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Flash Goddess
interview
July, 2005

Amy Franceschini

Amy Franceschini
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Amy Franceschini

Amy Franceschini is a new media artist/designer working with notions of community, sustainable environments and the conflicting rituals of humans and nature. Her work manifests "on" and "offline" in the form of dynamic websites, installations and printed matter. Franceschini sees herself as a farmer and looks to nature as the ultimate laboratory. Her work challenges the physicality of place and media.
Currently, she teaches New Media courses at the San Francisco Art Institute and Stanford University. Since 1998, she has been collaborating with with Josh On, Sascha Merg and Michael Swaine to realize projects such as Holding Patterns, They Rule and Communiculture.
In 1995, she co-founded Atlas magazine. One of the first 3 websites to be collected by a museum: SFMOMA.
What is your location?
Sept -April/May San Francisco, CA
May/June-August various cities Europe
What are the details of your education? Do you have any formal design/programming education?
I studied undergraduate at San Francisco State University with a focus on photography, but I got kidnapped by the sculpture department and made mostly 3 dimensional works. I did my graduate studies at Stanford University, again focusing on sculptural installation work. At the moment, the work I do is very educational. Most of the works are commissioned artworks that demand loads of research and learning new skills such as basic electronics, video editing and programming.
When did you get started using Flash?
I don't really use Flash. I began using Director in 1994 and have always had a hard time getting into Flash. I sketch things in Flash, but I am no Flash Goddess. I know what it can do, but I prefer to work with other Flash God/dess' and focus more on interaction and conceptual development.
What do you like most about Flash?
I am still a Director fan. Even to this day I think Director is a more robust product, especially in terms of working with physical computing, but now Flash is beginning to align with hardware companies to make this possible.
What are your other interests and hobbies?
I really enjoy biking. I try to bike to the beach as often as possible. It is really my sanity. I have a terrible habit of searching for this "future farm" online. I look all over the world for possible property to buy to start this fantasy farm I have been working towards for years.
Please tell us about some of your favorite sites.
I must admit google is still my favorite. It is my friend and other half of my brain. This is a good and bad thing. I look quite often at blogs like http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/
Any music you like to listen to when you are working?
I tend to have a bad habit of not changing the music for months until someone visits a few times and says, "hey, you have been listening to the same music for months," and proceeds to bring new music on their next visit. A few I listen to often, Coco Rosi, Devindra Barnhardt, Yes, Dntel, King Crimson...
Who and/or what has influenced and inspired you to keep creating?
My friends and most recently my students. I was getting a bit burnt out on "digital media" about 3 years ago, but I started teaching "Media Theory and Practice" to art students at the San Francisco Art Institute. When I was