data, it was to creatively explore the problem. The thermal wand is an aluminum rod with three temperature sensors (spaced evenly across the rod) along with an accelerometer. A computer receives data from the sensors, interprets it, and generates the sound. To play this instrument it is submerged in different temperature water baths, presenting two issues: Making it waterproof, and make it conduct heat efficiently. Waterproofing was solved by coating sensitive areas in plasti-dip, heat conductivity was solved through material choice and thermal grease. My performance will be the presentation of my work. Because of the design of the instrument I had to come up with a way to make an engaging performance. To do this I used a central metaphor (summer and winter) to enforce the connection between my actions and the musical reactions. I am continuing work on this instrument by creating a more approachable performance as well as finding new ways to use the temperature sensors.

Follow Your Fears: An Original Film Score

Presenter: Nathan Engelmann

Faculty Mentor: Robert Kyr

Presentation Type: Creative Work 4 (GSH 114)

Primary Research Area: Fine/Performance Arts

Major: Music Composition

To risk one’s life for the sake of thrill seeking takes an extraordinary type of person. The short film Follow Your Fears features one such person, BMX rider Brad O’ Neal, as he tries to execute a motorbike stunt that has never been attempted before. The film follows O’Neal in his preparations for the stunt, the complexities of which mirror the idiosyncrasies of his own personality and past. As I composed a re-score for this film, it was my goal not only to encapsulate the literal action and images on the screen, but to delve into the psychology of O’Neal as well. In my score, I explore O’ Neal’s fear, sense of humor, and spirituality, focusing on how these personality traits correspond with the structure of the film. To do this, I use various musical elements. Through orchestration and instrumentation, I encapsulate the colors and images of the film. Harmony, along with orchestration, are used to emphasize the emotional weight of the narration, As the narrative of the film develops, so do the musical motives. These motives (small, musical segments) relate to the themes of the film, and metamorphose as O’Neal works toward his goal.

Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang: A Posthumously Published Grouping of Romantic German Lieder Containing What Is Perhaps Meant to Be Schubert’s Unpublished Final Song Cycle of Heinrich Heine’s Poetry

Presenter: Thomas Dasso

Faculty Mentor: Laura Wayte, Stephen Rodgers

Presentation Type: Creative Work 3 (GSH Great Room Stage)

Primary Research Area: Fine/Performance Arts

Major: Music

Schubert is known as one of the finest composers of German art song. Among his many song cycles (a grouping of songs forming a narrative) is Schwanengesang (Swan-song), a cycle consisting of 14 songs with three different poets: Rellstab, Heine, and Seidl. Schwanengesang was published posthumously with little known about what order, if any, Schubert intended the music to appear.. However, due to some convincing evidence it is quite possible that Schubert meant for Heine’s poetry to remain in the order it originally appeared in Heine’s publication of Die Heimkehr (“The Homecoming,” 1826). A publication of these six songs as a “Heine Cycle” does not exist currently. After expanding on the new narrative handpicked by Schubert from Heine’s publication and a thorough musical analysis (including identifying repeated themes, harmonic relationships, and an overarching relationship among key areas to supplement the poetry’s narrative), a seamless body of work emerges from a previously vague assortment of music. With a thorough analysis and a live performance of the six songs, Scarley Liu and I, Tom Dasso, plan to introduce Schubert’s previously unknown cycle to the stage on voice and piano.
“A proper understanding of Schubert’s last works hangs in the balance…”—Richard Kramer

Traditional Butchering in Oregon; A Folkloric Film Analysis

Presenter: Sarah Buck

Faculty Mentor: John Baumann, Carol Silverman

Presentation Type: Creative Work 2 (GSH 116)

Primary Research Area: Humanities

Major: Folklore

For generations, the Speelman family of Grants Pass, Oregon have been the unconscious preservers of traditional methods of butchering that nearly died out in the early 1900s. Transmitting their knowledge from father to son
and brother to brother, this butchering family presents a unique piece of oft overlooked Oregon folklore. Within this fieldwork project, fieldworker Sarah Buck discusses the theory and methodology which was used during her research, from staples of the folklore discipline to Jim Dodge’s writing on bioregionalism. The folkloric aspects of the Speelman family’s trade is defined and discussed using Dan Ben-Amos’ Towards a Definition of Folklore in Context as a communal knowledge of butchering that is a small cross-section of antiquity which is transmitted through family members verbally and through imitation. The Speelman family’s story is told in short documentary format, in which the fieldworker utilizes filmed interviews, her research and photographs.

Spatia: A New Work for Digital Organ

Presenter: Alexander Bean

Faculty Mentor: Robert Kyr, Barbara Baird

Presentation Type: Creative Work 1 (GSH Great Room Stage) Primary

Research Area: Fine/Performance Arts

Major: Music Composition, Performance

The digital organ is a singularly unique instrument. The acoustic pipe organ is fixed in one location with a limited number of stops available to the organist. In contrast, the digital organ is mobile and when used in combination with a computer, offers the organist an infinite array of different stops. Unfortunately, composers and performers have hitherto ignored the unique capabilities of the digital organ. In my composition for digital organ, Spatia, I explore
the possibilities of composing specifically for digital organ. I designed a unique set of nine organ stops for each specific performance venue and date. Six of these stops feature sounds recorded from the performance. The three other stops feature the sound of the full organ altered by the resonant frequencies of the performance space (i.e. those pitches which sound the clearest in a particular room). One stop features the unaltered full organ sound, one stop features the full organ sound distorted by the resonant frequencies, and the final stop features the resonant frequencies without the full organ sound. In this presentation I will describe the methods used to create the digital organ stops and the compositional technique, followed by a performance of the composition with commentary about the structure of the piece. This composition explores the limitless potential of the digital organ, having implications for other composers and performers to embrace this instrument.