Tag Archives: art

student blogs

ELIT Final Project Early Ideas

Some early ideas that have been generating since last class towards the final elit project is possibly creating an interactive poem that uses word scape movements on the screen with animation tools in a Microsoft Word Doc. There seems to be many options to animate text, images, using this platform and turn into a creative way to experience my poetry and also interact with it. I was thinking about creating some letters in Adobe Illustrator using clipping mask technique to add an image inside each letter that is associated with emotions, or events. Not really sure yet. Then export into a Word Doc which you can do as a JPEG or PNG file image or even with Adobe Acrobat using the “Export to Word” command.

I would really like to sharpen my skills again in Adobe After Effects but there may not be enough time to rekindle and do what I have planned creatively to the letters. Mister Horse is a free program extension of Adobe After Effects that gives you options of making text animated in various ways. I would like my poem to be in a way a task for the reader to transcribe the words or letters that show up on thw screen at variables in different colors, sizes, sequences compared to mine that was separated prior at a given point of time. This process can attempt to recognize the order of how we put words together to express a thought, emotion and  our thought process contemplating our structure of putting things together, so they are comprehended by others . Meaning Making of words. There is also an effect called Clipping Mask mentioned earlier that can replace the inner part of a letter character, number with an image. This can be an effective technique also I may want to experiment with to emphasize certain particular words with a feeling.

https://share.google/h0wvKMIJlndCJZO43

I was also thinking about doing cut outs of letters and some images I have or digital artworks to add to the animations in a  Word Doc being untraditional to how this program is usually used to communicate. Though this is too ambitious at this point of the Semester and would require too much time.

student blogs

Welcome Home

The cast of Welcome Home. From left to right: Howdy, Frank, Julie, Wally, Barnaby, Sally, Eddie, and Poppy.

🌼 Welcome Home: Restoration of Memory, Media, and Mystery

Welcome Home is a collaborative archival project centered on the imaginative recovery of a forgotten children’s puppet show. Led by anonymous volunteers, the initiative seeks to reconstruct the visual and cultural remnants of a fictional television program that aired between October 11, 1969, and 1974. Though no footage has been found, the project draws from enduring materials such as illustrated storybooks, vinyl records, cereal boxes, home décor, and children’s toys, many of which were discovered in ink-stained envelopes and fragmented documents.

The show, created by the enigmatic Playfellow Workshop, featured a cast of puppet neighbors living in a colorful, blossom-filled community. These characters are now being reintroduced through a vibrant website that mimics the aesthetics of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Bright oranges, blues, greens, and yellows evoke the era’s countercultural spirit peace signs, hippie motifs, and Black cultural resistance while also framing a deeper narrative about memory, media, and loss.

The website includes interactive pages such as Welcome Home, Guestbook, News, Discover, and the Playfellow Exhibition, each offering insight into the show’s imagined history. Volunteers invite the public to help identify characters and contribute to the restoration effort, turning the project into a participating archive.

More than a sentimental exercise, Welcome Home explores how stories are preserved, distorted, or forgotten. It raises questions about cultural memory, media decay, and the emotional resonance of lost narratives. For students, artists, and scholars, the project offers a compelling intersection of visual storytelling, archival practice, and speculative fiction.

Critical reflection on memory, media decay, and the stories we choose to preserve or forget

I find Welcome Home to be a compelling example of how fictional archives can evoke emotional and cultural resonance. The project’s blend of cheerful aesthetics and weird undertones invites critical reflection on memory, media decay, and the stories we choose to preserve or forget.

What fascinates me most is how Welcome Home uses visual storytelling and fragmented artifacts to simulate the process of recovery, mirroring the invigorating work of reconstructing identity through narrative. It is not just a lost puppet show; it is a metaphor for cultural amnesia, collective sentimental, and the haunting beauty of what remains.

Welcome Home offers a rich space to explore the intersections of fiction, design, and archival imagination. It reminds us that even invented histories can carry truth, and that restoration whether personal or cultural is always an act of societal responsibility.

Welcome Home and the Construction of Nostalgia Through Fandom | ARGNet: Alternate Reality Gaming Network