DMD undergrad, Jamison Cote, was recognized by NBC Connecticut for creating an online platform where students can send and receive personalized encouraging videos during these tough times. Along with his classmate, Alex Kim, the two students set out to help their peers cope with the stressors of college life during a pandemic by creating a new platform called Refreshr.
Refreshr invites college students to fill out a form with basic information such as what school they attend and a fun fact about themselves. Once the form is filled out, Kim and Cote randomly match the student with another student. Each student records and receives a short video of encouragement. It works similarly to getting a pen pal.
Congratulations to the DMD faculty who have received UConn OVPR SCHARP awards!
Professor Heejoo Kim (PI) was awarded $8,000 for “The Loom,” a collaboration with Co-PI’s Helene Kvale (Dramatics Arts), Tanju Ozdemir (DMD), and Simon Hutchinson (Univ. of New Haven).
DMD professors, Tom Scheinfeldt and Greg Colati are Co-PI’s on a $50,000 Breakthrough Award with Mark Healey (PI) (History) and Greenhouse Studios Colleagues for, “Bibliohack Plus: an integrated, low cost, open source digitization tool kit and workflow for the global south and underserved areas.”
We are really proud that two of the five university-wide awards involved DMD faculty research! SCHARP awards aim to support innovative works of scholarship and creative activities in the arts and humanities that have the potential to transform a field of study, impact the common good, or chart a new direction in scholarly, creative, or artistic development.
Need a ride? Uber or Lyft can help get you where you need to go. Hungry? Grubhub, Doordash, or Postmates can deliver whatever you’re craving. Want to view a rare document in a library across the world? A new app developed by a team of UConn scholars will soon have you covered.
A team of UConn faculty and staff have developed an open source web application called Sourcery to make it easier to access some of the world’s most sought-after archives and rare collections.
“Behind the Badge” – Digital Illustration by DMD first year student, Katie Aranda, created for DMD 1102 Design Lab 2 course, spring 2020.
Statement of Solidarity from the UConn Digital Media & Design Department
In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist. –ANGELA Y. DAVIS
Dear students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and friends,
We in the Department of Digital Media & Design feel the pain, sadness, and frustration caused by the senseless murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, and the innumerable Black citizens whose lives who were cut short by racial injustice in our nation. Say their names.
In honor of those lost and in protection of our collective, societal future, I challenge each of us to commit to being ANTI-RACIST. We can no longer turn away and remain silent – it is not enough to be non-racist, we must stand together, act for social justice, and become actively conscious about race and racism in our daily lives. This is the only way that we can transform the world around us to become a more just and peaceful society.
In our departmental mission, we state that, “…we encourage students to find and express their voice, building from their unique background and perspective. We acknowledge that a diversity of thought and expression is needed in today’s society and see great promise in our DMD students’ ability to make a difference in the world as future digital media content creators, distributors, and analyzers.”
These words are more significant now than ever. Ironically, it is only because Americans carry smartphones – with high definition cameras connected to the internet – that these horrific acts of violence are being brought to light, the same tools that we embrace in Digital Media & Design for content creation and distribution. As a creative community with talents in digital media, each one of us has the potential to make a positive impact, realize complex ideas, empower those whose voices are silenced by mainstream media, and amplify those voices in the digital sphere. This moment is a call to action for each of us to rise up and use our talents to spark meaningful conversations, engage in digital advocacy projects, and share our unique voices and diverse backgrounds.
DMD has become known for its collaborations around social justice through partnerships with the Dodd Center, the Human Rights Institute, Global Affairs, UConn Archives, and our many external nonprofit partners around the state, who we have helped realize professional digital products to support their missions. We have begun working closely with ourOffice for Diversity and Inclusionand ourCultural Centers, and we formed a departmental Inclusion Committee in 2019. However, confronting and fighting systemic racism requires intentionality, commitment, and coordinated efforts by the entire community.
To our black students, faculty, and friends, please know that your DMD family stands with you in solidarity. We hear you, we share your outrage, and we empathize with your pain. And I ask everyone in our community, right now, to reach out to and support our friends of color, who are truly suffering during this time of national crisis, both from racial injustice and the pandemic, which hasdisproportionately impacted minority groups.
