AMANDA DEDIE
Special to The Leader
Phil Hastings, associate professor of Film and Video Arts, isn’t just a professor — he’s an artist.
Hastings has always wanted to be a teacher, following in the footsteps of his father who taught high school.
“My interest was seeing how I could affect somebody’s life,” said Hastings.
Besides teaching, Hastings has always had a passion for art. In fact, just recently, Hastings was granted the $2,500 New York State Electronic Media and Film Finishing Funds grant from the New York Council for the Arts.
This extremely competitive grant provides support to New York State artists to help complete film, video, sound, new-media and web-based art projects. This grant will aid Hastings in the completion of his “Morphologies” series.
“One of the things I’m really interested in, is how we interact with the materials around us every day and the idea of what we hold close to us, what we collect and how we use what we collect to better understand ourselves and the world around us,” Hastings said, describing the idea behind the “Morphologies” series. “How does that help us understand our place in the universe?”
Hastings has been working on this project since 2012. It was put off for awhile, due to lack of funds for the equipment needed to finish it, but that’s where the grant comes in.
“I’m always looking out for these types of grants. There are websites I look at all the time, so I might have found it on one of those. You gotta keep on it,” Hastings said.
The “Morphologies” series isn’t Hastings’ only project, either.
“I’ve got multiple projects going on at the same time, so I’ve got this one and another one called the “Threshold” series. [The “Threshold” series] is about liminality and the understanding of threshold states. So, where you go from one point to another — what are the opportunities and what are the steps you take in your life to meet those opportunities?”
When asked about his favorite type of art form, it came as no surprise when Hastings’ answer was mostly film.
“I like film-making in all of it’s different, various forms, because it allows me to combine all of the other art forms into it to create something,” Hastings said. “And I think that, for me, is where it really gets interesting. [For my series’] I take raw video and manipulate it in the software, to the point where it doesn’t look anything like the original. These are created images.”
Next semester, the campus will be lacking Hastings’ presence, as he will be taking a sabbatical. During his time away from teaching, he has a lot of plans.
“[I’ll be] working on the ‘Morphologies’ series. I’ll probably work on the ‘Threshold’ series. I’ve been working on a narrative film for a few years, but these other projects have gotten bigger. But I’m sure I’ll be working on that, also. I’ve got enough to keep me busy.”
Hastings has been teaching for nine years, and has been a professor at Fredonia since 2007. Before Fredonia, he taught at Kenyon College from ‘06-’07, and before that, at the University of Virginia from ‘05-’06. His undergrad years were spent at the Columbus College of Art and Design where he received a BFA in sculpture, and he later went to grad school to earn a master’s degree in cinema.
To see Hastings’ other projects, visit his website at http://www.philhastings.com, or http://vimeo.com/philhastings.