Professor Matt Mottel has encouraged his students at New Jersey City University to make Digital Media Art that combines found footage of their hometown neighborhoods, along with digitally animated GIF Art from their family archives, with a soundtrack of their choice.
Image is a Seed is an ongoing artwork that combines the Syeus Mottel photography archive with new media made by current artists. Much of the archive is uncirculated and has not been seen by anyone in decades. By choosing a collaborative format, Prof. Mottel breathes new life into the photography work of his father inviting peers and students to respond with their own interpretations to the images of political and everyday moments of the 1960s and 1970s. Matthew Mottel also creates his own biographical work by connecting generational memory, as in the 2022 installment of the piece, The Image is a (Sydny) Seed. A work where he is the prism of reflection between his newborn son and late father. This body of work has been exhibited in galleries, online broadcasts, and in live performance internationally.
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