Project Five - Audio Tour - Bricks - JPZ

This is the link to my audio tour.
http://www.unr.edu/art/digital_media/tour/midtown/007%20Bricks%20--%20JPZ.mp3

Bricks by J. Patrick Zbella

This work depicts an unnamed fictional character that narrates the moments before his death. It is unclear exactly where he is and who he is with, but he is somewhere else telling the listener his story. The story shows him walking downtown contemplating death and suicide, until his unforseen death. And as he is dying he comes to several realizations about his life.

I intentionally made it unclear where he was; whether he is in hell or heaven or some other after life, I left that bit up to the interpretation of the listener. I did this because the story focuses on life and living and not what comes after. Though, my interpretation is that he is in some sort of heaven or purgatory but is still bitter about his circumstances because he is incapable of fulling understanding them.

I wrote the piece, recorded and directed the voice actors, as well as created all the music for the piece. The music is just me and my guitar and some effect pedals.

Project Four - Performance Art Piece

This is the video of my fourth project.

Walking With Yourself


This project consisted of me filming myself walking past the camera in several different areas. It was actually surprisingly difficult to film myself, as I had to set the camera up where I thought it would work, then walk past it, then view the footage and then adjust accordingly. After I got all the footage I ran into problems editing the videos. First it was difficult to figure out the spacing between the three different videos so I had to time how long it took to walk through the NV Gallery and then edit from there. I also somehow messed up my export of the videos because they turned out with a terrible quality and were all pixelated. But I decided to just go with it because I thought the loss of quality to the second me might be an interesting idea. I also realized how this project was all about not knowing what to expect, not only as the viewer, which is typical for viewing art, but for the artist as well. I had no idea what mine looked like or what it was going to look like till I watched it back. This added a very cool sense of randomness and adventure. I had no idea what to expect, really, only what I had taken with me and then I just winged it. I did not turn out how I'd imagined but that's okay because that's a part of this performance. The piece itself represents the difficulties of trying to follow your own intentions; whether from your brain or heart.