STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics and the idea behind it is to combine STEM with the arts in a way that allows students to reflect upon the similarities and differences between the two and where the arts and sciences may overlap. The festival itself mixes seminar 1 students with seminar 3 students and it’s set up so that wherever you go, you will get to see projects from both classes. I thought this idea was really refreshing, because it gave me a glimpse into what the other classes have accomplished over the past semester, and we get to exchange ideas with a completely different group of thinkers and celebrate what Macaulay is all about. It was a great time to take a step back and revel in our accomplishments and gain recognition.
For my project, my partner and I chose to make an audio guide for a piece by Nancy Goldring, entitled La Guardia. It had initially caught our eye because of its use pastel colors and its washed, faded appearance. It also seemed to be composed of multiple layers of different images, which made it very alluring overall. All the information is included in the audio guide, but I will also give a quick summary of Nancy Goldring and the piece itself.
Upon first glance, La Guardia makes you feel like you’re stuck in a dream, with the pastel-blue sky and cotton candy clouds and layers of muted purples and reds in front of it. The projection is shot from a rooftop of an old building with large scraps of pink cloth on a clothesline draping in front of it, making the image seem a little muddled and cloudy. The reason why this piece is so hazy lies in the way Goldring created it. The title, La Guardia, means “to haunt” or “to lurk.” For 35 years, she has been developing a unique and personal way of making art. She would use a combination of graphic, photographic, and projected material to produce a non-narrative series of images, which she calls “foto-projections.” The images dissolve and fade into each other in a way that seems to excavate the site, which is located in Havana, Cuba. She also plays with our depth-perception here because, with the use of overlapping imagery, it makes it seem like you could almost step right into the photograph.
The image itself seemingly evokes feelings of nostalgia. The scenery isn’t particularly beautiful, but it is made to seem romanticized as if you were looking back at fond memories of childhood. When you remember things, you tend to remember only the good parts, which seems to be what this image depicts. Even though the place is located in a old and rural neighborhood, with paint pealing off the sides of the buildings and little boys running around in the background, Nancy Goldring wants us to fall in love with it as much as she did.
