Tag Archives: Graduate Media Design

Media Design Practices graduating students explore the contours of invisibility, visibility and spaces in-between

MDP graduate Jenny Rodenhouse's thesis explores the possibilities of opening test sites to the public. Photo: Chuck Spangler

MDP graduate Jenny Rodenhouse’s thesis explores the possibilities of opening test sites to the public. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Imagine a world where scientific test sites operate like amusement parks, where robots disperse through their environment like seeds in the wind, where algorithms understand and incorporate the nuances of human language, and where the invisible data surrounding us is transformed into navigable terrain.

No, that’s not a back cover synopsis of the latest William Gibson novel, but rather thesis projects by then Media Design Practices (MDP) MFA candidates Jenny Rodenhouse, Ji Won Jun and Marcus Guttenplan, respectively, which were recently presented in the Wind Tunnel as part of that graduate program’s thesis exhibtion.

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New Student/Space video features MDP student Kristina Ortega on the future of medicine and technology

Art Center has a reputation for putting students through their paces, challenging them to meet and exceed their wildest creative dreams. The work ethic instilled here is legendary as are the results of all that toiling, ideating, imagining and making.

But the journey from inspiration to finished creation has always been somewhat mysterious. So beginning last Fall, we set out to illuminate students’ creative process with the series of videos we’ve recently renamed Student Space. Now it’s become a bonafide ‘thing.’ Here’s how it’s done: We identify three students from different disciplines who are in the process of completing an ambitious project. Over the course of the term we work with them to create three videos capturing the launch, obstacles and completion of their finished work of art and/or design. At the end of the term, each student’s trio of episodes constitutes an intimate take on the agony and ecstasy of bringing an idea to life. The results have been fascinating, dramatic and nothing short of spectacular. Need proof? Check out this playlist on our YouTube page.

The Spring 2015 term, will feature just one student: Media Design Practices thesis candidate, Kristina Ortega. We have no doubt that the spellbinding complexity of her project, which explores the ways people currently use technology to forecast future uses for tech, will more than make up for the lack of confederates in this Student/Space cohort. She’ll investigate something she calls “the human microbiome,” and its uses for the future of medicine. There’s really no more to say about her groundbreaking research, which we’ll capture over the course of this term, except: watch and learn. Oh, and enjoy!

Inherited land and soft hands: An MDP faculty’s field notes from Uganda

Mike’s brother in a brickyard, talking on his cell phone. Like many Ugandan villagers, he makes bricks for a living. Once piled into a tall structure, the bricks will be fired in place then sold. Photo by Elizabeth Chin

Mike’s brother in a brickyard, talking on his cell phone. Like many Ugandan villagers, he makes bricks for a living. Once piled into a tall structure, the bricks will be fired in place then sold. Photo by Elizabeth Chin

Media Design Practices faculty member, Elizabeth Chin, illuminates her experiences doing field work in Uganda in Anthropology Now, excerpted below.

In a small village in eastern Uganda, I sat on the porch of my host’s home. A retired head teacher, he has a rumbling, stentorian voice that commands authority. As we sipped tea, he looked over at me and asked: “Is it true that in your country it is legal for a man to go with a goat?”

After a moment, I sputtered, “Well, no!”

He considered my answer. “But it is legal for a man to go with a man?”

I told him “Yes.”

He continued, “And for a woman to go with a woman?”

“That too,” I said.

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Chinese immersion: Alum’s award-winning agency behind high-adrenaline campaign

An immersive experience that’s part of a campaign in China created for Under Armour by David Schwarz and Hush Studios. (Photo courtesy of Hush Studios)

An immersive experience that’s part of a campaign in China created for Under Armour by David Schwarz and Hush Studios. (Photo courtesy of Hush Studios)

In the United States, if you want to push yourself physically there’s a competitive infrastructure in place, from t-ball to the pros, to help you achieve your goals. That’s not so much the case in China, says David Schwarz (Graduate Media Design ’04), creative partner at Hush, the New York-based design agency: “The minute percentage of the population that are seen as having athletic ability are whisked away at a young age and put on an Olympic track.”

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“Design for UNICEF” Showcase in New York

Media Design Practices Grad Students present Uganda projects March 28

 

 

Art Center Media Design Practices graduate students, in collaboration with the College’s Designmatters social impact department, are in New York this week, showcasing groundbreaking projects that feature insights from design research and prototypes created at the UNICEF Innovation Lab in Kampala, Uganda. The event is part of “Design for UNICEF” on Thurs., March 28, 2013 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the UNICEF House, located in the Danny Kaye Visitors Centre at the United Nations.

The seven students’ projects, aimed at addressing issues of sustainability, access and equity, grew out of a partnership between Art Center’s MDP/Field track graduate program and the UNICEF Innovation Lab. Faculty members Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Sean Donahue and anthropologist Elizabeth Chin head up the team. The student cohort — Jeff Hall, Maria Lamadrid, Judy Toretti, Betsy Kalven, Elizabeth Gin, Jacob Brancsi and An Mina — made multiple visits to Uganda and immersed itself in a broad range of issues challenging the country’s youth.

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Designmatters Fellow Spending Summer at UNICEF

Graduate Media Design student Dustin York has been awarded an Designmatters Fellowship for 2010. He is spending this term at UNICEF headquarters in New York.

York is spending the summer working in the groundbreaking Innovation Unit at UNICEF, working with students from NYU to develop new strategies around, and devise new visual and sensory experiences for, telling UNICEF’s global stories.

York’s keen ability for communication and media design, his seasoned professionalism and, in his own words, “interest for shaping experiences to communicate across great distances, and bringing new ideas to life” made him the ideal candidate for appointment as Designmatters Fellow.

Join us in wishing Dustin a wonderful and productive summer in New York!