Outside of my professional work, I do a lot of stuff! Here you’ll find my comics, music endeavors, art exhibit, and other miscellaneous projects I’ve got my hands on.
Digital AI Portraiture Exhibit with Tiltfactor Game Studios
I worked with artist and game designer Mary Flanagan at Tiltfactor Game Studios on a series of independent research projects that explore with how artificial intelligence visually reproduces existing forms of bias in our digital commons. We received an Arts Integration Grant, which I used to create work for, organize, publicize, and host a gallery exhibition of our work at the Visual Arts Center in Hanover, NH. Here is a brief video from the Hopkins Center Instagram explaining the project:
The project abstract is in the video caption, or find it here: Project Abstract
Educational Comics!
In the summer of 2022, I received funding from the Dartmouth Social and Environmental Justice in Philosophy research grant to write and illustrate a comic book that intended to break down pivotal concepts in feminist philosophy/gender studies and relate them to a younger audience in an approachable way. I care a lot about making this knowledge public and equipping young women with the tools to critically address their experience. Throughout this project, I consulted with high school teachers about pedagogy for feminist studies and shared each chapter with a group of high school women, incorporating their feedback and clarifying any sections they found confusing. Only two chapters of the comic are finished at this point, but here is a preview:
On the same theme of empowering women with philosophical knowledge, the following is a webcomic I posted on social media:
You like my philosophy comics THAT much!? Okay fine, I’ll give you some more of them…
Self Comics details a feminist critique of some contemporary philosophies of self, and
Clara Vs White Womanhood includes a few personal comics that employ feminist philosophers to analyze the minute ways in which the logic of misogyny permeates my daily experiences.
Friday Night Rock
I am the general manager of Friday Night Rock (FNR), which is Dartmouth’s music club. Three times a term, we host a free on-campus concert that features up-and-coming musical artists. We focus heavily on supporting artists who are underrepresented in the music industry, bringing in a lot of boundary-breaking electronic, punk, and rock from from female artists, queer artists, artists of color, etc. Our club is also a community that serves as an alternative social space for queer folks and other kids who don’t jive with Dartmouth’s greek life. FNR is my favorite thing about Dartmouth! It’s of top importance to me to render visible radical musicians who expand perspectives and inspire alternate modes of embodiment and performance, especially on Dartmouth’s campus which can feel quite insular and lacking in queer representation at times. Check out the FNR Instagram to see concert pictures and posters (known as the best poster design on campus, I might add)! Or take a look at these highlights and stats, as well as three posters I designed:
Starting Dartmouth’s First Girlband, Minx
In Spring 2022, my friend Sylvie Benson and I realized that there were no bands on campus with an all-femme membership. It is very rare to find women in the music scene at Dartmouth, and those who do inhabit it are usually the only women in an otherwise all-male band. So, Sylvie and I put a few posts out on social media about our experience with this lack of representation. I made some comics for publicity, we began recruiting band members, and now we’re rocking as Minx, Dartmouth’s fist girlband!
Sylvie and I also have our own independent music group for which I do sound design and music production. Lyrically, we address issues that fall along the intersection of environmentalism and feminism. We are organizing a lecture series dealing with these topics at which we will perform our original songs, but for now our music is unreleased, so stay tuned 😉
What Else is Clara Doing!?
Lots! Here’s a list of current interests and things I’ve got my hands on:
- I want to make a comic about how sound works, from the sound waves moving air molecules, to those waves reaching your ear, being interpreted by the ear, transmitted into electric signals, and interpreted by your brain… the process is mind-blowingly complex, but as a music lover I feel like I MUST properly understand this!
- Currently reading: The Once and Future King
- Currently watching: MTV’s Downtown
- Currently listening to: https://open.spotify.com/user/clarapakman?si=3a21ab9cf37f430c 😉