There are many resources available to support this work, but a particularly meaningful one is the National Museum of African American History and Culture‘s “Talking About Race” site. I also invite you to join theRacial Profiling Prohibition Projectand stakeholders from across the state forTruth & Reconciliation: A Conversation about Race and Policingat 11am tomorrow, Friday, June 5.
Finally, over the next month, we will be sharing via social media examples of recently created student projects that engage social justice issues, address racism and embrace cultural identity. Please follow us on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to view the works and help amplify our UConn DMD students’ voices as we celebrate their creativity and passion as they learn that they have the power to bring change to the world.
In solidarity, but with hope,
Heather Elliott-Famularo
Department Head & Professor, Digital Media & Design
The project Freshkills in Eight Movements, by faculty member Sue Huang and collaborator Brian House, is featured in Creative Capital’sOn Our Radar 2020. On Our Radar 2020 features noteworthy projects in all disciplines that advanced to the final round in the competitive selection process for the Creative Capital Award. During each award cycle, Creative Capital has the great privilege of learning about a wealth of exciting artists’ projects. By promoting projects “on our radar” to people who are passionate about the arts, we can help forge connections that lead to new avenues of support and collaborative opportunities. We invite you to explore projects featured in On Our Radar, and follow links to artists’ websites to find out more about how you can get involved making their visions a reality.
Freshkills in Eight Movements is a sound/video installation that explores the relationship between human and environmental temporalities in a time of climate crisis. The project takes as its starting point New York City’s Freshkills, once known as Fresh Kills Landfill, the largest municipal dump in the world. Currently in the process of a decades-long transformation into a public park, Freshkills is a uniquely liminal space, where our long-term effects on the Earth are palpable.
House and Huang’s installation emerges from the multitemporal dynamics of this environment—the thousand-year decay of a Styrofoam cup, the multigenerational use of the land by humans, the seasonal cycle of the regenerating vegetation, and the gathering of clouds. Each of these temporal layers is translated into musical notation using municipal and public data, including statistical projections of weather patterns and methane and leachate emissions data from the Department of Sanitation. The resulting eight scores are played by double bassist Robert Black (Bang on a Can All-Stars), whose performances are filmed and later projected onto a labyrinth of screens in an installation space. When heard simultaneously, these performances create a soundscape of data that coalesces multiple temporalities into one immersive experience.
The UConn Department of Digital Media & Design is thrilled to announce that its 2020 Senior Exhibitions will open online on Monday, April 27, 2020. These virtual group exhibitions feature the work of senior BFA students from the Storrs campus and senior BFA and select BA students from the Stamford campus. These online exhibitions replace the previously scheduled exhibitions in the Jorgensen Gallery of theJorgensen Center for the Performing Artsand theUConn Stamford Art Gallerywhich were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
These exciting exhibitions feature a wide variety of digital projects created by seniors graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and a few select Bachelor of Arts, in Digital Media & Design. Artworks range from 2D and 3D animations to interactive web and game projects that tell unique stories that explore many themes. To view the galleries, visit:http://dmd.uconn.edu/bfashow.
In addition, the public is invited to watch the completed films and animations in an online screening Premiere via YouTube at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 8th, which will also serve as a celebration and virtual reception.http://youtube.com/uconndmd.
