Course

Art + Science: Creative inquiry, embodied knowing, and flow. How does art-making result in new forms of inquiry? What is the potential impact of listening to molecular music or creating artificial life? What does it mean to make art in order to create new knowledge, to collect data, analyze it, or present ones findings? Are artists working at the intersection of the natural, physical or life sciences and art adding something to our understanding and experience of life that scientists are not or simply cannot?

This graduate studio explores emerging practices and trends in new media with particular emphasis on new modes of creative inquiry and practice-based research in the arts. It provides students with a foundation in innovative art practices that bring together the arts and sciences, irrespective of medium or modality. This exploration will be conducted in relation to their current practice and creative interests. Students will engage in research centered on their evolving creative practice and body of work in order to develop new work, develop individualized conceptual frameworks for arts practice as a form of inquiry, and continue development of their professional practice as an artist.

Projects

Process Post 2: Mazes / Disorientation

Fall 2014 New Media Course, Julie Libersat, Julie Libersat

I am investigating disorientation and spatial cognition in order to understand the percpetual and embodied structures of perception involved in navigating space. I am experimenting with the possibilities for aesthetic experience through navigation, narrative cartography and controlled disorientation. Getting lost allows us to see our surrounding with fresh eyes, challenges us to connect with the unfamiliar and has the power to transform our perception of our communities, spaces, and ourselves. By changing our...
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post 2

Fall 2014 New Media Course, Sarah Wastrup

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Process Post 2

Abby Sherrill, Fall 2014 New Media Course

As I continue my research in the connections between learning, reality and memory in the context of psychology, neuroscience and perception, I have decided to experiment specifically with cognitive development theory. This investigation will culminate through an integration of Gestalt and other visual perception theories in an interactive art piece. The viewer will be challenged to physically interact with the piece, creating a multi-sensory and perhaps disorienting experience. The artwork will be composed of multiple parts or “stations”,...
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Backroads – Process Post #2

Chaz Underriner, Fall 2014 New Media Course

My progress on Backroads has been mainly in the piece itself, particularly on one 10-minute section of the piece, and on my Artist Framework document. Regarding the piece itself, most of my time has been spent on a section of the piece that is one continuous shot of driving back roads at night. This shot is the most heavily modified video and audio of the work, and the shaky conceptual grounds for doing...
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Project Proposal

Fall 2014 New Media Course, Sarah Wastrup

I am interested in utilizing the science of natural dyes while collecting and categorizing plants from the Texas and Mexico border region to show how a location defined by violence has the potential to give color. Through out the project I will collect and catalogue natural plant material and water from locations such as El Paso/Juarez, Big Bend, Terligua, Sanderson, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Laredo/ Nuevo Laredo, Mcallen/Reynosa, Brownsville/Matamoros and implement tests...
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Learning/Reality

Abby Sherrill, Fall 2014 New Media Course

Considering the connections between LEARNING and REALITY in the context of neuroscience, psychology and philosophy: “Certain aspects of experience, it was assumed, were primarily determined by the basic physical structure of the brain and the nature of the neural processes occurring in it, and could not be altered by learning. The physical laws of organization governing these processes were assumed to govern our experience- particularly our experience of space and time” –The...
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Critique #1

Ermir Bejo, Fall 2014 New Media Course

Project History : Genetics > Blast > Mutations > Cellular Automata! Stephen Wolfram > Complexity Moto : to meditate upon the material / then dissolve with it: become an enigma / then crystalize, permutate, combine: within symmetry, asymmetry Concept : An acoustic musical work for Soprano and 5 Instruments, where the underlying logico-structural and procedural pre-compositional work is rooted within Wolfram’s methodology. Concretely, both the phonetic and the instrumental materials will undergo...
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