Spit Brimming With Futures, Penny Molesso

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

SPIT BRIMMING WITH FUTURES is an immersive video and audio installation that uses ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) to investigate the intersection of transgender and neurodivergent identity, expressing an urgent need to imagine stories about transgender, autistic people that affirm our agency and autonomy amidst a political climate that weaponizes neurodivergence to delegitimize trans experiences. The American political right’s vilification of transgender people is used to uphold structures of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy that become destabilized when rigid binary gender categories are challenged. The political right has a vested interest in keeping trans people out of public view, thus weaponizing …

Vitality, Bernadette K. Curl

Student Projects

Vitality is a study of life, joy, and motion. It is in response to the portraits of models in endless magazines made to look as though they mourn their own vitality, standing stock-still and vaguely bored. These images are also made as archival evidence that, as Phil Ochs said: “In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.”

These portraits were made under studio lighting on medium format, high speed, black and white negative film, and medium format, colour positive film. The materials are chosen for their ability to capture truth over fact.

I asked my subjects beforehand to …

Francesca, Madison B. Jones

2020 Symposium Creative Works

Created using instant film, this piece was taken apart and destroyed before a new image was formed. Looking at the image from the back and scraping and sanding at the layers of chemicals was an attempt at finding some remnant of the original image. It is delving into the idea of the importance of content within an image and explores the resurrection of an image in a new way.

Kai Duc Luong Interview, Stuart Hutson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio Born in 1975 in Phnom-Penh, KAI-DUC LUONG fled the oppressive Khmer Rouge regime from Cambodia to Vietnam to France, where his family settled in Paris, in 1978. KAI-DUC operates between Chicago and Paris. His artistic projects include video (art / doc / film), photography, and mixed media installations. His unconventional path as a self-taught outsider artist, trained in digital communication & systems engineering, gives him a unique perspective, at times questioning subject matters through the understanding of transmission and systems (e.g. the primary emotions, the five senses, the stages of grief, the art industry). His works have been …

Private Rainbows, Mikey F. Estes

Theses and Dissertations

I make art that refers to how the self is mediated through structures, objects, and images — a kind of self-portraiture that circles around its subject, reflecting a state of simultaneous formation and disintegration. Over the past few years, I have used my iPhone as a tool to make images of everyday life. As the user of this device, I am defined by both my presence and absence. I am interested in the process of locating the self within the scattered yet ordered space of the screen.

Paradise Entertainment's Feature Of The Week: Splint, Brittney Callahan

MFA in Photography and Integrated Media Theses

Watching television has been part of my daily ritual since childhood. Every time it was turned on, I was able to enter into new worlds that were exotic compared to my house. Each story on the screen filled me with hope, inspired me with passion, and took me to a place where everything, no matter how terrible, seemed to have a purpose, an arc, and an end. These visual narratives birthed the idea of an equational life, one that seemed simple and mathematical. After I realized that life couldn’t be firmly calculated, I decided to invent my own alternative realities …

Mdocs Poster-2018-04-02, Palestinian Voices: Lyd In Exile, Jesse Wakeman

MDOCS Publications

April 2, 6pm

Free and open to the public

Location: Somers Room

The Palestinian Voices series is organized and co-sponsored by the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS), the Environmental Studies and Sciences Program, International Affairs, Media and Film Studies, Art History, History, Hayat, and the Skidmore College Dean’s Office

Join us for a talk by Rami Younis and Sarah Friedland, and a screening of their work-in-progress documentary Lyd In Exile. Younis and Friedland have spent over three years researching and filming Lyd In Exile, and are in post-production. They will screen clips from their film and …

Mdocs Poster-2018-03-22, No Mas Bebes, Jesse Wakeman

MDOCS Publications

No Más Bebés tells the story of a little-known but landmark event in reproductive justice, when a small group of Mexican immigrant women sued county doctors, the state, and the U.S. government after they were sterilized while giving birth at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Marginalized and fearful, many of these mothers spoke no English, and charged that they had been coerced into tubal ligation — having their tubes tied — by doctors during the late stages of labor. Often the procedure was performed after asking the mothers under duress.

