Undergraduates Win Year of the Arts Student Awards

Undergraduate Communication Arts majors Bobby Gryzynger & Nickolas Good were recognized in Year of the Arts Student Awards at the 2011 Awards in the Creative Arts. The Creative Arts Awards, curated by the UW-Madison Arts Institute, recognized students, faculty, and staff in the arts for their excellence in three areas — creative inquiry, outreach, and professional excellence. Gryzynger (on left in photo at right) was recognized for his achievements in creating two digital media works. Through compositing and time manipulation, Gryzynger investigated the pliability of the video image, finding a metaphor for the multiple layers of memory. Supported by the Year of the Arts Award, two works, {Confounding Variable} and Pirouette on the Precipice were recently featured at the Digital Salon 2011, a one-week symposium and exhibition of new media projects by UW undergraduate and graduate students. {Confounding Variable} was shot and edited in Professor Bill Brown’s Comm Arts 651: Advanced Video Production & Direction course. Good (on right in photo at right) was recognized for his animation piece, Fall, which uses the visual metaphor of changing seasons to meditate on two characters’ inner lives and emotions. Through careful drawings, staging, and a spare use of color, Good intones the melancholic beginning of a relationship. Fall was created in Professor Sabine Gruffat’s Comm Arts 609: 2D Computer Animation course. Illuminate: UW-Madison Year of the Arts 2010-2011 spotlights the breadth, depth, power, and purpose of artistic exploration and expression at UW–Madison. From September 2010 through August 2011, more than 300 performances, exhibits, symposia, public events, publications, distinguished visiting speakers, and on-line resources have celebrated the many ways the arts have helped us see differently, and see more.