Advanced Projects in Digital Media Vanessa De Jesus Spring 2012 Final Concept

Cherrie Moraga Mexican-American Playwright Personal quote: “Sometimes a breakdown can be the beginning of a kind of breakthrough, a way of living in advance through a trauma that prepares you for a future of radical transformation.” Influential quotes: Thoughts: Reminds me of a repetitive cycle that I experience with my illness Being isolated in the hospital to shifting quickly to the actual world It becomes a process of starting life over again

Sandra Cisneros Mexican American writer "I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.” - Ch.35 pg.29 The House on Mango Street (Published, 1984) Personal quote: “I was silent as a child, and silenced as a young woman; I am taking my lumps and bumps for being a big mouth, now, but usually from those whose opinion I don't respect. ”

Sandra Cisneros (Continued) Thoughts: Gender and cultural identity (sub themes for final concept)

“With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming of him.” Jorge Luis Borges The Circular Ruins Thoughts: To an extent my own experiences have felt like a dream Dreams vs. Reality Memories

Jo Spence British Photographer ( ) “How do I begin to take responsibility for my body?” (1985 ) Started as studio photographer and changed to documentary photography to follow her passion on educating people on important topics Jo was a feminist and political artist who saw an importance in bringing awareness to women “A Picture of Health” is a series of photographs taken by Jo where she documents her battle with breast cancer. The series is meant to express her feelings towards medical institutions relationship with patients which she addresses as negative through her experiences. Influential Contemporary Artists:

Jo Spence (Continued) British Photographer ( ) Jo Spence, “Self-Portrait” Subjects included in the work: The human body and its vulnerability Class and gender oppression (Represented in the Infantile photographs)

“Rosy works both as an artist using self-portraiture, still life photography, digital imaging, and video, and as a photo-therapist exploring the relationships between photography, memory, identities, and unconscious processes. Starting in 1983, working with the late Jo Spence, she evolved and developed a new photographic practice - phototherapy - based upon re-enactment. Her work makes explicit the multiplicity of identities that an individual inhabits, using the 'self' as a text to be deconstructed, reviewed, challenged and reconsidered. This work bridges private and public discourses, theory and practice. Themes explored in exhibitions and articles include gender, sexuality, ageing, class, desire, memory, location, urbanism, shame, family dynamics, power/powerlessness, health and disease, bereavement, grief, loss and reparation...” -rosymartin_info.phprosymartin_info.php Rosy Martin Photographer and Photo-therapy facilitator

“ To close to home? is an inquiry into the texture of place and memory through the notions of absent presence. The work includes metaphors for the process of ageing. As my starting points I drew upon family myths and a detailed exploration of memories of a specific place. I am using photography and video to explore and isolate tiny details and fragments, so the audience only builds up a sense of the space over time. By pushing at the edge of legibility I enable the audience to project their own meanings upon the images, which symbolize and stand in for the continuity and discontinuity of change over time.” -Rosy Martin, Tooclosetohome?Tooclosetohome? Rosy Martin Photographer and Photo-therapy facilitator “Hairnet”, Rosy Martin

Final Proposal The concept for this project will consist of another personal piece based on my feelings towards my illness and how it has control over my body and life I want to generate thoughts about myself and my reactions to the world around me when stepping out of the hospital to perhaps how it has affected in present time

A new theme I would like to add to my concept is that of the identity of the Latina woman – Oppressed sick female vs. Oppressed female Powerless Final Proposal (Continued ):

Time and Space Length of film 4 to 5 minutes I will produce a non-linear narrative based off memories and current events to differentiate different days, spaces, conversations, etc I also plan on creating an animated representation of my kidneys and tumors and what I believe happens when I’m physically and emotionally affected