By LAUREN SEARS
Staff Writer,
BLAISE BRYANT
Contributing Writer,
and LAUREN KLOSE
Staff Writer
A collaborative effort between the Communications and Art departments is being started by Saint Rose Professors Elizabeth Richards and Susan Meyer.
Students in the communications course Multimedia Storytelling are currently working with art students in the course 3D Concepts to create an exhibit set to open on April 17.
Students from each department are taking different roles in the project, with the specifics determined by major.
“Susan and I started discussion in early September 2013 about collaborating in our own work, as she is a sculptor and I am a video artist and filmmaker,” said Richards.
“We were exploring the idea of combining our chosen media into a hybrid project. Since we were fairly well consumed with teaching, we thought a good first place to start would be to have our classes collaborate.”
The art students have the task of creating the non-representational sculptures for the exhibit. The sculptures will be made out of a thin plastic material that will then be filled with air to create an inflatable sculpture.
“I have always been intrigued by the use of unusual screens to project my films on,” said Richards. As the professors discussed the idea further, the project began to come together.
While the classes have limited face-to-face contact, students have been keeping in touch via Blackboard, sending each other pictures as well as videos with questions to be answered.
While the 3D Concepts students focus on the physical aspects of the project, the Multimedia Storytelling class has been split up into five different groups: audio, video, documentary, public relations, and journalism.
The video team is working to record video shots of both city and country life that will be projected onto the inflatables during the exhibit.
Students working with audio have recorded different sounds for each setting. Both groups will be working together to determine placement of projectors and speakers for the exhibit.
During the collaboration a team of students will be documenting the process on both sides to show the progression made throughout the project.
Public relations students will be producing different forms of promotion for both the project and the information on each story regarding the project. Lastly, journalism students are working with different forms of media such as print, broadcast and radio to inform Saint Rose students of the process of the project and what to expect.
“My hope is that [the students] will not only learn to work with students outside of their discipline, but that the project will open up avenues for their own academic and personal growth,” said Richards.
Richards concluded that she further hopes “[the students] will have a new way in which they can express themselves, and that they will learn to trust the creative process, and learn to appreciate the happy accidents that inevitably arise.”
