Fish Sticks is a fanciful film exploring the relationship between the human and the non-human. Bennett represents the spiritual realm in this work with the mythical figures of merpeople, anthropomorphizing the unknown into a nearly human form. A clever piece about a girl married to a man obsessed with finding a mermaid of whom to make gourmet fish sticks, this film deals with issues of personal freedom and sense of self.

Heather Bennett is a filmmaker who strives to find beauty in the world and in her work. She has worked on numerous student films and several independent projects. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Silent, animated, fragments of consumerism and culture reconfigure a national symbol.

Jurors’ Remarks on Unfurling

Gorzycki's Unfurling is a kind of electronic haiku poem about the highly charged, corruptive impact of consumerism on American values and the influence that this "waste" is having around the world. Without missing a beat, the artist updates and enhances Jasper Johns' early flag series with the energizing materials of digital art.
– Julie Lazar

Gorzycki masterfully translates pop-artists’ deconstruction of popular American symbols into their consumer atoms into a time-based experience. Her moving junkyard of brand logos reminds us that American flag was, from the beginning, designed as a franchise – allowing for the plug-in of more states as needed.

– Lev Manovich

Visually, this work is very compelling and I would love to see it displayed in a very large format.

– Christian Moeller

Martha Gorzycki has worked in film as an animator and animation photographer with independent filmmakers in the Bay Area since 1984. Her recent work explores experimental forms of digital animation and installation in relation to issues of culture and perception. She currently teaches animation at San Francisco State University.

Noize is a deceptively simple video piece, comprising pre-recorded static and video feedback. Connecting his camera to a PCU and then videoing the computer’s monitor, Karaguez creates a digital hall of mirrors, where imagery is reflected back to the viewer infinitely.

Johnny Karaguez was born December of 1975 in Beirut, Lebanon. His parents and he fled to the U.S. due to the civil war there while he was still an infant. He and his family currently live in Turlock, california. There he received his BA in fine art at CSU Stanislaus. Currently, he is enrolled in the Computers in Art, Design Research and Education (CADRE) program at San Jose State University working on his BFA in digital media art. His aspirations are to work with new multimedia technology focusing on sound design.

Flicker comprises three distinct views of an urban, working-class locale, characterized by small, sparsely furnished interiors with minimal décor and time-worn buildings. Karl and Even utilize a stuttering, time-delayed editing technique to refigure the viewer’s perception of the human gesture and blue-collar urban spaces. This disjointed presentation of movement results in a viewing experience that is, at times, unnerving and, at others, poignant and charged with emotional response.

Tirtza Even has been a practicing video artist and documentary maker for te past ten years. Her work has appeared in the Whitney Biennial, the Johannesburg Biennial, as well as in festivals, galleries and museums in the United States, Israel and Europe. Currently an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University, NY, and at the Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU, she has been an invited guest at numerous conferences and university programs, including the Whitney Museum Seminar series, the Digital Flaherty Seminar, Art Pace annual panel, ACM Multimedia conference and others. A Fulbright scholar, she completed a Masters Degree in Cinema Studies and in the Interactive Telecommunication Program, both at NYU.

Brian Karl’s work as a videomaker as well as sound designer has appeared in the Whitney Biennial (2002) and the New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center (2002); has been purchased by the Jewish Museum (2001) in New York City; and won First Prize at the Leggera Film Festival in Italy (2000) as well as a Golden Gate Award Certificate of merit at the San Francisco International Film Festival (2002). He has served as Executive Director, program Director and Artistic Director at non-profit arts organizations, including Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Harvestworks Media Arts, and the Headlands Center for the Arts.

Formally referencing the flicker films of the late 1960s, To Hug You and Squeeze You is set against a narrative backdrop of the doomed marriage between a Hollywood starlet and an African prince, Kreider’s film constructs an imaginary “honeymoon safari” compiled from home movies of a wedding ceremony spliced with film clips of wild animals in captivity. Drawing out similarities between human nuptial traditions and animal mating behaviors, this film’s unique editing style oscillates between a quickly compressed intercutting of opposing voices, and a slower, more studied alternation of sound and imagery.

Teaches at Rutgers University. As a filmmaker and video artist, Kreider’s work explores the relation of human activity to animal existence, of urban space to the natural world, and of the animate to the inanimate.