August 21, 2018

PROJECTS

Ultra-Ego: Agency in Alter Ego
by Gin Jackson

The Impact of the Lack of Choice in “my father’s long, long legs”
by Amanda Fannin

Picture Perfect
by Andrew Williams

Worth Striving For
by Blake Washington

The Art of Trespassing
by Justin Graffa

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Issue 8.1 features five unique pieces that demonstrate the quality and range of projects the JUMP+ receives. The projects in this issue not only span a wide range of topics, from urban exploring, to thoughts on racial equality, to ideas about agency, but also display the wide range of ways students use multi-media to reflect and make claims about these topics.

Two of the pieces reveal differing approaches to the concept of agency. Gin Jackson’s “Utra-Ego: Agency in Alter Ego” examines the ways in which the game’s programmers limit the life choices of players. While the game appears to simulate life events, Jackson demonstrates how the limited choices available to players fail to reflect the variety of ways people experience life events such as dating; childbirth and parenting; and employment. Amanda Fannin’s “The impact of the Lack of Choice in ‘my father’s long, long legs’” also focuses on agency, but argues that the game’s designer intentionally limits the agency of players to create an experience of being trapped playing into the horror genre of the game.

The other three pieces in this issue demonstrate the ways multiple media can be combined to make compelling claims and thoughtful reflections. Andrew William’s “Picture Perfect” overlays social media updates with a short film about depression to create a visual experience of what it’s like to deal with depression. Similarly, Blake Washington’s “Worth Striving For” mixes spoken word with a series of striking visual images, skillfully conveying his thought-provoking and reflective message about issues of racial inequality in America. The final piece, Justin’ Graffa’s “The Art of Trespassing,” demonstrates the power of video to provide multiple perspectives as he wrestles with the varying motivations for urban exploration and how the production and distribution of images of abandoned buildings can preserve, but also potentially exploit.

We hope you enjoy both the diversity of topics and of project types in this issue and that it serves to inspire you to think about the ways multi-media can be combined to achieve a variety of moods and purposes.