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.

 

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 our Office for Diversity and Inclusion and our Cultural 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.

We join our colleagues at the University of Connecticut in committing to anti-racism, share this statement on racial injustice, and invite you to read those of the Dodd Center and Human Rights Institute, the Africana Studies Institute, interdisciplinary centers, institutes, and programs, and the President and Provost. Together, we affirm our commitment to making the struggle against White supremacy and systemic racism central to our work in building an equitable and just campus community and society

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 has disproportionately 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 the Racial Profiling Prohibition Project and stakeholders from across the state for Truth & Reconciliation: A Conversation about Race and Policing at 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 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 the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts and the UConn Stamford Art Gallery which 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 School of Fine Arts balances 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.

Visit the Stamford DMD Senior Showcase: Vision 2020

Visit the Storrs DMD BFA Senior Exhibition 2020  

Undaunted by the restrictions caused by the pandemic, UConn’s 2020 MFA exhibition is now online.

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 in the 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.

The 2020 Studio Art and Digital Media & Design Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition at The William Benton Museum of Art is now online.

Read the full story on UConn Today.

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.

Read the full article on The Daily Campus (By Grace McFadden).

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.

 

Read the full article on UConn Today.