- Chair, Digital Technology and Culture
Biography
Current Research and Exploration: I am interested in the relationship between storytelling, images, and our everyday reality. My concept of cinematic subsumption (developed with a co-author) refers to the idea that cinema has profoundly influenced how we perceive and construct our environments, relationships, and even our day-to-day lives, essentially shaping our world in a cinematic mode. It also suggests that the immersive and narrative qualities of film have permeated our physical and virtual spaces, leading to a further blending of the real and the cinematic. I have been exploring how filmic grammars influence our lives and how storyspaces have are intertwined with the built environment. This research reveals a direct lineage from the beginnings of film and animation to the immersive experiences of today’s technologies that includes theme parks and video game development. In collaborative research, my colleague and I outlined a taxonomy of spatial regimes that describe nothing less than a 100–year intermingling of virtual and built environments. The importance of this work is that we can begin to see patterns in our interactions with imagery and our desire to immerse ourselves in storyworlds.
Parallel Practices: In the late 90s, I began writing about online creative communities and the production of auto-theoretical texts that are essential to abductive reasoning and creative problem solving. To break that down a bit: early web design was a new profession and designers had to share information, inspiration, and learn a novel set of skills. There was a period of time—before a codification of practices (which arrives with early usability testing for web pages)—when designers had unprecedented creative control. The exploration of that early period shows how web design communities mirrored the production of other creative digital cultures such as the Demoscene—producers of coded motion graphics. Exploration and play when fused with creative technological tools can provide alternative modes of practice that often go unrealized. In the era of artificial intelligence, it is important that we explore all aspects of parallel practices that champion the role of human creativity and agency. Creative communities in the early web era, like their predecessors, were often about connectivity, community, and information sharing.
My writing has been published in the Journal of Design History, Fibreculture, and by Routledge/American Film Institute.
Creative Practice: I am currently animating a short film. I am also a published author-illustrator of children’s books.