Some background
I have been teaching at CCA as a Lecturer, then Adjunct Professor since the fall semester of 1999. Together with Media Arts Department Chair, Barney Haynes and Associate Professor Don Day, we conceived of and developed a course called 'Interface', that introduces students to emerging technologies used in art practice. We started by developing the Hybrid Lab in Room 304 in Founders Hall, a lab in which we can give hands-on instruction and demonstrate skills associated with producing technology-based artworks. The students receive a broad survey of art and artists using various technologies in their art making, in addition to an introduction to the tools and skills necessary to complete projects using new and emerging technologies. (Related article)
The lab acts as a prototyping studio where the students are expected to complete a technology-based artwork for exhibition in a final show at the end of the semester. The ‘Interface Show’ now draws large crowds of students, educators, artists, curators and technologists from a variety of different organizations and institutions. This has also led to an invitation for our students to participate in the Yahoo! University Design Expo for the second year. The Expo held each summer and is sponsored by the Yahoo! Research and User Experience Design groups. This participation includes a grant as well as a chance for students to present their projects to both Yahoo! interactive design employees as well as other students from schools such as the Royal College of Arts and NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Subsequently, an Art and Technology track was born under the tutelage of Barney Haynes both within the Media Arts Department and college wide. This includes a class that I teach in Sculpture which introduces students to new media practices in sculpture as well as a Smart Materials class I am devleoping for the Spring semester 2008. Barney also arranged Electronics, Physics and Math classes in the Humanity and Science requriements that emphasize the background science and understanding necessary to develop a skill set to tackle the range of projects in new media studies. We have also developed and encouraged several other courses which have investigated advance techniques such as reactive media, interactive installations, web art, collaborative networks, data mining, circuit bending, wifi topographies and resonant audioscapes.
The foundation of these developments was born from a consultation Barney, Don and I participated in with a small company called MakingThings, now owned by Make Magazine. They were developing a controller called the The Make Module, which with the object based programming language, Max/MSP/Jitter, we could teach students a variety of strategies to control technology-based artworks or projects. This was a huge step as there was no off the shelf control modules available to artists at the time. Normally artists had to custom design their hardware control, and by contributing our end user feedback, we found a control system especially designed to help artists interface computers to their creative concepts.
For the past 18 years my passion for new media and technology-mediated art has resulted in a wide variety of experiences with exhibitions and art projects in the U.S and abroad. My expertise in the field of emerging genres and cross-disciplinary art practices is founded on a broad base of experiences ranging from project management and curatorial practice to the design and fabrication of large-scale technology-based exhibitions, installations and public art projects. My work in the arts is further supported and informed by the Media Arts and Sculpture courses I teach at the California College of the Arts and my experience in creating both my own work as well as collaborating on creative projects with other artists.