Exhibiting artists, Storrs campus:Shay Albert (Woodstock, Conn.),Sign, Hand-drawn 2D animation; Owen Boyle (Branford, Conn.),Out of Left Field, 3D animation; Emily Cesarini (Greenwich, Conn.),Guidance,3D game; Shawn Chen (Litchfield, Conn.), Internship video; Emma Rose Cooper (Waterbury, Conn.),Home, Interactive 3D environment; Jeffrey Dobbs (New Haven, Conn.),Synth-Sense, 3D animation; Eric Fritz (Millersville, Md.),Stop Talking To Me, Hand-drawn 2D animation; Allie Marsh (Old Lyme, Conn.),Why We Fly, Film; Tal Modiano (Woodbridge, Conn.),Wade/Cull Music Video, 2D animation; Cynthia Reinert (Berlin, Conn.),Wonder, Interactive web art; Morgan Rossi (Glastonbury, Conn.),Waddle We Do?, Installation with 3D animation; Courtney Senior (New Milford, Conn.) & Emily Touch (Cromwell, Conn.),Staraway,Game; Sarah Shattuck (Stamford, Conn.),MIACRO, 2D animation; Sheryl Wang (Ellington, Conn.),A Little Too Real,Animated web comic; Justin Woods (Thornwood, N.Y.),Perfect Fit, 3D Animation
Exhibiting artists, Stamford campus:James Campbell-Gibson (Capetown, South Africa),One a Day,Website and animation; Anthony Cavuoto (New Milford, Conn.),The New Nintendo, Video and brand book; Nolan Didio (Monroe, Conn.),Stranded, 3D animation; Jeremy Gonzalez (Stamford, Conn.),Conflict Within, 2D animation; Julian Kinney (New Rochelle, N.Y.),Full Metal Cactus, 2D animation; Tyrrell Serrano (Bridgeport, Conn.),Desert Dash and Tilt:Maze, Mobile games; Ryan Story (Stamford, Conn.),Untitled, 2D and 3D animation; Linh Tran (Bridgeport, Conn.), “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: How the Mad Women Changed the Face of the Ad Industry,” Poster; Andrew Zhou (Trumbull, Conn.),Umbra, Interactive narrative; James Zilvitis Jr. (Winsted, Conn.),HMS Triton Six Gun Frigate, 3D model
The University of Connecticut’s Department of Digital Media & Designprovides an innovative and transformative experience to educate students in animation, gaming, web and interactive media design, digital media business strategies, film/video production, and the digital humanities.
The University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Artsbalances artistic and cultural legacies with the innovative approaches and techniques of contemporary art. In so doing, the School of Fine Arts serves students at the University of Connecticut in both their educational and their professional development. The outstanding faculty from the four academic departments are committed to providing rigorous professional education and all offer undergraduate and graduate degrees. Our academic programs are supported by specialized and uniquely focused showcases, stages, exhibition space and forums which include the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, William Benton Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Galleries, Connecticut Repertory Theatre and von der Mehden Recital Hall.
Undaunted by the restrictions caused by the pandemic, UConn’s 2020 MFA exhibition is now online.
Jasmine Rajavadee, SHRINE: Eternal Belonging (2020), documentation of installation (courtesy of the artist).
Photographer Elizabeth Ellenwood was working at a photo lab in Boston making prints when she decided it was time to further explore her own artistic endeavors.
“I also had an interest in teaching. I wanted to find a place that would give me the opportunity to try out teaching and see if that’s something that I wanted to continue working on,” she says about enrolling in the MFA program in Studio Art three years ago. “While I enjoyed being in the dark room, I was making prints for other people. I just really wanted more time to focus on my own artwork.”
Ellenwood’s exploration of her own photography and art can be seen inthe unique 2020 edition of the annual Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition at The William Benton Museum of Art, which is posted on the museum’s website due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The online exhibition in Studio Art is titled “Tideland” and in addition to Ellenwood includes the works of painter and sculptor Olivia Baldwin, multimedia artist Shadia Heenan Nilforoush, and artist and printmaker Chad Uehlein. The Digital Media & Design online exhibit is titled “Square One” and includes the works of Jonathan Ampiaw, Karin Ching, Stefan Lopuszanski, Laurel Pehmoeller, and Jasmine Rajavadee.
“Square One” offers a variety of mediums including narrative film, hybrid digital and physical games, animation, installation, and projection mapping. Each exhibited work acts as a window through which the audience can access new worlds, personal memories, and cultural reflections, connecting visitors to where each artist started.
Ampiaw’s video game explores the themes of personal development and social growth. Lopuszanski’s game blurs the line between the digital and physical realms to create an innovative gameplay experience. Ching examines her journey to a new country, illustrating the cultural differences she has discovered between Taiwan and the United States, centered around food. Pehmoeller’s short film reflects on her own experiences as a young adult trying to find her way in the world. Rajavadee investigates the artist’s Lao-American upbringing with reference to cumulative memories and emotions associated with connecting the personal and the (multi)cultural.
