Interactive Media Design II: Engineering Applications of Media Technology
Michael Gurevich (SMTD) and Sile O’Modhrain (SMTD)
Engineering Applications of Media Technology, focuses on examining how existing and emerging technical resources can be co-opted as part of the process of performing interactive art. Students incorporate physical computing tools into interactive performance systems. In different ways (and for different student populations), students in both courses learn how to integrate technologies that are often designed for other purposes into the process of art-making, both have an emphasis on performance. Stephan Moore and Peter Bussigel‘s work, presented as a part of the Ann Arbor Film Festival’s “Off the Screen” series, touches directly on this idea of creative reuse of technology, but viewed through a completely different lens. Here, the audience is the performer, and yet the work is presented as “film”. This will importantly push students to expand their conceptions of the boundaries between different media, and the new possibilities for artistic forms that technology can engender; these are exactly our learning goals. In our 10+ years of teaching courses in this field, we have never had the opportunity to bring a student group to visit an interactive installation piece of this scale firsthand, so this will certainly be a unique experience.