The IAS goals of research and inquiry help us to effectively connect and communicate with an audience. These learned skills are beneficial for in class collaborations, as well as contexts that are outside of the classroom setting, and help students to understand how to develop an argument that will resonate with a given audience. These skills within the research and inquiry goals have helped me to communicate my thoughts in both qualitative and quantitative ways, which has further allowed me to reflect on how an audience can comprehend ideas depending on the context.

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The first artifact chosen for this portfolio is “Documentation: Chaos”, from the course BISIA 440: Advanced Visual and Media Arts. This video-based project was a documentation of an in-class art installation that took inspiration from various artists and attempted to speak to the audience through visual metaphors. Before attempting to create my video-based installation, I had to do an immense amount of research that would help me to understand the ways in which other artists are able to speak to an audience. The intention of this project was to allow the audience to comprehend the idea of a chaotic mind. However, since there were no explicit words or dialogue that told the audience this purpose, I had to use other components that would demonstrate my ideas effectively. For example, the addition of sound, in the form of a steady heartbeat, helped me to aid the visuals and articulate the specific metaphor. Although this project was very challenging, I was able to grow and develop the skills in the areas of audience comprehension and by taking inspiration from visual artists, I was able to create a new type of qualitative visual argument that could be beneficial in the outside world.

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The second artifact chosen for the development of this portfolio is “Public Service Announcement: I Suck”, from the course BISMCS 240: Working with Video. This was another video-based project that aimed to inform the audience of how detrimental plastic straws are for the environment, as well as the animals that thrive in our oceans. Since this piece was a public service announcement, I had to make sure to use content that would resonate with the audience and make my argument about straws believable. In order to accomplish this, I included research photos and quotes that directly spoke to the dangers of plastic waste for the future of our environment. After researching different organizations and groups of individuals that, I was able to gauge how an audience would understand these concepts mentioned above and allowed me to incorporate both quantitative and qualitative research elements.

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Before creating both artifacts above, I was more comfortable using evidence and generating arguments that followed the more traditional approach of a research paper. However, both of these artifacts demonstrate how I grew as a creator and connected with an audience through visual components. These skills learned through the goals of research and inquiry are vital to my growth as a student and will help me to reflect in future endeavors outside of my classroom experiences.