Pictured is a Classroom Management Observation Tool (CMOT) made in the DX lab. It allows observers to enter progress monitoring items and aids in proactive classroom management.
Faculty in the University of Connecticut’s Digital Media and Design program have come together to collaborate on the Digital Experience (DX) Lab.
The DX Lab is led by Joel Salisbury, director of research and user experience design, Michael Vertefeuille, director of operations and emerging technology and Brian Daley, director of infrastructure and app development.
The lab’s work covers a wide range of projects involving digital experiences and interaction, Vertefeuille explained.
“Quite simply, we love to build really cool stuff. Our projects have run the gamut. We work with electronics, connecting it to interesting digital experiences, large-scale databases that serve the non-profit sector, and sometimes we just build things to see if they’ll work,” Vertefeuille said.
These projects include Wellscan, a website and app made in collaboration with UConn’s Rudd Center on Food Policy and Obesity which helps food banks and food pantries manage their inventory. Additionally, the DX Lab has worked on different interactive museum installations, such as the Tree Sway Monitor featured at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT.
Another project to come out of the DX Lab was the Smart Mirror, which is a mirror that doubles as a screen to display things such as time, date, and weather. This mirror was one of the projects built out of the DX Lab’s Special Topics course.
“Sometimes, we run the DX Lab as a Variable Topics/Special Topics course. This is usually where our most “out-there” experimental work seems to occur. In this environment, we pick problems we want to solve or technologies we want to explore and go nuts trying to make something cool,” Salisbury said.
Collaboration with students isn’t just limited to the Lab’s classes, though. The DX Lab has several students run independent projects through the lab. They also employ students in their work.
“Students are the driving force behind all of the work we do. Their creative energy is what makes the DX Lab fun,” Daley said.
The group explained that while the lab officially formed a little over a year ago, the three of them have been working on the same topics since getting to UConn.
“We ‘officially’ formed in December 2018, but the three lead faculty members (Salisbury, Vertefeuille, Daley) have shared research interests since assuming our respective roles,” said the group.
In addition to the work the DX Lab is already doing, they’re quickly expanding.
“As of Spring 2020 the three of us oversee the newly-formed DX Group within UConn’s Center for Open Research Resources and Equipment (COR2E), through which we hope to collaborate with other researches on campus who may be in need of web development, app development, UX design or similar work,” the trio explained.
As for students looking to get involved in digital media and digital experience design, the group encouraged students to lean into the uncertainty of the field.
“Be bold! Embrace the fact that the field moves quickly and allow yourself to get excited about ‘not knowing,’ rather than daunted by ‘not knowing,’” Salisbury said.
DMD faculty and students gaming student work at the 2018 MFA Thesis Exhibition.
UConn Gaming Club (UCGC) manages to stay connected with its 1,200 members and host online events despite students remaining at home for the rest of the semester.
According to UCGC president, Digital Media & Design major Devyn Lowry (BA ’20), the club has hosted online community nights in an effort to keep members active and connected with each other. In the past two weeks, Lowry has hosted movie nights over the live streaming software Kast and plans to have a game night where members play various Jackbox party games.
Lowry, an eighth-semester digital media and design major, mentioned that the club’s biggest plan currently is to reconstruct Gampel Pavilion, or some part of it, in “Minecraft” and subsequently host commencement in the game. He mentioned this was the club’s plan of trying to give back to the community, especially to graduating UConn seniors. At the moment, the club is trying to figure out the servers that it will take place in and the mods needed for the project.
“We have a team of builders working very hard to get [Gampel] reconstructed,” Lowry said.
During a normal semester, UCGC hosts meetings from 6 to 11 p.m. in the School of Business. The club books up to four different rooms; they set up roughly four PCs for a free-play area or host a small tournament in the main lecture hall, and the smaller rooms are for games with bigger communities like League of Legends or Super Smash Bros. Lowry said that the largest community of players is for Super Smash Bros., mentioning that the game brings in 50 to 60 people each week as they play in one-versus-one or two-versus-two matches.
Lowry said the club’s ultimate goal is “to create a place at UConn where competitive and [casual] gamers alike can come together and form a welcoming community for anyone who has a passion for video games.”
