ARTIST SESSIONS

Strategies for Developing Narratives

As we curated the current gallery exhibition, we wanted to include pieces that focused on telling a story using various software tools, with the goal of creating a finished piece in diverse mediums. Consequently, projects range from projection to infographics, to physical artifacts, and more. This talk will contain a walkthrough of the current gallery, with background on the work and the process used to create the work. We will then explore the software and techniques that students can use to create similar interactive projects.

• Josh Miller Biography

  Born and raised in the heart of Illinois, Josh Miller came to the Lehigh Valley to attend Lehigh University, from which he graduated with a Master’s Degree in Computer Science. While a student at Lehigh, he studied programming, industrial design, and graphic design, while writing software for Caterpillar, Inc. on a part-time basis. The focus of his graduate research was 3D virtual environments and user interaction techniques.

  Following graduation, Josh taught animation, web/graphic design, video game design, and programming courses at a variety of schools, including Lehigh University, Northampton Community College, Drexel University, Lafayette College, Montgomery County Community College, and Lehigh Valley College. Josh currently holds a tenure track position at Kutztown University, where he teaches web design, graphic design, and interactivity. He also teaches part-time at Lehigh University and runs a successful freelance design business in his downtime. Josh’s true interests lie in the intersection between design and programming, specifically with the creation of digital interactive artwork. Josh recently completed an MFA in New Media from the Academy of Art University, with a focus on interactive installations. His thesis project, Listen With Your Eyes, has been exhibited throughout the east coast.

  www.josh-miller.com

Creating a story using video is much like painting a picture. Video affords the producer a palette of tools including light, focus, angle and sound. Understanding and using these tools in terms of storytelling allows for endless possibilities. This session will showcase an exercise “Make It Scary” where students are asked to take an everyday action such as doing laundry and shoot the “story” of that action normally and shoot it again in a way that will make that action . . . . scary. This exercise focuses on the use of baseline production techniques and opens students' minds to deeper visualization in storytelling. Clips from horror movies and student projects will be part of this presentation.

• Cara Cotellese Biography

  Cara is a tenured Assistant Professor in the Electronic Media Department at Kutztown University. Her specialty is in “live” event production and documentary. Her students have recently garnered several nominations and a Crystal Pillar Student Production award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She is also is very interested in storytelling using all aspects of video production including projection, sound and layering of video. Cara previously taught at Bucks County Community College for 19 years in the Cinema/Video Program. She is currently at the dissertation phase for her Ph.D. from Lehigh University in Learning Sciences and Technologies where her areas of interest are social connectedness in online learning and quality content for flipped classrooms.

Projector mapping gives control of multiple video streams by using layers and flexible masking. Control of light can be used to design sophisticated multimedia installations utilizing LCD projectors and audio-visual software. This presentation will include live performance utilizing multiple projectors and surround sound. After which, discussion and demonstration will illuminate processes used to conceptualize and create the performance materials. The demonstration will include an example of a basic set-up and the creation of a mapped projection. There will be an opportunity to discuss possible creative applications.

• Scott Meier Biography

  Scott Meier, Associate Dean of Arts at Mercyhurst University, is a recipient of Mercyhurst University's Teaching Fellow Award. Meier is currently an associate professor of music in the D'Angelo Department of Music. He teaches applied saxophone, conducts the wind and jazz ensembles, teaches music education courses, and is conducting research in multimedia performance art and projector mapping. Meier is currently producing a recital series that utilizes 24 speaker placements to create new-age, jazz, and folk-influenced ambient soundscapes. The newest project includes multiple video streams and projectors mapped to architectural features within the recital space.

Animation uses a convergence of disciplines that we teach our students in classes outside of art. Writing, animation is all about the story that is by most standards more important than the art. Math, film moves at 24 fps and the animator must use math to sync up the actions to the sound track. Science, in the physics of motion. How and why things move is a very important concept to understand when animating. And writing code when animating for games or the web. I personally believe that nothing motivates someone more than the desire to learn. Animation can provide that desire.

• Cayse Cheatham Biography

  Cayse Cheatham was born on February 19, 1959 in Lubbock Texas. He grew up in Dallas and attended the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts the year it opened in 1977. He went on to the Kansas City Art Institute and received a B.F.A. Then he attended the Yale School of Art, earning an M.F.A. in painting and printmaking.

  He has worked as an assistant to Chuck Close, and as an Art Handler and Preparator for several museums and galleries including Pace Gallery, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Yale University Art Gallery, and the High Museum of Art. He has also worked as an Animator, an Illustrator, and, Animation Director. Currently, he teaches Animation at The Atlanta Institute of Art and Art Appreciation at Atlanta Metropolitan State College.

3D software is a highly versatile visualization tool that can be used to great effect in developing concepts and finished artworks in the areas of sculpture, architecture, furniture, jewelry, product design, two-dimensional design and theater to name a few. The finished rendered image whether still or moving provides the designer and viewer with a clearly articulated design and the freedom to easily try multiple variations in form and materials, something a clay or cardboard mockup could not accomplish. Unfortunately, 3d software has a reputation of being expensive and difficult to learn so I will be covering a powerful software that is provided free to educational institutions and students and learning platforms that will support every step of the learning process.

• David Rogers Biography

  In 1974 David began his career as a furniture maker in Lynchburg, Virginia. He received a BFA in Furniture Design from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1981 and returned to VCU in 1988 to complete an MFA in Furniture Design. He teaches furniture design and 3D animation at Kutztown University in Kutztown, PA. His work has evolved over the years from one of a kind furniture to figurative sculpture and is currently focused solely on 3D computer animation.

Mainstream moving-making is continuously re-invented and re-invigorated by the imaginative innovations of avant-garde filmmakers. David Lynch, Jane Campion, Todd Haynes, Michel Gondry and Miranda July began their careers making art and experimental films before finding success in Hollywood. We’ll look at clips from their edgy, early work and find connections in their well-funded film industry productions.

• Leigh Kane Biography

  In her photo-based artwork, Leigh Kane invites viewers to rummage through the substance and subterfuge of normative photographs such as family albums, studio portraiture and corporate archives. Her work is included in the book Reframings: New American Feminist Photographies (Temple University Press) and has been exhibited around the country— in NYC at White Columns Gallery and The New York Academy of Sciences; in Philadelphia at The Print Center and Temple Gallery; in Minnesota at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Minneapolis Photo Center. Kane is also an educator who teaches photography and media at Kutztown University in the Department of Fine Arts. She loves to nap on the express bus and wake up in the city that never sleeps.