Student Moderator: Siobhan Brooks
Faculty Respondent: Ethan Spigland
(M.A., University of Paris; M.F.A. New York University)
Mr. Spigland is a filmmaker and screenwriter. His most recent production, The Strange Case of Balthazar Hyppolite, won a Gold Medal in the Student Academy Awards and was a finalist for the Best Short Subject Oscar. He also has training in contemporary philosophy, having studied the philosophy of art intensively with Derrida and Lyotard.

PANEL:

Elizabeth LeDoux
The Experience of the New Dream Narrative in Mulholland Drive
(Paper not available for download at this time)

Abstract: The advent of digital technologies has not only changed the way films are made, they have changed the way in which films are viewed. While this industry-wide sea change has triggered a great deal of discussion and debate over its aesthetic merits, certain filmmakers have taken it upon themselves to incorporate these technologies as a golden opportunity to go beyond the limits of conventional narrative and experiment with the dream construct and the subconscious mind. David Lynch is one such director. Throughout his career, Lynch has always relished in the absurd, the surreal - and, most especially, in making the known strange. In his most recent film, Mulholland Drive, the openly interpretive structure serves as an engaging Lynch experimentation, emphasizing the cinematic inseparability of memory and technology in the form of spectatorial experience of the new dream narrative.

Lorelei Narvaja
The Selling of Identity: Inherent Meaning in Music vs. Profit-Driven Constructs
(Paper not available for download at this time)

Abstract: This paper examines independent music scenes (specifically, the "punk rock/hardcore" genre) and ways in which contributors to this music culture, through the music produced, sell a lifestyle and an identity. These labels tend to target the adolescent/young adult demographic. During these formative years this influence shapes a youth's idea of his/her place in our society's social order (through the appeal of rebellion and social change), whether or not these youths are aware of such influences. This paper provides commentary on popular music and its uncanny similarities with underground music marketing, a brief synopsis of the "Do-It-Yourself" ethos that is the framework for punk culture, and the 1980's "Straight Edge" movement, which resulted in the need to diversify hardcore/punk music. The power behind music as medium in communicating strong messages that transcend other forms of media dictate the consequences that result from both ethical and irresponsible music business practices.

Kimberly Steger
The Business of Stereotyping Black Music: The Stranglehold on Non-Traditional Black Artists in Pop Music
(Click here to download paper)

Abstract: In the business of music, there are unfortunate racial qualifiers that determine the nature of marketing and distribution. Despite the meaning made by the music-labels associated with genre, the artists, as well as how the content is disseminated - racial identity affects the marketing of artists. This paper illustrates how the distribution of popular music remains based on race, culture and politics. Specifically, this paper will analyze how non-traditional black pop artists, those who align closer to rock styles than to R&B styles, are greatly marginalized due to a combination of historical segregationist models, U.S. sentiments on race, as well as black nationalism.