Category: Archive

Roger Malina has been awarded an honorary degree from the Technical University of Valencia in Spain for his work promoting and advancing research at the intersection of art, science and technology.

The Spanish University cited his role as director of the ArtSciLab as a contributing factor. As a transdisciplinary research lab, the ArtSciLab focuses on innovative projects such as the podcast platform Creative Disturbance.
For 25 years, Malina has been involved with the Leonardo organizations, which his father founded in San Francisco and Paris. The organizations strive to promote work that explores the interactions between the arts and sciences, as well as between the arts and new technologies. Malina currently serves as the executive editor of the Leonardo journal, published by MIT Press.
Malina earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his doctorate in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley.

The Audiolats channel Virtual Africa on Creative Disturbance hosted a video conference between Dallas and Dakar where UT Dallas students engaged with Gamecamp Senegal attendees on topics relating to games, language, culture and creative industries.
Students from the School of Art, Technology and Emerging Communication at UT Dallas held a virtual meeting with Gamecamp organizer Kofi Sika Latzoo and Goethe Institut Sénégal’s director Michael Jeismann, led by Virtual Africa’s project coordinator and ATEC doctoral student Yvan Tina.
The group discussed the issue of technological development in some areas, the various business models available for the gaming industry, the implementation of transmedia narratives across multiple platforms, the role of government agencies in creative industry, and the future of mobile gaming in Africa.

It follows from that discussion that microtransactions currently constitutes the most reliable business plan for game developers in Sénégal due to the high cost of internet plans that keep most people from being able to play online with their smartphones. The microtransaction strategy allows one to progress at his/her own pace and to access the game offline. The low tech approach, as opposed to high tech (virtual and augmented reality), doesn’t have good days ahead given the rapid growtth of technology. However, there are alternative solutions such as the use of solar energy to deal with the access to electricity and the internet. One could even envision the emergence on new games based on this ecological approach. Similarly, the potential of serious games, through the gamification of many aspects of life, offer the opportunity to overcome the challenge of education in some African countries.
The last issue to be pointed out remains the incredible diversity of African societies, with thousands of languages and cultures, presents a real difficulty for game designers. It remains, however, that multilingualism and the development of African storytelling (based, for example, on oral traditions or afrofuturist speculations) would be an incredible asset for anyone involved in the African creative industries.
The Gamecamp—a festival which ran from July 14-17, 2016 in Dakar, Senegal—is a partnership with the Goethe Institut, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA Sénégal) and Orange Telecommunications. The festival has toured many African countries since its inception and was marked this year by the release of Google’s Cardboard as well as of NVIDIA’s Shield, the most powerful box android TV in the market, and the cloud gaming Geforce Now.
The festival allows attendees the opportunity to discover many games that have been developed in Sénégal such as Da’karapid, Cross Dakar City, HA Buggy and Diambar. Workshops for game designers on Unity, Game Design Canvas and several gaming tournaments (Call of Duty, Leagues of Legend) as well as an initiation to 360 panoramic photography (ConceptSky VT) are also offered in this program.

Yvan Tina is a Phd Student in the School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication and member of ArtSciLab. His work investigates the possible convergences of biotechnology, synthetic biology, and artificial life with the performing arts. He is a member of the international, multilingual podcast platform Creative Disturbance where he regularly contributes to Meta–Life and Virtual Africa.
His recent publications include:
1. On Complexism: Pulsion and Computation, Technoetic Arts Journal, Volume 14, Issue 1-2, June 2016
This article discusses a concept introduced by art theorist Philip Galanter in several publications over the past decade: complexism is a notion that looks at both past and future while aiming to reconcile (post) modern aesthetics with the cybernetic and biological paradigms. This article focuses on the re-evaluation of the performance arts within the framework of this theory, favoring the idea that every artwork necessarily resists attempts of subordination.
2. Straight Talk with Yvan Tina, SciArt Magazine, April 2016

 
In this article Yvan’s insights provide a bridge between the sometimes disparate domains of art and science —a perspective increasingly necessary with the rapid emergence of new materials and technologies available for artistic appropriation.

