The Student Academy Awards currently offer prizes in four categories: Alternative, Animation, Documentary and Narrative. Gold, silver, and bronze awards are given in each category, with accompanying cash grants of $5,000, $3,000, and $2,000, respectively. A separate award is given annually to a student filmmaker from outside the United States. To extend the impact and honor beyond the competition, a compilation presentation of the gold medal award-winning films is circulated each year free of charge to educational and non-profit organizations nationwide.

Grella is using his Animation Hotline Project website to put together the piece. He started the project about a year ago as a way to gather fresh ideas for content based on voice messages left by visitors and has generated approximately 85 animations from them so far. He is currently looking for messages that follow the theme of “the other.” For more information about his project or to contribute a message, visit the Animation Hotline Project.

The Violin from Dustin Grella on Vimeo.

Top image: still from Dustin Grella’s Hug My Dog.

When Centiner was alerted via e-mail that there was an intruder in his apartment, he called 911 and ran home. “I couldn’t get in because he locked the deadbolt from the inside,” he said. Centiner then shouted, “You’re being recorded, and the police are on the way!” When the police arrived moments later, Centiner used his smartphone to show them a photo of the man entering his top-floor apartment through a window off the fire escape. The law officers ended up finding the man hiding in the courtyard outside of the building and made the arrest.

To read more, visit the New York Post, CBS New York, and Gothamist.

MFA Computer Art Department faculty member and alumnus John F. Simon Jr. (MFA 1989 Computer Art) was one of a select few artists chosen to create an app for Icelandic singer Björk’s groundbreaking new album, Biophilia. The first app album ever created, Biophilia is divided into 10 separate apps (available for download at the iTunes App Store) and features vivid graphics, related essays, games and touch-screen capabilities, all designed to allow users to interact with the album on an iPad. The Briefs recently caught up with Simon, who also worked as software engineer and co-creative director with Björk on the project.

How would you explain this project to those who know nothing about it?
When you download Biophilia, it is like getting a CD of music, plus the little booklet that comes with it. The apps are like the booklet that you sit and flip through as you listen to the album. Except in this case, the booklet is interactive and includes games and instruments that let you jam along in the style of each track. You get to participate in the music in ways that are as unique as each song.

How did you get involved with the project, and what was your role?
The album has 10 tracks and 10 apps, each designed by a different artist. I was very lucky to be included with this really exceptional group of artists, designers and programmers. Scott Snibbe, a well-known designer of interactive experiences, was the lead developer. For the particular track I worked on, called “Mutual Core,” he needed an artist, an iPhone/iPad software engineer, and someone with a geology background, since the song is about tectonic plates and the Earth’s core. I happen to fit all three requirements. My role was to work with Björk as a sort of co-creative director to interpret the song into visual metaphors, then develop meaningful and interesting interactions, link the interactions to the music in a way that made a playable instrument, and finally make sure the piece supported the music education goals she had for it. In my case, the musical lesson is on “chords”—you make chords with the Earth’s tectonic plates and when the song plays you visualize the chords in the strata.

Do you think connecting music to apps is going to become a craze?
I hope so. Once you get into programming an iPad, the possibilities are mind blowing. The recorded music and the interactive instrument just seem to merge. I hope every musician will open up their music as generously through an interactive app. The only thing that might slow it down is how much more creativity and time it takes to produce apps.

What do you think the benefit of album apps is, opposed to the basic listening experience or a simple music video?
One great thing about my app is that you can hook your iPad to a desktop Mac and play the app instrument through Garage Band using any samples you want.  “Mutual Core” sounds amazing with the Grand Piano samples. Then you can record, mix, etc., in all the custom instruments in the album. And all this is filtered through the design considerations and style of the track.

Are there any other comments you want to make on the project? It is surprising how much more interesting the iPad/hand gesture interface is for interaction and design than the desktop/mouse interface. I would not have believed how much richer the experience is until I had a focused project that made me really experiment with the possibilities. Being able to detect 10 touches at once, the multi-touch package alone has much more to offer instrument builders.