UCGC also has competitive esports teams for games like Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, League of Legends and Rocket League. One of the club’s goals is to have an esports program that is officially recognized by the university. Lowry cited other universities like Ohio State University and Northeastern University that have official esports programs.
“There’s no reason why we can’t take what we’ve done for college basketball and become the staple for collegiate esports,” Lowry said.
The club’s biggest events of the year are the Husky Games and the Winter Prowl, the former of which would have taken place at the end of spring. The Husky Games is an 11-hour event that brings anywhere between 500 to 700 people to the Student Union Ballroom. University students and alumni are able to form teams and compete for various prizes like mice, keyboards, graphics cards, headsets and more that are donated from sponsors. Some of the sponsors of the event include Nvidia, iBUYPOWER, Microsoft, Logitech and HyperX.
“Everyone’s coming and enjoying and sharing the love for video games,” Lowry said.
UConn’s Social Media Analytics Command Center will provide valuable insights about the mood of the country during the 2020 election.
The Social Media Analytics Command Center can synthesize information from multiple platforms to provide real-time insights into the national mood. (Photo courtesy of Heather Elliott-Famularo)
In the 2016 elections, a vast majority of traditional polls had predicted Hillary Clinton would be the winner. When Donald Trump won, many in the nation were stunned. While standard polling missed the mark, social media data had accurately predicted Trump’s victory.
A team of UConn faculty and students are using a social media analytics command center to better capture public opinion around the 2020 presidential elections and be a key resource for journalists and the public.
“Our department’s Social Media Analytics Command Center could pave the way for UConn to become a national leader in social media analysis expertise, on par with the reputation other universities have for their traditional polling data,” says Heather Elliott-Famularo, Donna Krenicki Professor and head of the Department of Digital Media and Design.
As social media becomes an increasingly important platform for people to express and inform their political beliefs, monitoring online conversations can provide invaluable insights into public attitudes.
Since its founding in 2018, the command center has tracked issues surrounding the Connecticut gubernatorial election and conducted real-time analyses of the Democratic debates. For the 2020 elections, the group has set up dashboards to monitor activity in swing states and observe conversations about important political topics like hate speech. By monitoring social media activity, the team at UConn will form a detailed picture of popular opinions in the American electorate.
John Murphy, assistant professor-in-residence in the Department of Digital Media and Design, has been developing social listening strategies for businesses for the better part of a decade. Social listening is a growing marketing technique that leverages social media activity to gain insight into customer sentiment. Since coming to UConn in 2017, Murphy has launched social listening initiatives focused on topics as varied as sports, mental health issues, and the casino industry.
Using social media to analyze political sentiment is a logical step, says Murphy.
“When it comes to politics, social media analysis helps capture sentiments in a way that traditional phone polling may not be able to,” says Murphy. “When people are being polled, they may respond differently knowing that their answers are being monitored. Gathering data through social listening eliminates hesitancy to respond honestly from the process.”
Throughout the election cycle, Murphy and several undergraduate students will measure and analyze all publicly available social and digital media including websites, blogs, and news sources using a leading platform for social media analytics. The platform specializes in social listening, and can analyze and generate reports on information in hundreds of languages using almost endless keywords. Access to this robust software allows UConn’s team to import polling data and candidates’ financial information and overlay it with the social media data they collect to get a fuller picture.
They will also create sophisticated data visualizations through graphics and animations using historic and live analytics to convey complex issues quickly and clearly. Political scientists and communications experts from UConn’s faculty ranks add additional context to help interpret the massive amounts of raw data collected.
They hope to show that social media analysis can be even more valuable than traditional polling when it’s combined with the scientific rigor that an academic institution like UConn can provide.
“The first televised presidential debate between Nixon and JFK turned politics upside down. TV has been a major part of the equation ever since. Social media is that new platform that we have to factor into politic analyses and predictions,” says Murphy.
The public is invited to see the Social Media Analytics Command Center in action tomorrow at a Super Tuesday Watch Party from 6 – 11PM in the Merlin D. Bishop Center on the Storrs campus. For more information, visit the Social Media Analytics Command Center website.
