2cultures.net(.au)

When:
Opening May 9th from 6-9pm
Panels and exhibition May 10th, 2012, from 10am-7pm

Where:
USC School of Cinematic Arts, Fox Stage 3, SCX-105
930 W. 34th St., SCA 110, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2211

Contact:
M. Cárdenas, 619-847-4885, mmcarden@usc.edu
L. Fenton, 323-317-2355, lfenton1@gmail.com

The Interdivisional Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) PhD program in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California will be holding their annual showcase event, iMappening 2012, on May 9th and 10th, 2012 from 10am-5pm. The event will take place at Fox Stage 3, SCX-105, in the School of Cinematic Arts, and will include exhibits and talks from the artists, designers, and scholars of the iMAP program. This year, iMappening will include a gallery exhibition with an opening reception and a series of lectures with invited critics. “iMappening is open to the public in order to bring awareness about the iMAP program and showcase the important ongoing work being done in iMAP, a hybrid PhD program supported by all of the branches of the School of Cinematic Arts,” said Andreas Kratky, Acting Program Director for iMAP.

Jeanne Jo, MARRA

“USC’s iMAP program is on the cutting edge of new media art and design research and digital scholarship, one of only a handful of PhD programs that combine digital theory and practice,” said Jeanne Jo, an iMAP Student who will be finishing in 2014. Bringing together all the strengths of a world class school of cinema with innovations in art, science and technology, iMAP students work in emerging fields including critical design, networked performance, serious games, social media analytics, data visualization, wearable electronics, non-linear narrative cinema, immersive cinema, digital media and learning and database documentary.

Micha Cárdenas, Local Autonomy Networks

Projects to be featured at this year’s iMappening span a broad range of practices. VJ Um Amel’s R-Shief project visualizes a massive database of tweets of the arab intifadas. Lauren Fenton’s dissertation project PolyAngylene is an interactive themed environment that employs expressive physical computing devices and projection mapping as platforms for a narrative about the future of urban space. Joshua McVeigh-Schultz’s project experiments with audience-driven tele-spectacle. Micha Cárdenas’ Local Autonomy Networks aims to create mesh networked wearable electronic garments to prevent violence against women, LGBTQI people, people of color and other groups who continue to survive violence on a daily basis.

Diego Costa’s Matricídio appropriates the theory-practice methodological ethos of psychoanalysis (the après-coup, the slip of the tongue, the dreamwork) into a queer cinematic language. Clea T. Waite’s ν descending is an homage to Marcel Duchamp’s seminal work realized as a virtual, interactive, cinema-painting in stereoscopic 3D. Rosemary Comella’s video, Garin Park, explores how the use of image stabilization and image warping affects “the trace of the real” often associated with documentary filmmaking. Kristy Kang’s project is an online cultural history exploring identity formation and place making in the multi-ethnic community of Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Gabriel Peters-Lazaro will share video from the Junior AV Club, an ongoing project exploring the use of digital media technologies as tools for early childhood learning.

Talks at iMappening will cover a broad range of interventions into the intersections of critical theory and digital practices. The topics to be covered include “Forget Theory: The Psychoanalytic As Queer Practice and Creative Research” by Diego Costa, “Multimodal Survivals: Vernacular Preservations and Media Design” by Veronica Paredes, “Experience Design and the Practice of Themed Space” by Lauren Fenton, “Redesigning Civic Rituals: social games and new models of participation” by Joshua McVeigh Shultz, “Reality Ends Here: Transforming Community Through Pervasive Play” by Jeff Watson, “The Seoul of Los Angeles: Contested Identities and Transnationalism in Immigrant Space” by Kristy Kang and more.

The exhibition opens on Wednesday, May 9th from 6-9pm. The public exhibition will be open also on Thursday from 10am-7pm. Panels will take place from 10am to 3:30pm, in the form of fifteen minute talks with a question and answer session at the end.