Month: March 2023

Who am I? I am so many things but at the core I am an artist, I am queer, and I am kind of a bad ass. I want to work creatively on projects and realize all the fantasies I had as a child that I never thought could come true in a million years. I will do this for the little boy who grew up isolated, defeated, and afraid to be himself. I want to and will accomplish this because I am determined to do everything my younger self thought was completely unachievable. I want to stay in the film industry and help create works that I find interesting and inspiring. This could potentially keep me in Seattle or move me anywhere across the globe. I have an incredibly open mind and would love to try various places on for size. In my work I want to give voice to characters who are underrepresented in the mainstream media, whether that be folks of color, with disabilities, queer individuals, etc. I want to use my voice to tell kids like me that I see them, and I care, and that I will be a voice they can listen and relate to. 

This week we heard from Brooke Montgomery, creative director for Cut studio in Seattle. Their mission is to open people’s minds to things they have not had much interaction with and to pose challenging questions with the purpose of broadening an individual’s horizons. After spending a significant amount of time watching videos from the studio, I produced my own version of a Cut game. For my proposal I thought of a “Never Have I Ever” scenario. I feel like there is an extremely broad range of ages, races, nationalities, body types, etc. within the design and visual media programs that this game would elicit a variety of reactions. I think the main takeaway would be how different our individual life experiences are from each other. If we gathered 5 students from each respective program we would have a truly diverse range of players, then we could potentially have a panel of faculty members lead the “never have I evers” and the students would respond accordingly. I believe many of the younger students would have vastly different experiences than the older students. The various answers would sway in many directions, and I think that the results would be both informative and hysterical. 

This week I attended a “MetaParty” in the metaverse. I was originally very apprehensive about participating in any of these events. After spending 30 minutes at this metaparty, I have concluded that my apprehensions were entirely justified. I can absolutely see the social appeal of the metaverse. Especially in a world just starting to put itself back together after a global pandemic. Being able to occupy the same space virtually has a lot of benefits to people who may be stuck in their home or who live far away from friends and family. Beyond that is where my sympathies abruptly come to an end. I find the idea of spending real money on virtual “wearables” is a deep marketing ploy to indoctrinate children into a capitalistic market before they are even old enough to realize what that is. I also find the graphics to be entirely repulsive. Tying that in with a virtual housing market that (just like in reality) is completely geared towards people who can afford it, which is not actually very many people, I find it to be entirely repugnant. The fact that there are “slums” available to those who do not “want” to go for a full property is just entirely against my morals. I do not see myself ever visiting the metaverse again, and if I never do, it would still be too soon.