Spotlights

LINGUAL NET - S P O T L I G H T S

Spotlight #1: MATISYAHU
Spotlight #2: George Aguilar
Spotlight #3: Jason Lewis
Spotlight #4: Ammon Rost
Spotlight #5: Erica Filanc

Spotlight #1: Matisyashu

Matthew Miller was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania on June 30th 1979, corresponding to the Jewish date of the 5th of Tamuz 5740. Shortly after his birth, the Miller family moved to Berkeley, CA and eventually settled in White Plains, NY. Growing up, Matisyahu's parents sent him to Hebrew School a couple of times a week, but like many kids, he resisted the additional school hours and was frequently threatened with expulsion for disrupting the lessons.

By the age of 14, Matthew Miller slid comfortably into the laid-back lifestyle of a teenage hippie. Having fallen in with the "Dead-Head" crowd, he grew dreadlocks and wore his Birkenstocks all winter long. He played his bongos in the lunchroom and learned how to beat-box in the back of class. By 11th grade, despite his carefree days, Matisyahu couldn't ignore the void in his life. After nearly burning down his chemistry class, he knew his mission must begin immediately. He decided to set off on a camping trip in Colorado. Away from his suburban life in White Plains, Matisyahu had the opportunity to take an introspective look at himself and contemplate his environment. It was there in the awe-inspiring landscape of the Rocky Mountain's, that Matisyahu had an eye-opening realization: there is a G-d.

After Colorado, his spiritual curiosity piqued and Matisyahu took his first trip to Israel. There, for the first time in his life, he felt a connection to the G-d he discovered in Colorado. Israel was a major turning point. Matisyahu relished the time he spent there, praying, exploring, and dancing in Jerusalem. In every nook he encountered, his dormant Jewish identity stirred into consciousness.

Leaving Israel proved to be a difficult transition. Once back in White Plains, Matisyahu didn't know how to maintain his new connection with Judaism. Feeling dejected, he fatefully dropped out of high school and began following Phish on a national tour. On the road, Matisyahu thought seriously about his life, his music, and his thirst for Judaism.

After a few months, burnt out and broke, he returned home. By this time his parents insisted that Matisyahu go and "straighten" himself out at a wilderness school in Bend, Oregon. The school encouraged artistic pursuits and Matisyahu took advantage of this time to delve further into his music. He studied up on reggae and hip-hop. He attended a weekly open-mic where he rapped, sang, beat-boxed, and did almost anything he could to stay creatively charged. It was then that he started to develop the unique reggae-hip hop sound for which he would one day become known.

After 2 years in the "sticks," the 19-year old Matisyahu returned to New York a changed man. He moved to the city to attend The New School where he continued honing his musical craft, and also dabbled in the theater. During this time, he happened on the Carlebach Shul, a synagogue on the Upper West Side, well known for its hippie-friendly vibe and exuberant singing. This encounter further fueled his soul-fire, turning him on to the mystical power of song in Hasidic Judaism. Now, instead of beat boxing in the back of the classroom, he was leaving the classroom to pray on the school's roof. (Religious or not, this guy ain't made for the classrooms.)

While studying at New School, Matisyahu wrote a play entitled "Echad" (One). The play was about a boy who meets a Hasidic rabbi in Washington Square Park and through him becomes religious. Shortly after the play's performance, Matisyahu's life strangely imitated his art. Indeed, years after the initial sparks were lit, Matisyahu met a Lubavitch rabbi in the park, spurring his transformation from Matthew to Matisyahu.

A person who was once skeptical of authority and rules, Matisyahu began to explore and eventually fully take on the Lubavitch Hasidic lifestyle. He thrived on the discipline and structure of Judaism, making every attempt to abide by Jewish Law. The Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy proved to be a powerful guide for Matisyahu. It surrounded him with the spiritual dialogue and intellectual challenge he had been seeking for the past decade. The turmoil and frustration of his search subsided, and now, 2 years later, Matisyahu lives in Crown Heights, splitting his time between the stage and his yeshiva.