The mothers’ cause …

Mdocs Poster-2018-03-21, Free To Rock, Jesse Wakeman

MDOCS Publications

Wednesday, March 21, 2018 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (ET) PALMTN Davis Auditorium

FREE TO ROCK is a documentary film directed by 4-time Emmy winning filmmaker Jim Brown and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. Rock & Roll spread like an uncontrollable virus across Eastern Europe despite Communist attempts to outlaw it. Thousands of underground bands and millions of young fans who yearned for Western freedoms and embraced this music as the Sound of Freedom, helped fuel the nonviolent implosion of the Soviet regime. Free to Rock features Presidents, diplomats, spies and rock stars from the West and the Soviet Union …

Mdocs Poster-2018-02-06, Issam Nassar, Jesse Wakeman, Jordana Dym

MDOCS Publications

February 6, 6pm

Location: Payne Room

Free and open to the public.

In conjunction with the exhibition This Place

Part of the Palestinian Voices series, organized and co-sponsored by the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS), the Environmental Studies and Sciences Program, International Affairs, Media and Film Studies, Art History, History, Hayat, and the Skidmore College Dean’s Office

Join us for a lecture by Issam Nassar on the history of Palestinian photography. Nassar is a historian of the Modern Middle East and of Photography at Illinois State University. His work focuses on the modern Middle East and the history …

Mdocs Publication-2017-10-13, Documentary On Human Trafficking Screened At Bow Tie Cinema, Wendy Liberatore

MDOCS Publications

"Documentary on human trafficking to be screened at Bow Tie Criterion"

The Times Union

October 23, 2017

Author: Wendy Liberatore

Mdocs Publication-2017-10-22, Saratoga Springs Conference, Staff Report

MDOCS Publications

"Saratoga Springs conference, film screening to target sex trafficking"

The Saratogian

October 22, 2017

Author: Staff Report

Mdocs Poster-2017-10-10, Untouchable, Jesse Wakeman, Jordana Dym

MDOCS Publications

"Untouchable" Film Screening with Meerkat Media

Tue, October 10 @ 6:30pm, Emerson Aud

Followed by a panel discussion led by Meerkat Media

ABOUT THE FILM:

When the most powerful lobbyist in Florida discovers that the nanny has sexually abused his daughter, he harnesses his extraordinary political power to pass the toughest sex offender laws in the nation. UNTOUCHABLE chronicles his crusade, and its impact on the lives of several of the 800,000 people forced to live under the kinds of laws he has championed.

Mdocs Poster-2017-09-30, States Of Incarceration September 30th Events, Jesse Wakeman, Jordana Dym

MDOCS Publications

COMMUNITY CONVERSATION, States of Incarceration Saturday, September 30

9 a.m.–noon MASS STORY LAB: What is a prison for? Murray-Aikins Dining Hall, second floor

Work alongside community members to collaborate on creative strategies to strengthen communities while improving our criminal justice system.

Hear from storytellers who have been personally impacted by mass incarceration, and are interested in rehabilitation. Following the stories, audience members will be invited to participate in an interactive design process where community leaders and members collaborate on creative strategies to strengthen communities while improving our criminal justice system.

Through facilitated dialogue, we will form connections to create healing, …

Mdocs Publication-2017-09-02, States Of Incarceration, Kathleen Phalen-Tomaselli

MDOCS Publications

"States of Incarceration: Mount McGregor stories are part of national exhibit"

The Post Star

September 2, 2017

Author: Kathleen Phaeln-Tomaselli

Mdocs Publication-2017-08-31, Exhibit Spotlights Mass Incaceration, Indiana Nash

MDOCS Publications

"Exhibit spotlights mass incarceration"

The Daily Gazette

August 31, 2017

Author: Indiana Nash

Mdocs Publication-2017-07-20, Radio Dreams, Anonymous Anonymous

MDOCS Publications

"Radio Dreams: Skidmore Radio Offers Youth Program"

The Saratoga Today Newspaper

July 20, 2017

Author:

Mdocs Publication-2017-06-08, Photographer To Showcase Project At Skidmore, Joseph Phalen

MDOCS Publications

"Photographer to showcase project at Skidmore"

The Saratogian

June 8, 2017

Author: Joseph Phelan

Mdocs Publication-2017-05-12, Skidmore Student Reveals Archiving Project, Anonymous Anonymous

MDOCS Publications

"Skidmore Student Reveals Two Year Archiving Project of Senior Center"

Saratoga Today

May 12, 2017

Author:

Mdocs Publication-2017-03-08, Skidmore Grad To Talk About 'Buffet' Film, Bill Buell

MDOCS Publications

"Skidmore Grad to talk about 'Buffet' film"

