Gerry Fialka

Dear Gerry,

Your group discussion was intensely enjoyable. I found your words and stories to be inspirational throughout. I felt that I needed a personal courtroom stenographer to keep track of all my ideas that kept escaping from my mind. I really connected and was comforted by your constant topic and relating to humans and how they have "destroyed" art and nature with their technological advancements. I felt that their was such a compression of facts that I couldn't keep up, and I unfortunately found myself lingering too long on one thing that you said. However, it was your interaction with the crowd that kept me interested and continually excited.

Your presence was so energetic and the whole presentation was completely not what I was expecting. The fact that while attending a visiting artists lecture I saw not one piece of his or anyone other persons art stirs my mind. I admittedly was caught off-guard with being questioned right as I entered the room, and I vaguely even remember what my answer was. However, after being seated, I found it very interesting to observe and listen to what others answers were. If I were given the chance again, my revised answer would be "a human".

Having not known anything, and still not knowing anything about you or your work I feel I will be easily able to connect and enjoy it. Knowing and relating to your views and beliefs will probably allow me to see your art differently than if I had not experienced your discussion beforehand. However, having further researched your links and biographies, I struggle to decipher what it is you really are, besides human.

Great Thanks,
Giancarlo D

100 Words About Me, Myself, and I

I am confusingly awkward and hopefully awkwardly confusing. I thrill in representing miscommunication and disconnect between vision and mind. I respect what deserves to be respected, but withhold when I truly feel otherwise. I often feel overwhelmed by my minds processes of disrupting my thoughts. Constant triggers of creativity remove me from the living world’s reality and throw me in a place where time stops and ideas are fulfilled with ease. I enjoy this disconnect, but when I snap back into life I regret the time I spend there. I think that falling behind is my greatest fear of all.

60 Second Shots?

I very much enjoyed the concept of a 60 second shot. I believe that using a short limited video as one of the main components for a piece allows an easier display for the common viewer. Their attention span has been manipulated by society into being minimal, but in the presence of a short video it experiences moments of expansion. This project has inspired me to create an entire series of short videos of a particular theme.

I liked that you could try to squeeze a story or meaning in a medium that is usually considered to be more time consuming for viewing. I found it interesting that with viewing others videos, it seemd that it often gave such a long length of time.

Sometimes I am guilty of the quick view that most give to any particular piece of art, but I think that having a main focus of the works being that its short gives the viewer some sort of incentive to continue watching. However, what if the description is in no way related to the piece itself except for the purpose to draw attention? Why must there always be a correspondence between the art and its displayed label? Isn't the "art" enough just by iteself?

What I Love About Video Art

Through my experiences so far, I think its safe to say that I have mixed feelings about video art. The whole discussion and argument about the origins and the influences of the field really put me in a mind bind during my first interactions with video art last semester. However, after that mini-rant, I do enjoy the freedom that video art seems to lend as a major importance. I feel like working with this medium offers a lot of expansion and growth throughout the creation process.

I suppose it's just because of the restrictions that assignments gave that I sometimes struggled with some of my videos, however, I have realized that my own personal endeavors have yielded less difficulties probably due to this fact.

I traditionally have a very minimalistic and simplistic style with my art works and I have generally tried to work that way with my videos as well by using less after effects and editing, but I did try some manipulations with projects that were done in Video Art I.