Charles Lilly, a Phd Student in the School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication and member of ArtSciLab, received a Society for Scholarly Publishing Fellowship in March, 2016.
Lilly attended the 38th Annual Meeting of Society for Scholarly Publishing took place in Vancouver, Canada. This was the first year of the SSP Fellowship Program. While its previous incarnation (the Travel Grant Program) provided funds to attend the Annual Meeting, the Fellowship Program adds something much more valuable than money: mentorship, and immersion in everything that the SSP has to offer, through the opportunity to join committees and conversations.
The group of 12 Fellows consisted of seven early career professionals and five students – of whom three were “international Fellows” from outside the US. The different types of organizations, universities and backgrounds that we represented led to a thought-provoking number of perspectives.
Lilly talked about his role in the program:

To start, SSP has smartly invested in the future by providing resources for students and young professionals to attend the annual meeting. The fellowship program provided instant community: to walk through contemporary issues in scholarly communication with a diverse group of mentors and peers was energizing. As a student, my research revolves around the future of the monograph. ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination offered discussion on potential transformations of the scholarly book. We “sprinted” down our thoughts using the collaborative authoring and publishing tool Overleaf. Some represented our conversation with multimedia; others penned poems. The end result was a multi-authored collection of essays, media and more.
In the panel “Transformative Publishing Platforms for Digital Scholarship in the Humanities,” university presses, largely funded by the Mellon Foundation, presented tools and platforms that aim to make open, networked, living (constantly editable, “always in beta”), digital monographs. I ran up to Susan Doerr from the University of Minnesota Press to discuss Manifold, which promises to think beyond static replications of print. I also found myself racing up to Dr. John Maxwell after he spoke about radical openness and networked books at the closing plenary, “Change is Already Here: Revolutionary Examples.” Dr. Maxwell, who is director of Simon Fraser University’s publishing program, promised to send materials on monographs.
Everyone I chased was accommodating and quick to give out their card. I expect many fruitful conversations to follow. So, the question may not be what did I learn, but what will I learn. Thanks to SSP’s generous fellowship program, I am certainly on a new, exciting path in my research.

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Parts of this article originally appeared on the Scholarly Kitchen website on June 10, 2016.

ATEC 6380. 501 STEM to STEAM.
Contact roger.malina@utdallas.edu for info and approval to enroll.
Fall 2016 Instructor: Professor Roger Malina. Classes will be held on Monday Evenings.
This seminar will be co-taught with modules led by Dr. Paul Fishwick, Dr. Eun Ah Lee and Professor Kathryn Evans.
Course description: The seminar is open to PhD, MA and MFA students. May be repeated for credit as topics vary (9 semester credit hours maximum).
Syllabus is designed around the research or creative projects of each student.
This course will study current and emerging topics, approaches, and practices, where arts, sciences, and humanities interact or converge, with the goal to advance new research questions and areas of inquiry.
The integration of the arts, humanities and design into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math has become an important research and education agenda in the US and internationally. In this seminar each student will work with the instructor and/or other students on topics in science and engineering that are part of their ATEC or EMAC PhD, MA or MFA project of interest.
The syllabus will be modified to discuss topic areas of each student. Deliverables from each student for the seminar will be defined individually so that each student makes significant progress on their own project. TOPICS Guest lecturers will include visitors to ATEC and also online guests proposed by the students. Topics and readings will include the following topics, with others to be added responding to student areas of interest: The ethics of curiosity, Readings from the work of Indian philosopher of science Sundar Sarukkai, Foundations of inter and transdisciplinary research with readings from the work of Allen Repko, The science of collaboration, readings around the methodologies used to develop successful collaboration strategies when the work bridges the arts, sciences and humanities, Key readings from the Science of Team science initiative, anthropologist James Leach and other experts on training collaboration techniques.
Required reading will be the NSF funded study led by Dr. Malina on enabling new forms of collaboration between the arts and humanities with science and engineering. How researchers and artists can use developing techniques in cultural analytics, data visualization and representation, data Science. How digital humanities are enabling new research questions and methods. Data immersion and exploration. Performing data. Contemporary initiatives in cognitive sciences and neurobiology that can inform research and creative practices. Innovations in scholarly and art publishing and education. How researchers and artists document their work and present to different audiences today. The history and current practices of inter, multi and transdisciplinary research including recent work on the second wave of “consilience’ or emerging practices to succeed in ‘vertical integration’ of the sciences/engineering with arts/design/humanities. Research in arts and design.
We will look at how international programs are developing research methodologies in arts and design and emerging best practices. Development of rationales for art-science and art-technology in society in the USA and Europe. History and trends in design education. Creative industries today. Citizen science, collaborative science and open science developments today.
Deliverables Students will be expected to use social media and new forms of professional documentation such as video abstracts, podcasts, an online research web site or blog. Each student will record a podcast discussing their work to be published on the Leonardo Creative Disturbance podcast platform at MIT Press. Strategies for public engagement. Funding is available for student presentations at local events and conferences. Students who wish to enroll are encouraged to contact the instructor at roger.malina@utdallas.edu. So that, the syllabus can be augmented in areas of specific interest or need of the student.
Grading will be based 10% on attendance, 45% on participation and presentations made during the semester and 45% on the final deliverable. The final deliverable for the end of the semester is intended to help each student work and advance their ATEC or EMAC PhD, MA or MFA project or interest. Format of the deliverable will be determined by the student in consultation with the instructor.
 