Combining the sounds of Bob Marley and Shlomo Carlebach, yet remaining wholly original, Matisyahu's performance is an uplifting, powerful experience for all in his presence. Even the most pessimistic in his audience is inspired by his ability to so honestly convey such a delicate, topic as faith/spirituality. It is his dedication to his belief and openness to others that compels one to respect his artistry and message. It's in that fleeting moment when our skepticism melts and our souls open up, that Matisyahu enters with his booming sound of faith.

Spotlight #2: George Aguilar

For over 15 years has created dynamic literary films, videos and animation programs as well as produced several innovative literary events for live, broadcast and Internet audiences.

After graduating from the University of California at San Diego, Aguilar became a volunteer for the National Poetry Association (NPA), presenting and producing a small, underground poetry-based film festival now called the Cin(E)-Poetry™ Festival. From 1991 to 1996, Aguilar honed his videomaking skills while studying and promoting the genre of Cin(E)-Poetry (also known as poetry film and videopoetry) on PBS and major art houses and international museums and schools across the United States. He has produced the Eyestruck TV series; a 12-week series sponsored by Macromedia and Pixar Animation and also helped program an eight-week series for PBS's Living Room Festival in collaboration with several independent media organizations from the Bay Area. In 1994, Videomaker magazine wrote, “If anyone can bring videopoetry to the masses; it’s George Aguilar.”

After bringing the growing genre of Cin(E)-Poetry to dozens of schools, universities and educational venues around the world, Aguilar was elected to serve as Executive Director of the NPA, a nonprofit literary organization dedicated to promoting poetry and poets. He then created the organization’s first website and acted as Internet strategist for its subsequent award-winning website and Poetry USA online efforts. The NPA website became one of the first of its kind to take advantage of web streaming technologies through collaborations with the Blue Wolf Network, NetVideo and Hello Networks. At the time, The Los Angeles Times, Java.Sun.com and Excite.com had praised the site for its design and functionality. Encyclopedia Britannica called it “one of the best websites”.

Highlights of Mr. Aguilar’s tenure at the NPA include producing the successful CELEBRATION OF THE WORD event at the Masonic Auditorium featuring Maya Angelou, novelist Guy Johnson along with San Francisco Poet laureates Janice Mirikitani and devorah major, and California Poet laureate Quincy Troupe. He also sponsored and supported the 1999 San Francisco Poetry Slam Team which one the National Championships that year in Chicago and was featured on national TV programs 60 Minutes and the McNeil Lehrer News Hour. The San Francisco Examiner wrote, “The association (NPA) has successes to celebrate. Aguilar led a dramatic turnaround with a new board of directors, sponsorship of more events (including poetry slams) and a plunge onto the Internet with a sophisticated Web site that has given the organization a national profile”.

After overseeing the creative and technical direction of a 25 year old non-profit literary arts organization, producing 7 annual film festivals and coordinating several pioneering multimedia productions and Internet partnerships, Mr. Aguilar retired from the NPA in 2000 to pursue his personal artistic endeavors.

Since leaving the NPA, Mr. Aguilar produced several award winning Cin(E)-Poems, animations and digital films. His work has screened at the Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival in Seattle, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art in Spain, the Digital Express Competition in Seoul, Korea, the Streaming Cinema 2.0 at Arts Electronica in Austria, Rome University III in Italy and the Zebra Poetry Festival Award in Berlin and several national video festivals.

Mr. Aguilar also traveled extensively from 2001-2002 promoting the cin(e)-poetry genre (a term he coined in 1996) to schools and poets around the world. During that time, he taught classes on ‘Digital Videomaking with Poetry’ at schools in Seattle WA, California, Vancouver B.C., Minnesota, Florida, Missouri and gave a presentation at the Circulo Bellas Artas and the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art in Spain, home of Picasso’s Guernica. He also demonstrated the powerful integration of poetry-in-media at the annual Teachers’ of English Conference held in Baltimore.

From 2004-2005, his multimedia installation artwork has received critical praise at the Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival, the South of Market Cultural Center’s Annual Day of the Dead exhibition and most recently at the Galeria Posada in Sacramento, CA. His work has been mentioned in several Bay Area papers and has appeared on local channel and radio stations. His cinepoetry work continues to be the subject of academic and art -criticism articles as well as the subject of university and high school curriculum and thesis papers.

Currently, Mr. Aguilar serves at Executive Producer of SomArtsMedia (www.somartsmedia.org) and is now actively working towards building the International Poetry Museum to be based in San Francisco.

