Ruth West's 911 Class commemoration Project

[2001?]

The video showcases how Ruth West and her Computer Graphics class reacted to the events of 9/11. West explains how the faculty and students were extremely traumatized over the events of 9/11, especially since it was originally unclear what the long-term effects of the tragedy would be. West's class chose to use the internet, which was relatively new at this time, to create a commemoration project. The class created an alphabet describing the events and how they felt about what had happened. 23 of the 26 letters in the alphabet are used, and each one alphabet has one word or one idea attached to it. Each letter also includes a photo which shows the devastation of the tragedy attached to the word used. Some of the words used were destruction, flag, massacre, patriotism, and stars and stripes. Ruth West is an internationally-recognized artist who has been working with computer art for the last 25 years. One of the first two graduates of the University of Massachusetts with a Master of Fine Arts degree in computer graphics, West's art has grown steadily along with her chosen medium. She works with digital collage, flash interactivity, and web design. She was also the director of digital web and multi media at Springfield College at the time of the film, and she still works at the college as of 2020 in Blake Hall as an Associate Professor of Art. Digital files only. A document marker has been put into her faculty file describing the digital file.