Media Tech Tonic: Seminars for designers, artists, and media makers held at MassArt

Our first speaker for the Fall of 2009 will be Ramesh Raskar, Associate Professor, MIT Media Lab, Camera Culture Group Leader and Co-Director of the Center for Future Storytelling. The title of his presentation is “Computational Photography – The Future Starts Now”. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Though revolutionary in many ways, digital photography is essentially electronically implemented film photography. By contrast, computational photography exploits plentiful low-cost computing and memory, new kinds of digitally enabled sensors, optics, probes, smart lighting, and communication to capture information far beyond just a simple set of pixels. It promises a richer, even a multilayered, visual experience that may include depth, fused photo-video representations, or multispectral imagery. Professor Raskar will discuss and demonstrate advances he is working on in the areas of generalized optics, sensors, illumination methods, processing, and display, and describe how computational photography will enable us to create images that break from traditional constraints to retain more fully our fondest and most important memories, to keep personalized records of our lives, and to extend both the archival and the artistic possibilities of photography.

Event Details
Free and and open to the public.
RSVP: Please let us know if you’re planning to attend this event.
Location: MassArt, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Room: 312, Tower Building
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time:6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Directions: By car | By T | Campus map (PDF)
Parking Information: at the end of this post

Speaker Biography
Ramesh Raskar joined the Media Lab from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in 2008 as head of the Lab’s Camera Culture research group. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he introduced “Shader Lamps,” a novel method for seamlessly merging synthetic elements into the real world using projector-camera based spatial augmented reality. In 2004, Raskar received the TR100 Award from Technology Review, which recognizes top young innovators under the age of 35, and in 2003, the Global Indus Technovator Award, instituted at MIT to recognize the top 20 Indian technology innovators worldwide. In 2009, he was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship. He holds 30 US patents and has received three Mitsubishi Electric Invention Awards. He is currently co-authoring a book on computational photography.

Parking and Driving Directions
Parking will be available to attendees who drive in the Ward Street lot if you enter the lot between 5:45pm and 6:45pm. If you’re driving, take a close look at a Google Map of the area, finding the Ward Street Lot can be tricky the first time.

If you’re traveling west on Huntington Avenue from Downtown, as you pass the main campus on your right, take a left at the light at the Longwood Avenue intersection, crossing over the trolley tracks. Go straight to the stop sign and turn left, then immediately turn right onto Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left.

If you’re traveling east on Huntington Avenue from Bringham Circle, take a right at the light at the Longwood Avenue intersection, then a quick left and right and you’re on Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left.

Our next speaker in our Spring 2009 Speaker Series is writer and journalist Scott Kirser.

Abstract
Artists in every field who choose to use new tools, technologies, and methods of distribution almost inevitably encounter resistance from the “establishment.” Looking at the history of Hollywood (and viewing clips of movies made in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries), we’ll explore how cinematic innovators have run into this resistance, and often overcome it–transforming the movies as an art form and as a business. We’ll discuss some of the institutional and psychological reasons people often prefer to preserve the status quo rather than giving new ideas a hearing, and also discuss some of the challenges that the motion picture industry (and anyone who wants to tell stories with film/video) is grappling with today. What are the new forms and genres emerging today… what are the business models that support them… who is innovating and who is trying to hold on to the past?

Event Details:
Free and and open to the public, however, registration is required.
Location: MassArt, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Room: Tower Building, Room 312 (through the Computer Arts Center, all the way at the end of the hall)
Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Time: 6:30pm to 9:30pm
Directions: By car | By T | Campus map (PDF)
Parking Information: at the end of this post

Speaker Biography
Scott Kirsner is a journalist who writes about innovation, with a special focus on the ways that new technologies are changing the entertainment industry. He writes regularly for Variety and The Boston Globe, and has been a contributing writer for Fast Company, BusinessWeek, and Wired. He edits the blog CinemaTech, and is the author, most recently, of the book Fans, Friends & Followers, which explores the challenges of building an audience and supporting a creative career in the digital age. Earlier books include Inventing the Movies, a technological history of Hollywood, published in 2008, and The Future of Web Video: New Opportunities for Producers, Entrepreneurs, Media Companies and Advertisers, published in 2007. Scott’s writing has also appeared in the New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Salon, the San Jose Mercury News, and Newsweek, among other publications. Scott has been on panels at the Sundance Film Festival, the South by Southwest Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival, Silverdocs, the Harvard Business School Entertainment and Media Conference, the NAB Futures Summit, and the IFP Filmmaker Conference.

Parking and Driving Directions
Parking will be available to attendees who drive in the Ward Street lot if you enter the lot between 5:45pm and 6:45pm. If you’re driving, take a close look at a Google Map of the area, finding the Ward Street Lot can be tricky the first time.

If you’re traveling west on Huntington Avenue from Downtown, as you pass the main campus on your right, take a left at the light at the Longwood Avenue intersection, crossing over the trolley tracks. Go straight to the stop sign and turn left, then immediately turn right onto Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left.

If you’re traveling east on Huntington Avenue from Bringham Circle, take a right at the light at the Longwood Avenue intersection, then a quick left and right and you’re on Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left.

For our next meeting, Mike Golembewski will discuss the potential of technology as a powerful tool for artists and designers.  Too often the use of creative technologies becomes centered around the use of commercial software and hardware packages designed for workflow efficiency, rather than for free exploration.  Mike will discuss how emerging technologies can become tools for the expression of high concept and real emotion, rather than just tools for creative production.

He will present some contemporary projects that he feels makes excellent use of technology as an expressive medium, and use this presentation to begin an open discussion of the roles that technology might play in creative practice.  Mike will be showing work from artists, scientists, and researchers at Yale, Goldsmiths University, Imperial College, the Royal College of Art, Troika UK, and his own scanner photography project.

Mike Golembewski is a practicing artist and interaction designer and currently visiting faculty with the Dynamic Media Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.  His work explores the ways in which artists use emerging technologies, and has been widely published and exhibited internationally.

Join us for this very exciting meeting. We would appreciate an RSVP using our contact form so we have an idea on how many people to expect, but RSVP is not required.

Location: Alumni Room, 11th Floor Tower Building, Massaschusetts College of Art & Design (driving directions | T directions | campus map PDF)

Date: Wednesday, September 24th. Please note that this month we’re meeting on the fourth Wednesday instead of the third Wednesday.

Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm or so

Note to drivers: parking will be available to attendees who drive in the Ward Street lot if you enter the lot between 5:45pm and 6:45pm.

If you’re traveling west on Huntington Avenue, as you pass the main campus on your right, take a left at the light onto Longwood Avenue, crossing over the trolley tracks. Go straight to the stop sign and turn left, then immediately turn right onto Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left.

If you’re traveling east on Huntington Avenue, right at the light onto Longwood Avenue, then a quick left and right and you’re on Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left.