VISIT ARTIST'S WEBSITE BY CLICKING HERE

Spotlight #3: Jason Lewis

After many years on the road, on his incredible journey to circumnavigate the globe using only human power, Jason Lewis has returned home. The world welcomed Jason back to England on October 7, 2007, nearly 13 years after his departure.

Initially, Jason was under the impression that the journey would take between 2 to 3 years to complete. It seemed like a good break from the London scene,” Jason recalls.

My earliest memory of travel was leaving home to investigate a yellow JCB construction digger (backhoe) a mile up the road from our house. I was three years old. Growing up I was the youngest of three children in a services family. The characteristic disruption of moving home every few years ended by the time I was four, so I was fortunate enough to grow up in the sleepy heart of the West Country in southern England.

Aside from the digger episode, travel held little appeal for me until my late teens. After leaving school, I made my first major trip overseas to Kenya with my mother in 1985. I remember the unfamiliar yet thrilling sensation of venturing into the unknown during a solo train ride from Nairobi to Mombasa. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that first right of passage would prompt my appetite for further travel and ultimately prove instrumental in agreeing many years later to join Steve Smith on the first attempt to circumnavigate the world using only human power.

A short episode with the British Army followed my return from Africa, enough to convinced me that working in such a rigid, institutionalized environment was not for me. I then spent the next four years in London studying for my degree and playing in a rock 'n roll band at night. It was during this period that I met Steve Smith - at the University. After initially taking a healthy dislike to each other we soon became great friends.

Several years later in 1992 I received an invitation from Steve to visit him in Paris. After picking me up from the airport and buying us both dinner at a rather expensive restaurant (I should have smelt a rat at this point), he spilt the beans on the real reason for inviting me to Paris...

“Assessing the long term environmental impact of creosote on motorway fence posts for the OECD isn’t what I had in mind when I decided to become an environmental scientist. It just isn’t cutting it for me. But I’ve thought of something that does. Something that no one has ever done before. I want you to be my partner in an attempt to be the first in history to circumnavigate the planet using only human power!”

It was at this point that I realised the poor bloke had completely lost his marbles.

I had absolutely no interest in the watery sections of such a proposal, having always failed to be convinced by recreational mariners of the supposed fun to be derived from being cold, wet and seasick all at the same time and for extended periods of time. But the overland sections sounded intriguing: my head was filled with wildly romantic images of riding bicycles across the steppes of central Asia, trekking through the frozen wilderness of the Himalayas, staring into the flames of a roaring campfire after a hard day hacking our way through the Amazon jungle. And the 2 years the expedition was projected to take traveling through predominantly warmer climes sounded like a welcome escape from that cold, wet island known to us natives as England.

But before I signed on the dotted line, one question sprang to mind: how would we get across the big wet bits - the Atlantic and Pacific oceans - without the assistance of the wind or a motor?

"Easy," Steve replied, "We'll use kayaks. All you have to do is go - ‘like this' - until you get to the other side."

And with those reassuring words, he waved his arms around his head in energetic circles, mimicking the strokes of a paddling kayaker.

Clearly neither of us had the faintest clue as to what we were getting ourselves into at that point. But, as we found ourselves reminding each other on numerous occasions from that point on, not being an expert is never a good enough reason not to try.

That was a long time ago. Although the primary objective to circumnavigate the world using only human power remains the same I know that I am on an even 'bigger' expedition than the one I joined back in 1992. Steve is no longer on the project and, during the dark times when it all seems too impossible, I have had to dig deep for the motivation to carry on.

My reasons for doing it have changed and, with them, the inspiration to keep going. Instead of running away from England, as it was at the beginning, it is now more a question of riding forward on the back of ideas that I feel passionately about, and which justify going 'out there' - with all the associated risks - again and again.

Hence the increasing emphasis to use this truly amazing project as a tool for furthering children's learning experiences in the classroom and for promoting those perennial qualities of human compassion, environmental responsibility and common citizenship - both at the local and global level - which are so vital if we, the human species, are yet to make a positive imprint on Earth.

