The 1st photo is to advertise an office hours event with dillon bastan, text says 'A short film screening, a walkthrough of some max/msp magic, and a conversation about how it all connects' the image is covered with collage-d stone, and in the center features marcov chains being used to generate trees, wave terrain synthesis being converted into 3d space, and strange attractors. (these are all themes found within some of dillon's max/msp tools). It's happening on May 11th, at 5pm est.

Office Hours : 'Criticality' Screening + Magical Max/MSP with Dillon Bastan

Thursday, May 11 @ 5:00 pm ET, A Discord Call streamed to Twitch

 

We'll be watching a 20 minute film that Dillon created for their senior thesis titled 'Criticality'. Dillion will walk us through some of their max/msp magic, and finally we’ll have a short conversation about patterns found between the various mediums of their work.

 

"Criticality is an umbrella term that describes the phenomena around critical points which are the endpoints of phase transitions in a system, especially ones between ordered and disordered states. In this film, I attempt to bridge the concept of criticality from sterile mathematics to life, spirituality, and my personal experience. If criticality mathematically describes dynamics that could be fundamental to the operation of our minds and the existence of organic life, then I am interested in creating a personal relationship and intuitive understanding of the concept in the hopes of it extending my language and encountering insights. I cultivate and share this type of understanding by inscribing it into artistic practice as well as a dialogue with myself and my environment through a personal investigation of criticality and pursuing mental states that I assume to embody heightened criticality. This practice and investigation were documented and later edited into this film in a manner informed by mathematical models related to criticality, both literally and symbolically, in order to viscerally embed its dynamics. I regard this film and the practice that created it to be a habitual and emotional filter of my current being in which the concept of criticality is passed as an input. As a result, the concept of criticality becomes blurred and intertwined with myself in the film as I further recognize our inseparability and ultimately consider myself as coming from and reaching towards a situation of criticality. My aims are less to give the viewer an accurate intellectual understanding of criticality and more to appeal to one's emotions, responses, and impressions through exposure to my own expression of that in context of criticality as a way to extend or invoke in the viewer a personal connection and hopefully an interest to the subject. Criticality4evaaAAa!!!"

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Dillon Bastan is an audio developer, sound artist, and media technologist that professionally develops audio devices and tools that they sell on their personal store, but also for clients such as Ableton. Dillon works across a wide variety of artistic mediums, including but not limited to media and sound art (such as filmmaking, A/V installation, and sculptural work), performance art, musical performance, and production.

For more information about Dillon, and to explore some of their endlessly breathtaking work, please visit their website : https://dillonbastan.com/

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