Over the weeks of February 16 and 23, the IEA hosted Phil Hastings as our artist in residence. Receiving his MFA in cinema from Southern Illinois University and currently teaching Film & Video Arts in the Department of Visual Arts and New Media at SUNY Fredonia, Phil’s work encompasses film making and animation, creating new creatures in his animation work and documenting natural phenomenon around him. His video documentation of the sexual cannibalism and reproduction practices of praying mantis has been licensed for shows on National Geographic television and the Canadian Broadcast Company and images from his praying mantis work can be seen in New Scientist magazine.

During his residency Phil broke out of his shell, so to speak, and used his residency to experiment in areas completely new to him. Phil spent time producing digital prints from his Morphology animation series, and proceeded further, producing laser-etched woodblock prints and eventually a series of photo litho prints. IEA co-director Joesph Scheer worked with Phil extensively to help him explore these new areas of working. Phil also spent time taking his images into Photosounder, a program that allows one to take images and produce sounds pieces by scrubbing across the image while the program generates audio based upon the pixel information at any given location. To tie back to his creatures, Phil explored this tool to create the cries each species would produce.