The Daily Gazette

March 8, 2017

Author: Bill Buell

Mdocs Publication-2017-03-01, Emmy-Award Winning Producer To Screen Documentary, Anonymous Anonymous

MDOCS Publications

"Emmy-award winning producer to screen documentary at Skidmore College"

The Saratogian

March 2, 2017

Author:

Mdocs Poster-2017-02-13, After Trujillo, Jesse Wakeman, Jordana Dym

MDOCS Publications

Screening: "Despues De Trujillo"

Monday, February 13, 2017, at 6PM-8PM, Davis Auditorium

Después De Trujillo (After Trujillo) (2016) draws on media archives and filmmaking expertise to explore the connection between landscape and memory in the Dominican Republic.

The documentary film, which was first shown in the DR last fall, probes the relationships between dictatorship, modern architecture, and cultural memory.

Narrated by Dominicans, this journey through modern monuments, memory gardens, and contemporary ruins, reveals landscapes where the ghost of the Trujillo regime lingers.

Directors Lisa Blackmore and Jorge Domínguez Dubuc will be present for a discussion after the screening.

This event …

Mdocs Poster-2016-12-13, Student Showcase, Jordana Dym, Jesse Wakeman

MDOCS Publications

MDOCS Student Work Showcases

Tue, December 13 @ 6-8pm, Davis: Act I

Wed, December 14 @ 6-8pm, Davis: Act II

Check out what the students in DS courses have been up to this semester. For two nights, an array of video, audio, and multimedia work will be presented in Emerson auditorium.

Event organized by students in DS 251B: Festival Programming Followed by a reception with light snacks and refreshments.

Mdocs Publicaton- 2016-11-06, Photographer Touches The Soul Of Rock'n'Roll, Kathleen Phalen-Tomaselli

MDOCS Publications

"Photographer touches the soul of rock'n'roll with Grateful Dead, Phish, Neil Young and many more"

The Post Star

November 6, 2016

Author: Kathleen Phalen-Tomaselli

Mdocs Publication-2016-10-31, Rock Photographer Jay Blakesberg Speaks, Wendy Liberatore

MDOCS Publications

"Rock Photographer Jay Blakesberg speaks at Skidmore College"

The Times Union

October 31, 2016

Author: Wendy Liberatore

Mdocs Banner-2016-09-01, Project Vis Events, Jordana Dym, Jesse Wakeman

MDOCS Publications

List of all Fall 2016 Project VIS Events. Events include:

Ethics Bowl: The Ethics and Law in Media Production

Tue, September 27 @ 6-8pm, Emerson

Tackle the issues facing today's non-fiction storytellers and prepare yourself for the roadblocks to public use that media creators may come to realize only after wrapping production--often too late to resolve crucial rights and relationships. The session will combine brief presentations on law, ethics and methods with background and tips and group discussion by attendees who will grapple with a real-world case and come together to present solutions.

This hands-on training session is a …

Mdocs Program-2016-06-16, Storytellers' Spring St. Gallery, Nicky Tavares

MDOCS Publications

No abstract provided.

Mdocs Poster-2016-04-20, Student Showcases 2015-16, Jesse Wakeman

MDOCS Publications

Wed Apr 20: Video Projects 6:30-8pm, Emerson Auditorium

Fri Apr 29, Tang Art Party 8pm-midnight, Tang Museum

Contemporary Time-Based Media: presenting media installations

Intro to Audio: live on air via FM transmitter 2-5:30pm

Tue May 3, Video Storytelling 5-7pm, Somers Room, Tang Museum

Wed May 4, Academic Festival 3-4:20pm, Palamountain 300

Evidence-based audio, video, and exhibit projects from Doc Studies

Wed May 11, Audio Doc 1:30-4:30pm, LI 113

Mdocs Poster-2016-03-31, Virgin Blacktop Screening, Sam Marks

MDOCS Publications

Test Screening of Virgin Blacktop with local filmmaker Charlie Samuels.

Thu March 31 @ 7pm, Palamountain 202

This sneak peek screening of a feature length hybrid documentary 21 years in the making is to provide the director with audience critique and feedback. A personal coming-of-age story made with real film reel about a crew of wildly diverse kids from the suburbs of New York City in the 1970's who had nothing in common but skateboarding yet forged lifelong friendships.

Mdocs Poster, 2016-3-1, Youth Fx Visit, Michael Zhou

MDOCS Publications

No abstract provided.