VISIT THE WEBSITE DOCUMENTING JASON'S VOYAGE and his follow up work

Spotlight #4: Ammon Rost

Ammon Rost’s vision is to demonstrate that all forms of visual art can be fully integrated, in order to heighten our human experience of beauty, empathy, poignancy, and harmony. By creating dynamic visual imagery templates that interact with each other and with the viewer’s emotions, Ammon seeks to create a connection in us that will deepen our understanding of art in all of its forms.

Ammon was born and grew up in Tokyo, Japan, where he absorbed the complexities of Japanese culture, including its anime foundations, simple wabi-sabi spirit, and appreciation of experimentation in art and architecture. After coming to the States as a teenager, Ammon blossomed in the Bay Area, creating a wide archive of paintings and photographs that he continues to draw on today. As a recent graduate of UCLA’s prestigious art department, Ammon still tries to utilize diverse intellectual, emotional and cultural elements in his work.

Ammon calls his unique style “LAVA art” ® – Live Action Visual Aesthetic. All of the imagery in his work is original – his own paintings, sketches, photography, and visual footage. Ammon has fired up a company called Lala Visuals (www.lalavisuals.com) to provide a venue for LAVA art and other forms of visual expression. Ammon continues to “pump the art” and is happy to have the chance to share it with people all over the world.

Ammon has made two short video works available to Lingual Net in the CinePoetry section – “Easy, Lucky, Free”, and “lala’s dream”. For these works, Ammon used Final Cut Pro to create multiple layers of digital imagery from different sources – paintings, still photography, and video clips – into one frame. The final motion graphic (LAVA), when combined with carefully selected music, becomes a narrative composition that can be interpreted in personal ways by the viewer.

VISIT ARTIST'S WEBSITE BY CLICKING HERE

Spotlight #5: Erica Filanc

Lingual Net: Tell us something about yourself

Erica Filanc: I grew up in a small beach town in San Diego and spent most of my childhood years playing imaginary games, catching crawdads and frogs in local streams, riding horses, playing sports, acting in plays and laboriously practicing the piano for hours.

LN: How did you get into filmmaking?

EF: Growing up in a very artistic family I was surrounded by the theatre and arts. I made the move into filmmaking after I starred in a short film and found myself more curious about the people behind the camera (DP, AC, Gaffer, Grips, etc) and less interested in playing a role for the camera. As a creative writing and theatre major at UC Davis (California), I was full of stories I wanted to tell and realized I saw them as images and not as novels. Therefore I moved to Los Angeles to intern for a production company and began my first documentary about a Maasai Warrior. After working on that film, I realized I lacked formal training and craved instruction from a university and so I applied and was accepted into the San Francisco State University MFA program in Cinema.

LN: What kind of themes attract you?

EF: I am very attracted to films that discuss social problems within our society and also films that show the psychology of women. Filmmakers who examine and expose the flaws in human behavior inspire my own work — Pedro Almodovar, Todd Haynes, Lars Von Trier, Jane Campion and Krzysztof Kieslowski, to name a few. With an acute awareness of human behavior, these directors examine the complexity of human nature by pushing their characters to extremes to see how far a human being will go to survive.

LN: What is one film that you are very proud of?

EF: I am very proud of “Living Poets”, my first finished 16mm short documentary film about a group of poets who reclaim a heroin-trafficked street corner every Thursday night. Apart from the multiple screenings, press and awards this film received, I am proud of it because it was such a challenging film to make and I did it successfully. The initial challenge was finding the right film stock that would be fast enough to capture the subjects using the available light at the Mission and 16th Bart station in San Francisco. Kodak came out with an incredible Vision 2 series and the 500T stock proved to be fast enough that I didn’t need to rely on any other lights. Once I jumped the hurdle of capturing all of the images and poetry I wanted, then began the challenge of finding my story. This film was really crafted in the editing room, and I am proud of that as an editor. It was tough and kept me awake many sleepless nights—but in the end, the story came through and I said what I wanted to say. That is the most important thing, and for that, I am proud of this film.

LN: What is one of your most important career goals?

EF: I don’t have one “most important” career goal because in order to get where I want to go ultimately, there are many goals/steps along the way that are equally important. The important thing for me is to recognize what those goals are and to congratulate myself when I achieve them.

VISIT ARTIST'S WEBSITE BY CLICKING HERE