One Minute Video Festival showcases AFO student submissions

Mark Robinson
Assistant Spectrum Editor

A horde of art foundation students crammed into the Grace Street Theater this past Thursday to attend the first ever AFO 60x60x60 One Minute Video Festival.

The event showcased 60 60-second videos by 60 AFO students. Entries were considered by a panel of judges for each of the festival’s five awards: the longest minute, the shortest minute, the laugh-a-minute, the gorgeous minute and the unforgettable minute.

The judges weren’t in charge of every honor, though; those in attendance were given laser pointers to cast their vote for the audience choice award.

Student submissions were developed in Time Studio, one of the four art foundation core studio classes. The course focuses on what first-year instructor Stephanie Benassi calls “endurance and time based work,” which includes sound, performance, photography and video.

Students in Benassi’s section were faced with a series of assignments incorporating each of the four components of Time Studio. First, students found recyclable materials (bottle caps, tin cans, plastic jugs) and crafted instruments for an in-class performance.
After the performance, students recorded their instruments and penned a (Dada-influenced) onomatopoeia poem from sounds derived from their soundtrack.

Next, students wrote a poetic visual score to illustrate their onomonopoeia poems. They took pictures they felt embodied their soundtrack. Finally, the stills were then synced over the soundtrack, completing the video component of the course.

Ryan Martin, a freshman in the AFO program, is in Benassi’s Time Studio section and had her video featured in the show.

She describes her video as a collage of still images that sync with the rhythm of her soundtrack. The staccato sounds in her piece are meant to reflect the transitory nature of the images.

“I was afraid it would just look like a cheesy slideshow or something. But once I experimented with the software, I discovered lots of cool stuff that I never knew I could do with video art,” Martin said.

“For me, I think that was the most valuable part of the assignment – my discovery that there is a whole new area that I now get to explore and learn.”

Martin credits the AFO program for giving its students the opportunity to explore different artistic avenues that they may not have discovered otherwise.
“I think the AFO program is really good for leveling the playing field and uniting students who come from so many different backgrounds and levels of art experience,” Martin said. “It’s a lot of work, but it really does make us better, and it’s what we love to do, so it’s definitely worth it.”

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Photos by Amber-Lynn Taber