Current collaborative research projects:
Exhibition “Animation as Art: A Multi-Sensory Experience” (2024)
The experimenta.l. research group is currently producing animated machines and exhibits for a collaborative show with faculty and students from UTD and Texas Tech University (TTU). The exhibition will take place in Spring 2024 at the Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock. From automatons to philosophical toys, kinetic sculptures to gadgets, and perhaps even digital simulations, this exhibition aims to explore the potential of animation as an art form. This hands-on research approach is inspired by Andreas Fickers and Annie van de Oever’s work on experimental media archeology. The recreation, testing, and observation of historical devices proposed by these scholars help introduce the early apparatuses to a new generation who will suggest new ways of seeing, interpreting, and playing with them.
In investigating the possibilities of animations created using machines, we hope to shed light on how the past and present connect through playful experimentation.
We are happy to collaborate with TTU Faculty, Doctors Jorgelina Orfila and Francisco Ortega, also known as The Animation Duo, and the Jewelry Design and Metalsmithing Professors Rob Glover and Nancy Slagle and their students.
Read more about this research here.
Past collaborative research projects:
Wintry Mix (2023)
In collaboration with jazz musician and professor Davy Mooney from UNT College of Music, we created an animation of the Wintry Mix track for his new album. The project is now completed. You can learn more about this collaboration here.
Arthur Rimbaud Project “Voyelles” (2022)
The Arthur Rimbaud Project “Voyelles” was a multidisciplinary collaboration with the Center for Translation Studies and extends my research into a sensorial collaboration using poetry, sound, dance, and animation. The project welcomes creative investigation as visual and sensory translations by exploring these bridges between technology, performance, and materiality. This project is currently in its post-production phase, and it is envisioned and led by Professor Rainer Schulte. More information is available here.
“A Lasting Image“ (2022)
In collaboration with Professor and Dean Nils Roemer and inspired by the research developed at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, three AHT students created the animation “A Lasting Image” around the theme “Expanded Perspectives of the Holocaust” under the supervision of Assistant Professor Christine Veras at the Experimental Animation Lab.
The project was presented at the March 2022 Annual Scholars’ Conference and is now completed and running through festivals. It recently got selected by three international animation festivals. Students were actively engaged in the historical and creative research to adapt part of Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth’s experience into animation.
The undergraduate students who worked on the project are:
Scott Huddleston, Kirstin Stevens-Schmidt, and Ana Villarreal.
You can check more information about the project here: https://labs.utdallas.edu/experimental/a-lasting-image/
In collaboration with Dr. Paul Fishwick and the Creative Automata Lab, we have been engaged in a series of discussions about the use and applications of A.I. in art.
This collaboration was one of the projects in which Research Assistant Gizem Oktay was actively engaged. In studying A.I. art, our goal was to develop ways to actively engage groups of collaborators in the thinking and production of such works.
The result of these semester-long conversations between both labs was presented and organized into an event called “Conversations About the Use of A.I. in Art Practice” when Undergraduate and Graduate students presented their most recent explorations and creations using A.I. You can read their reports and access the recording of that event here: https://labs.utdallas.edu/experimental/impressions-after-the-event-conversations-about-the-use-of-ai-in-art-practice/