Images: Screenshots from “Mutual Core,” from Bjork’s Biophilia App Album. Courtesy of John F. Simon Jr.

Watch a tour of Biophilia below.

The films that captured the honors were Piece Apart (watch below) by Kyunghee Jwa; King Killian by James McKenzie; Package Frank by Carl Fong and Chang Shuen Lee; and Rabbitkadabra by Michelle Czajkowski, David Chen, Krzysztof Fus and Naomi Chen.

In related news, Rabbitkadabra, as well as The Fear by Sung In Sohn (BFA 2011 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) have been accepted into this year’s SIGGRAPH Asia Computer Animation Festival in Hong Kong. For more info, visit SIGGRAPH.

Above image: Still from Rabbitkadabra.

D-Crit Chapbook #2: Dress (self-published) written and edited by students in the MFA Design Criticism Program: The second installment of this series turns a humorous eye on the fashion choices of public figures in the world of pop culture. Alan Rapp ponders Metallica frontman James Hetfield’s “bogus descent to Armani-toting sellout,” while Stephanie Jönsson critiques the wardrobe of Pope Benedict XVI. Eleven essays in all, with illustrations by Peter Arkle.

Immersion Into Noise (Open Humanities Press) by Joseph Nechvatal (MFA Computer Art faculty member): In his latest book, digital explorer and sound artist Nechvatal redefines “noise” as that which addresses us outside of our preferred comfort zones, and applies that audio understanding to the visual, architectural and cognitive domains to better understand “cultural noise.” To read the book online, click here. Part of Open Humanities Press’ “Critical Climate Change” series.

Sal Petrosino, director of operations for BFA Film, Video and Animation Department, took home awards for Best Director and Best Cinematographer at the recent Staten Island Film Festival for his short Crossroads. The film, about a Brooklyn bookie who blames God for giving him a learning disabled son, was primarily crewed by SVA students and faculty.

Dustin Grella (MFA 2009 Computer Art) recently received the Next Great Filmmaker Award for his stop-motion animation Prayers for Peace at the Berkshire International Film Festival. The short film confronts the memory of the artist’s younger brother who was killed during the current conflict in Iraq. Grella also has a new project in the works called Animation Hotline, a series of daily animations inspired by messages left on his voicemail. To leave a message, call 212.683.2490.

Mark Kendall (MFA 2011 Social Documentary) continues to garner attention for his short The Time Machine (watch it here). It was one of 50 films selected from over 10,000 entries to screen at the recent Shanghai International Film Festival. Nominated for Best Documentary, The Time Machine was also the only film from the United States in its category.

Image: Still from Crossroads. Courtesy of the artist.

Rutt, a New Yorker since his birth in 1945, was already wiring the auditorium at his school as a child, possibly as a result of early learning experiences in his family’s electronics company. In 1972 he developed the Rutt/Etra video synthesizer with Bill Etra. The 19-by-40-inch box allowed users to create animated images and special effects by changing video signal.

Rutt was the owner of Rutt Video & Interactive, a Manhattan-based video postproduction company, for more than 30 years. There, he mentored and employed numbers of SVA students, alumni and faculty members.

Steve Rutt’s obituary can be read on The New York Times Web site.

Projects include: Ashley Gerst’s Cat Tunnel, a blend of 3D, 2D and stop motion animation about a young woman and her cat; Jason Kass’ Second Nature, a series of abstract paintings and drawings placed among videos of rendered natural scenes; and Alan Schaffer’s InInternetWeTrust, an interactive audio-visual installation where the user can explore a 3D virtual environment. To see images and get more information about the show, visit the exhibition page on the SVA site.

Image: Alan Schaffer, InInternetWeTrust, 2011.

The Academy established the Student Academy Awards in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level. Past SVA students recognized by the Academy include Dustin Grella (MFA 2009 Computer Art), who won an award last year, and Kwibum Chung (MFA 2008 Computer Art), who won a Silver Medal the year before.