FYE Juried Media Arts Festival 2024 celebrates first-year student works

Seven students received awards at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design’s juried FYE Media Arts Festival – an in-house screening and celebration of video, animation and sound design works by current and former First-Year Experience (FYE) students held on November 26. The 56 entries were judged by multimedia and filmmaking professionals Emma B. Barany, Gabe Leistekow and Sara Sowell.

Tom Painter received Best in Fest for “Bicycle,” with Jurors Awards going to Nati Rodriguez, “Hoops” (Sara Sowell); Alexander Xiong, “Out And About” (Emma B. Barany); and Jamie Messerman, “The Silhouette” (Gabe Leistekow).

Honorable Mentions were awarded to Tupak Kue, “Chimping Around”; Aali’yah Hill, “Fight”; and Nola Hennen, “Thugging It Out.”

“I take a lot of inspiration from older, traditionally animated films and tv shows,” says Painter. “I’m also very passionate about character narratives and storytelling, so this was a good outlet to practice that.”

“The creation of my film was a challenging but rewarding ordeal,” he says. “It allowed me to learn the best methods of streamlining my animation process when faced with limited resources and a tight deadline. I hope I can continue to publish animated work and establish a unique style for myself.”

“’Bicycle’ is immediately so visually cohesive that one is free to fully focus on the narrative,” the jurors wrote of Painter’s work. “A variety of principles of animation are present in the lip-synch, namely follow-through and secondary action.”

Juror Award recipient Alexander Xiong says, “I would love for people to view my work with the takeaway of doing what you love. I fully believe in the importance of inner happiness, and I would like to share that for others too.”

“The FYE Media Arts Festival is a visible and public way to share the incredible work produced in FYE’s Digital 4-D Dimension class,” says Professor James Barany. “D2D is a very unique experience compared to other AICAD programs. It is a dynamic introduction to cultural production, time, narrative structures, video, audio and animation approaches.…. Paired with Digital 2-Dimension (D2D), students explore 30 weeks of digital technology as one of their core studio experiences.”

Learn more about MIAD’s First-Year Experience and Animation track.