Welcome to Introduction to Media Arts: The Sequel!! (At least that's the name I've given this blog for the 2nd semester portion of this fine arts course at Hun.) It's been a crazy two weeks of drop/adds, of learning about (and living with) the medium of radio, and of making noise and writing stories based around the fine art of foley sound effects--one of the mainstays of dramatic broadcast radio shows of yesteryear.
I'm writing this first blog account after attending last night's screening of A Prairie Home Companion (APHC) live broadcast from the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota to movie theatres across the country. I was interested in seeing if this performance could fit into the new curriculum I developed for the second semester of this new elective course. Rather than repeat what I did last semester (text, paper, pens theme), I thought I'd dive into more familiar (perhaps relevant) material to the students and develop lessons, projects and event-based activities related to "radio, television, and film".
Back to St. Paul, Minnesota: Garrison Keillor and his band of merry radio stars created a new APHC show for a national viewing audience on a special night (unfortunately a school night!) I came upon this information for the February broadcast while surfing the web during winter break. Pausing on the homepage, I wondered to myself, "Could such an 'old school' radio show--loved by millions across this great land--fly with the current crop of Media Arts kids?" The short answer is- NO! Or at least that is what the evidence points to when one considers that only two currently enrolled students (plus one former video student--Mike Goldin) out of 18 potential ticket holders decided to attend. Perhaps that's not a fair assessment of the low turn out, but I do know that the no-shows missed a wonderful experience. (Maybe I'm too old school, meself ;) More on the special APHC to follow, but for now let's take a look at what we covered in class, thus far.
During our first week of the new semester we took a brief tour of the history of radio and created a visual graphic to help understand radio's development over the past 130+ years. I designed the "History of Media Triangle" to visually represent the three developmental forces involved in creating a successful form of media for the masses. The corners of the triangle are represented by the concepts of art, technology and business. The combination of these three elements, working over time create a perfect "history" of a particular medium.
Another way to represent the dynamics of this system is to understand the cartoon I drew of the Media Monkeys working their History Trampoline, as seen below:
If a form of mass media, in this case radio, is to be a success over time [the History Trampoline], then the art, science and business 'Media Monkeys' need to work together to keep the medium alive, vibrant, and 'bouncy'!
A question for the students: Radio had some less bouncey moments in its history. When and why?
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I got to the AMC Hamilton 24 early enough to return some unused tickets, then joined the other Hun School attendees, three students 6 adults total, in theatre #5. The live show was preceeded by a pre-taped tour of downtown St. Paul with Mr. Keillor as the guide, taking us to diners, tie shops and other local (non)attractions to get us "pumped" for the last stop on his hilarious meandering--the front lobby of the Fitzgerald Theater.
From there the show played out in its usual, low keyed, fluid tempo all carefully orchestrated by Mr. Keillor and chock-o-block with songs, skits and special performances by guest artist Elvis Costello. Very, very cool stuff! Future links to the show will be included in this blog when they become available by American Public Media (APM).