In my creative work and in my teaching, I try to emphasize the importance of process: the necessity of taking time to sit with images and ideas, to let the mind wander, to fossick, as Ross Gibson has put it, thereby de-emphasizing – if only temporarily – the inexorable pull towards polished outcomes. In this brief post, I’d like to share some early process work of Long Xi Vlessing*, a senior undergrad student at Concordia who was hired by us to help develop a visual sensibility for Orphans 2022. While Long Xi’s work might not be especially evident in the visual identity upon which we ultimately settled (courtesy of Buenos Aires-based graphic designer Valeria Kriletich) it was, I believe, a necessary step in arriving at this identity. And, frankly, it’s too good not to include here. 🙂 Valeria and Long Xi ultimately worked together on several aspects of the symposium’s design: she on the print components (t-shirts, posters, program, etc), he on the animations and trailer.
Series 1 – Remediations of a home movie shot by Helen Hill in her New Orleans neighborhood, ca. 2000-2003. Super 8 film degraded by floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina (2005). Scanned by BB Optics for NYU MIAP Program, Harvard Film Archive, and the Hill Estate.
Series 2 – Remediations of Optagelser fra Vestrgønland ~ WESTERN GREENLAND (1935), courtesy Danish Film Institute
Series 3 – Remediations of Home Movie 12108: Hirota Collection (golfing, nd), courtesy Prelinger Archive.
*Long Xi was an especially talented student in COMS493 Counter-Archives and Residual Media Production, a senior research-creation course I developed and led in 2021. I’m delighted to report that he graduated with great distinction from Concordia’s Department of Communication Studies in Spring 2022.