This last fall, Julie Goldstein, the Professor of Animation, had received an award for her experimental documentary Virtual Memory. At Grand Valley State University, Julie teaches New Media covering topics such as virtual and augmented reality, as well as courses in traditional and 3D animation. As an experimental filmmaker, she uses her work to start conversations in class and encourages the wide use and education of visual literacy on campus.
Julie’s short film, Virtual Memory, is an experimental documentary that explores the evolution of capturing images, from paintings to new technologies. With educational found footage, that is strung together through editing, Julie’s work identifies the relationship between images and memory, and focuses on the impact that new technologies and its continuous evolution has on our society. As a society that is saturated in moving images, these news technologies have reconfigured the way in which we view ourselves. As a person who was born in the 60s, Julie recognizes her significant role with new and old media and has created Virtual Memory as a way to bid a fond farewell to the 20thcentury.
Virtual Memory was awarded with the Andy Warhol Award for Best Experimental Film at the Blowup Arthouse Film Festival, which celebrates arthouse films and filmmakers. The organization conducts its annual film festival of narrative, musical, and documentary films, shorts, animations, experimental films, and student work in Chicago, at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
Julie hopes to conduct and lead animation workshops in the future for students that are interested in Film and Video Production, and for students that aren’t primarily enrolled in the major. With a society that is immersed in a constant stream of information, she hopes to answer some of the questions that students are confronted with on a daily basis. Julie provided some advice for students: “By playing in the sandbox, you can create the reality that you want to live in now so that you can do what you want in the future.”
Julie Goldstein and her film have also been nominated for a number of awards from all around the country and will be featured at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art in the Spring. On January 15th, she will be representing GVSU Animation as a panelist for “Movies + Music” at The Block in Muskegon. Along the side of Andy Buelow, the executive director of the West Michigan Symphony, Julie will be responding to the Italian animated film Allegro non Troppo.
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