scenario one: a disaster just happened in my life
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The first week of class Joshua Trees, a practicing artist and designer as well as one of our teacher’s, was our first guest. He opened up his demo by explaining that he lost all of his work on his hard drive because his computer crashed. He had some examples of his work saved on VHS along with some screen shots and uploaded sites. Even with the limited work he presented to us, he edited the work to reflect his experience. For example, he showed us work that represented both his art and design backgrounds. I felt that he showed us work that fairly represented him. Throughout his discussion he remained articulate and did not allow this disaster to affect the flow of his presentation. Our discussion bypassed the personal and morphed into our discussions of Design verses Art. I was intrigued to hear about his experience of starting a design company in graduate school while at the same time continuing a fine art practice and how their identities formed. He first had two separate names, one for his fine art practice and one for his design company. He later formed it into Fake I.D., which incorporates both worlds. Joshua Trees did not allow the complication of losing his work destroy his presentation or his direction of the dialogue.

scenario two: my life is a disaster
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On week four Jamie Levy, the founder of Electronic Hollywood, presented
a documentation of her life and work. Jamie was brutally honest about her work and her depiction of her personality, which negatively cast a shadow on her accomplishments. In a linear fashion, she showed work which she labeled “crap,” early video art where she stars as the troubled skateboarder in LA. The more interesting work she presented last which was not a good decision because we had formed an assumption of her. The more compelling pieces such as CyberRag and Cyber Slacker were given a muddy appearance due to her dialogue about her personal life as well as her previous video art that should have not been shown at all. Jamie’s self-initiation of getting CyberRag out to book stores in the early 1990s demonstrated her determination of getting her work out in the world. Working in New York seemed difficult for her and her career ended in New York when the trade towers fell from the sky. She ended our conversation by stating that certain media types such as cell phones need re-designed or they need new interfaces. She even brought up Ebay and other online shopping as models of future interest. I found it more compelling to hear about her design experience and wish she had focused more on design experience than dating in LA.