 
 
 

Many of the world’s top astronomy communicators met in Medellin, Colombia in May to exchange views and experiences during the five-day ‘’Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2016’’ Conference.
Organized by International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission C2, CAP is the largest event of its kind and continues a series of international gatherings held roughly every two years since 2002. It was the first CAP conference in South America.
Professional communicators, research astronomers, press officers, science journalists and facilitators covered 30 different topics, mostly concentrated on how to best bring Astronomy closer to people and engage different audiences with Science and Technology.

Roger Malina’s keynote talk put main emphasis on Crossfertilizing the Arts, in retrospect of Sciences and New Technologies. The talk also included wide range of topics like: STEM and STEAM practices, astrophysics, and data visualization.

Cassini Nazir, an assistant professor of interaction design at UT Dallas, has been appointed as Director of Design and Research for the ArtSciLab in the Arts and Technology program.
At UT Dallas, Cassini teaches classes in interaction design, web design and design principles. He is also academic head for the burgeoning Interaction Design track in the Arts and Technology program.
With Roger Malina, executive editor of the Leonardo journal, Cassini is currently managing Creative Disturbance, an international, multilingual network and podcast platform supporting collaboration among the arts, science, and technology communities.
In recent years, Cassini has worked closely with Big Design Conference founder Brian Sullivan to create opportunities for UT Dallas students to help organize the yearly conference that brings in over 1,000 design professionals from across the nation.
Over the past 17 years, Cassini has designed print pieces, logos, websites, and interactive experiences for mobile, tablet and desktop devices. Cassini holds an MFA from UT Dallas’ Arts and Technology Program and bachelors degrees in English literature and Economics.

Scot Gresham-Lancaster,  a UT Dallas ATEC associate professor of sound design, has composed a piece and paper, “Culture of Fire” for Analog Neural Network Synthesizer, Geiger Muller Counters and Computer, which have been accepted for the  41st International Computer Music Conference hosted at the University of North Texas in Denton. The ICMC will take place September 25th to October 1st, 2015.
Below is an abstract:
“Culture of Fire” for Analog Neural Network Synthesizer, Geiger Muller Counters and Computer
Author:
Scot Gresham-Lancaster, UT Dallas
Abstract:
The “Culture of Fire” is an ongoing live performance piece constructed of residue from a project that was started by David Tudor and others to turn INTEL’s now defunct Electronically Trainable Analog Neural Net (ETANN) into a music synthesizer. A secondary layer of “control” in the live performance of the piece is that Geiger Muller Tube triggers are used as the source of actuation and location distribution of sonic events.