Jackpot Grant Exercise

· In 75 words or less, summarize your proposal for NAC funding. State project, date, place and purpose. Be brief, this is just a synopsis

         My project would be a hand drawing animation. The length is estimated to be around 5 minutes. The purpose would be focused on biodiversity and the animal endangerment. It would explore the human-environment relationship and how human activities affect species extinction. The project would take place at Church Fine Arts building in University of Nevada, Reno on May 5^th through May 7^th, 2015.  For this project, NAC funding would provide a big financial support of technical approach.

Grant amount being requested (up to $1000): $800

· Primary Contact Name: Jessie Lien

· Primary Contact Title (Organizations only): N/A

· Primary Contact Address: 1664 N Virginia St

· City, State & Zip: Reno, NV 89503

· Primary Contact Email: jlien@nevada.unr.edu

· Applicant Status: Individual

· Grantee Institution: Individual-artist

· Grantee Race: Asian

· Type of Activity: Artwork creation

· Discipline: Media arts-video

1. Provide a concise description of your project. Please include when and where your project will take place. What specific elements of the proposed project will NAC funding support?

         This project would be displayed to the public at Church Fine Arts building in University of Nevada, Reno for two days from May 5^th through May 7^th, 2015. The project contains the elements of biological science and human-environment relationship. It would be a short animation consisted in various animal species drawings. The length is set to be approximately 5 minutes. Five classes of animals, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, would be selected. The video would start out with aquatic mammals then end with marine fish. It would be a looping DVD projected on a wall. Because the theme emphasizes on species extinction, I would choose endangered animals that disappeared due to human activities as my video characters. Also, I would only focus on the species that have the conservation status to be either critical endangered or vulnerable, and very few would be classified as less concern in their conservation condition. Then the images would be drawn by Corel Painter software. The reason I choose to use drawing is because visual art is a common art form and is usually an effective way to transfer message to audience(s). After all drawings were finished, it would be collected and be combined into a video by Adobe Premiere. In the video, the drawings would be played in the horizontal or vertical direction. I would randomly insert the images that slightly explain how human activities affect animal’s survival into the video. For example, when the animation showed the drawings of sea turtles, there would be some photos like turtle trapped in fishing nets. The photos would be set to only pop on less than one second. I want the audiences to view this video more than one time to try to figure out the content of these photos and think about the message behind the animation. The photographs would also help to understand the seriousness of human activity impact on the environment.

2. What is the purpose and goal(s) of the proposed activity? How does it relate to the cultural needs of your community?

         The primary purpose of this project is to appreciate biodiversity and increase the awareness on animal endangerment and species extinction. According to National Geographic, species extinction is happening 1000 times faster when human appears, meaning we are losing plenty of organisms in an unbelievable speed. The issue is typically caused by human activities such as hunting, natural resources consumption, over-exploitation, etc. For example, many amphibians lost their habitats because of agriculture use or industrial contamination. The importance of biodiversity is that it increases natural productivity and maintains ecosystems in balance. For this project, my goal is to bring up more the attention on animal conservation from the audience. I hope the animation would create certain influences on the audience to view nature and life with more respect. Secondary, I hope it can increase public interest in biodiversity by caring wildlife preservation or human impact on natural environment.

3. Describe your target audience(s) for the project. If you use the term "underserved," please provide us with your definition of the word as it relates to population(s) or region(s)

         There would be no specific type of target audience(s) for this project because I think protecting animal diversity is a worldwide topic, and everyone should learn about it and understand. Therefore, the audiences can be included from people with inexperience on biology to professorial scientists. However, since the project would be first installed in University of Nevada, Reno, I would expect the majority of my audiences is going be students major in fine arts, artists that participate the final project exhibition set-up, and university facilities. Then the secondary group might be students major in biological science, local artists, and people who came to visit this exhibition. Furthermore, audiences might be people who physically showed up at this exhibition or watched the video on the Internet. Because this video project would be uploaded to the Internet, target audiences would be predicted to present in a broader range.

4. Provide a concise account of your experience, training and accomplishments as a professional artist.

         I'm an undergraduate student, majoring in biology and minoring in digital art, of University of Nevada, Reno. Because studying the two distinct subjects, my long-term goal for being an artist is to explore the relationship between life science and art. I have completed three projects for my digital art courses to approach my goal. The first is a small sculpture using three eggs as medium. Each egg has some major classes of animals on it. This sculpture expressed the idea of biodiversity. The second assignment is a video triptychs, searching for the connection between water and lives. The recent work is a responding sculpture to Heidegger's article The Question Concerning Technology. It applies the concept on the biotechnique of DNA sequencing. So far, my experience of project working is only limited in personal achievement. To work on this project that I am purposing, I am looking forward to make some influences on our society.

Link for the project assignments:

The diversity mini-sculpture 
http://jessielien-art245.blogspot.com/2014/04/project-7-3d-meat-space.html
Life with water (video) 

http://jessielien-art245.blogspot.com/2014/10/project-3-experimental-video-triptychs.html
ATCG (responding sculpture) 

http://jessielien-art245.blogspot.com/2015/03/project-1-responding-to-heidegger.html

5. Why does your project deserve public funding (state and federal dollars)?

         In many countries and regions, animal conservation has been highly concerned by the government. Some countries even support organization or establish national institutions to protect local animal diversity. Even though my project would not directly assist in animal conservation, it still can raise the audiences’ attention on the issue of animal extinction. In addition, my project would be able to make effect not only on the audience, but also on the artists who are interested in applying this project into their works. However, to extend the influence as possible as I could, it would be beneficial to distribute my project widely. Thus, a certain level of financial support would be very helpful. If receiving NAC funding, I would be able to find better way to increase the distribution of public interest, such as making advertisement and releasing them through mass media. The funding would also help in technical approach, improving the quality of this video project.

6. What methods will you use to market and promote your project to the general public and to specific constituencies? Will this build your audience and make you more visible in the community and/or state?

         I have planned two major ways to distribute my project and to increase the public interest. For the first method, I would apply the advantages of the Internet. After uploading the video, it would have more opportunities to be seen by the public due to the accessibility and rapid transmission. The Internet would also help to transmit my project around the world, bring broader rage of audiences. Second, I would use advertising resources, including social media and communication media, to inform the public about my project and the information of the exhibition.  On the other hand, to gain the attention of specific constituencies, I would find sponsors that might be animal conservation-related organizations and magazine companies to ask for cooperation as an alternative way to distribute my project. By using Internet, accessing mass media, and asking for cooperation from specific organizations, I believe this project would be more visible in public.

7. Describe the methods you will use to evaluate project impact and measure its effectiveness. How do you determine if your goals were achieved?

         For this project, my purpose is to make people be more concern about biodiversity and conservation. Because it is a long-term goal, I think the achievement would be hard to determine. However, I still plan out some methods to estimate the effectiveness of my project. I would invite the artists and cooperators to visit the exhibition and ask for suggestions to my project. I could also look up the comments on the Internet after I upload the animation video, and critiques from magazines, news, or any communication media. In addition to having the public audience to give critiques, I planed to make more drawings and put them into a small collection book. The book would be sold internationally. Then it would act as an alternative method to evaluate project impact by checking the sales volume. This way would allow people to view this project even if not using Internet.

· Projected Expenses

         -the NAC Grant Request: $800

         -technical support on software: $300
         -Ways of distributing public interest: $500