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Home › News & Events › News › Kaitlyn Jo Smith earns top honor at CAA

Kaitlyn Jo Smith earns top honor at CAA

February 12, 2021

Congratulations to Alumna Kaitlyn Jo Smith (MFA, Photography, Video and Imaging, ’20) for winning the 2021 College Arts Association Services to Artists Committee Award in Graduate Film/Video, Animations, & New Genres! The showcase was juried, including guest juror Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi (Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art).

Smith’s winning video, “Lights Out,” was part of the 16 graduate videos included in the national juried showcase. She was not the only School of Art artist chosen for this showcase. Her Photography, Video and Imaging peers Anna Brody and Bella Maria Varela are also a part of the showcase for their videos “Never Let Me Down” and “Triathlon,” respectively.


Kaitlyn Jo Smith
Lights Out

In Lights Out, I utilize machine learning to render visible the intangible state of America’s labor force. The term lights out manufacturing refers to a fully automated factory that requires no human presence on-site, operating without heating, air conditioning, lunch breaks or unions. Similarly, the portraits in Lights Out are not real people, rather, they are deep fakes created by artificial intelligence utilizing a neural network. This neural network was trained using a dataset of 50,000 pictures of factory workers that I sourced through Facebook. I empower the machine to visualize those it has replaced by employing these found identities to teach the algorithm to see, interpret and render out its own assembly of laborers. As the neural network is fed more portraits to analyze, its deep fakes become more believable, resulting in a new labor force of 60,000 – one worker for each factory shuttered since 2000. The AI-generated faces have been meticulously organized into columns that slowly shift along the gallery wall. The monotonous, machine-like rhythm created by this horizontal assembly line mimics that of a conveyor belt, symbolically placing the portraits in dialog with capitalist commodities.

Anna Brody
Never Let Me Down

Never Let Me Down is one of a suite of videos (titled This Is The Only Thing We’ve Got) that address love relationships and the internalized values that mediate them. As a suite, these videos use time and performative actions to question the commitment, endurance, risk, and trust layered between the familial, platonic, and romantic loves that fill our lives. As an individual piece, Never Let Me Down is an embodied exploration of dependency, sacrifice, vulnerability, and platonic intimacy. It deals explicitly with the labor involved in communicating through mutual cooperation and negotiating compromise, and engages repetition in its capacity to create both comfort and tedium. I think of the actions in this and all my videos as muscle memory exercises that help me, as well as a viewer, to stay flexible and ready to learn what we haven’t yet grasped (or weren’t ever taught), and unlearn what we haven’t been able–or haven’t even tried–to let go of.

Bella Maria Varela
Triathlon

Inspired by my family’s competitive sporting spirit, Triathlon tracks the rhythms and terrains of American immigration and confronts the absurd constructs of US patriotism and exceptionalism. Triathlon is also a personal response to contemporary anti-immigrant sentiments; it is made in honor of child immigrants, resilient dreamers, and the ones getting swept away, around, and through the mess.

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University of Arizona School of Art
1 week ago
University of Arizona School of Art

Check out our September newsletter — conta.cc/3LlzXRt — featuring the VASE Lecture series lineup for 2023-24; a border project by Mellon recipient and MFA candidate Nathan Cordova; Assistant Prof. Jeehey Kim's new groundbreaking book, "Photography and Korea" ... and more. Arizona Arts The University of Arizona Arizona Alumni ... See MoreSee Less

Check out our September newsletter — https://conta.cc/3LlzXRt — featuring the VASE Lecture series lineup for 2023-24; a border project by Mellon recipient and MFA candidate Nathan Cordova; Assistant Prof. Jeehey Kims new groundbreaking book, Photography and Korea ... and more. Arizona Arts The University of Arizona Arizona Alumni
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University of Arizona School of Art
1 week ago
University of Arizona School of Art

Meet Nathan Cordova, an MFA candidate in the school’s nationally ranked Photography, Video and Imaging program, who's hard at work on his "Ghosts and Shadows" audio/visual project for the Mellon-Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship. Not only is Nathan interviewing his labor-activist uncle, but the grad student also is curious about "the way I’ve proposed to engage with the agency of the material that comprises a lot of the border wall.” tinyurl.com/388tydke Arizona Arts Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry The University of Arizona Mellon Foundation Society for Photographic Education University of Arizona Museum of Art Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona Center for Latin American Studies ... See MoreSee Less

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Mellon recipient Cordova hopes art project adds to border discourse – School of Art

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Mellon recipient Cordova hopes art project adds to border discourse September 13, 2023 By Michael Chesnick School of Art As part of his fellowship to study and interpret the U.S.-Mexico border, Nathan...
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University of Arizona School of Art
2 weeks ago
University of Arizona School of Art

Way to go, Ricardo! ... See MoreSee Less

Way to go, Ricardo!Image attachmentImage attachment
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Ricardo also is a Tyson Scholar in American Art for the fall 2023 semester at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. art.arizona.edu/news/phd-candidate-chavez-named-tyson-scholar/

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University of Arizona School of Art
2 weeks ago
University of Arizona School of Art

Thanks to all the students, faculty, staff and volunteers who made yesterday's ArtCats Welcome a huge success! More than 150 people attended the event, which included a screen print demo with cool tote bags, shaved ice and prizes outside The University of Arizona School of Music and an orientation for new majors inside Holsclaw Hall. Arizona Arts The University of Arizona ... See MoreSee Less

Thanks to all the students, faculty, staff and volunteers who made yesterdays ArtCats Welcome a huge success! More than 150 people attended the event, which included a screen print demo with cool tote bags, shaved ice and prizes outside The University of Arizona School of Music and an orientation for new majors inside Holsclaw Hall. Arizona Arts The University of ArizonaImage attachmentImage attachment+Image attachment
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🎨🖌️🖼️

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University of Arizona School of Art
2 weeks ago
University of Arizona School of Art

On Sept. 14, don't miss “Untangled Shadows,” featuring renowned artist Jim Campbell. His digital installation blending light, motion and nature is part of the El Mirador Project, a UArizona Health Sciences visionary public arts program that recognizes the transformative power of art in the education and training of compassionate health care professionals. Register below for the free presentation! ... See MoreSee Less

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University of Arizona School of Art
2 weeks ago
University of Arizona School of Art

Congrats to Associate Professor Joseph Farbrook, whose solo exhibition opens tomorrow at the University of Texas at Arlington (Dallas). "A Mirror in the Void – Reflections of Consciousness" features 21 of his new works of new media, video sculptures, VR and an immersive 4-channel video projection room. The reception is Friday, and the show runs until Oct. 7. ... See MoreSee Less

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Joseph Farbrook: A Mirror in the Void – Reflections of Consciousness – The GALLERY

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Joseph Farbrook: A Mirror in the Void – Reflections of Consciousness September 7th – October 7th, 2023 Gallery Talk: Thursday, September 7th from 12:30 to 1:30 PM Reception: Friday, September 8th ...
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