A Questioner’s Journey
Cornstarch, water, and a subwoofer: three ingredients to instill a life of wonder and design into a child.
Growing up amongst the corn fields and dirt roads of Minnesota contained little in the way of artistic occupancy. My father, a lighting designer by trade, pushed hard to foster a sense of curiosity amongst us children. From giant PVC orbs in the front yard to transcendental walks in the woods, I was taught to question. One evening I watched as my dad mixed cornstarch and water on a paper plate, then placed it on top of a subwoofer. DOOOH. The speaker began to pulse with deep notes. I watched as a once lifeless combination of organic and technological components came together to make something truly unique. The material stood and walked, as if the speaker gave it life. What if we had two speakers? What if we used thirty tiny speakers? What if we colored the mixture? I didn’t know it then, but this curiosity would continue to grow into the fabric of who I am. Although this synopsis does little to timeline the specific events that landed me on the application page for this program, I feel it is more telling. For me, this program is here to push these lifelong curiosities I’ve had and to evolve them into tangible creative skills and to make things that push the next generation of thinkers.
As my understanding of the digital world has grown, so too has my fascination with the narrative within it. With a majority of my creative experience in film, I am curious to what extent these worlds can meld. Moving forward I want to blur the boundaries between applications as tools and the narrative of entertainment content. For roughly a hundred years we have experienced narrative content through screens. This however limits the sensory experience to a flat two dimensional realm. I am excited to explore the possibilities of these narrative experiences through in person experiences.
Entering this program I bring with a handful of creative skills but am excited to master others. Like many in my generation I possess skills in video production, digital art platforms like Photoshop, and some coding knowledge. Moving forward I want to strengthen my coding abilities to create things that answer my above mentioned questions about narrative experiences. I feel that my current skill set would only excel in creating the content itself but needs improvement to create new ways of experiencing it.
A difficult admittance, but this program scared me. It scared me because I had no idea what I would create on the other side. Set to begin a journey to make anything I wanted, I had no concept of what that would be. For the first time in my creative life, I was at square one. I wanted to have a set goal, a tangible point of victory. I realized however that this feeling would never go away. As a creative, I will always seek to know more and to answer the questions that I have. I don’t know where I will be when this program ends or what I would make given zero restraints. What I do know is that I will be prepared for a life of this process. A life of creation, questioning, and hopefully inspiration to the next generation of kids from corn fields in Minnesota.
