Conference Schedule

Registration Opens

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Welcome (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

President David Munson, RIT

Dean Todd Jokl, College of Art and Design, RIT

Opening Keynote (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Kelly Hurlburt, Adobe

Coffee Break

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Session 1

Workshop – Where Sound Meets Sight: Interactive Music Devices for Immersive Learning

Room 1510, Student Alumni Union

Matias Homar, Alfred University

This workshop fosters inclusive music creation through interactive instruments. Engage in real-time composition and improvisation using movement, with reactive visual feedback to enhance the learning experience. Collaborate with others to explore the dynamic relationship between sound and image, regardless of prior experience.

Session 2

Panel – Fostering Collaboration: A Case Study in Community Partnerships Through Design Education

Room 2610, Campus Center

Steph Ashenfelder, Nancy Bernardo, Ruth Burnell, Nick Gunn, Katie Ho, Leann Kuchler, Dustin Paden, Miles Vilke, University of Rochester

This panel discussion focuses on how design education can foster collaboration and strengthen community partnerships. In the nonprofit sector, there is a crucial need for design literacy. Learn about the journey of our senior capstone partnership with the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY from inception to realization.

Session 3 (Livestream)

Panel – Creative and Innovative Practices for Anatomy Education

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo, Felice House, Caleb Kicklighter, Texas A&M University

The panel showcases the integration of artistic methodologies and interactive technology with anatomy education, aiming to enhance student engagement and comprehension of human anatomy by advancing beyond rote memorization towards spatial understanding. This project exemplifies interdisciplinary collaboration between arts and sciences in higher education.

Session 4

Room A500, Schmitt Interfaith Center

Panel – The Book, Evolving

Alison Fraser, University at Buffalo; Anne Royston, RIT; Tate Shaw, SUNY Brockport

How do we engage with the idea that is the book, or capture a sense of bookness, when the media and material that comprise the book are departing from traditional concepts to an unprecedented extent? This panel sparks a cross-disciplinary conversation that involves theory and praxis of the contemporary book.

Presentation – Everything Old is New Again: Analog Meets Digital

Keli DiRisio, Carol Fillip, Lorrie Frear, RITThis presentation will showcase two interactive workshops for graphic design students that reinforce understanding and context of historical, current, and emerging technologies by showcasing pre-digital and analog processes. These workshops involve active participation in systems such as letterpress, calligraphy, photography, dye transfer imaging, and other analog typographic and image-making processes.

Lunch

Arts in Health Educators/Arts in Public Health Working Groups Joint Meeting

Room 2610, Campus Center

Highlighting those Making Steps Towards Change (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Moderator TBD

Changing Cinematography Pedagogy for Developing Competence in Inclusive Creative Expression

Munjal Yagnik, RIT

A change in pedagogical approach is needed to foster competence in inclusive cinematography among filmmaking students, and professionals of the future. The answer might be my “Skin Tone Priority Exposure Method.”

One Dish, One Spoon: An Educational Video Game

Mindy Magyar, RIT

I will present One Dish, One Spoon, an educational video game about Seneca culture in development for Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, NY. I will present the game as-is and discuss the steps being taken to make it ready for distribution to educators across New York State.

Tell Me A Black Story: Exploring The Creativity and Limits of Large Language Models (LLMs)

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, University of Maryland

Reading from and discussion of the award-winning AI writing project A Black Story May Contain Sensitive Content. Written with an instance of GPT3 fine-tuned on the corpus of a seminal African American author, the work is both creative writing and creative
research into the limitations of LLMs to generate nuanced representations of Black life.

Using Augmented Reality (AR) for Activism in the Arts

Kristy Boyce, RIT

Through the use of interactive examples and case studies, this presentation explores augmented reality (AR) as form of democratized technology. The many easy to use and affordable AR platforms provide an and accessible tool for arts-based activists to use AR as a digital overlay to subvert and reclaim public spaces that may be otherwise inaccessible to independent artists.

Coffee Break

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Session 5

Panel – Provoking the New: Outcomes of the a2ru Generative AI Working Group

Room 1510, Student Alumni Union

Aaron Knochel, Penn State; Daragh Byrne, Carnegie Mellon; Heidi Boisvert, University of Florida; Julian Chambliss, Michigan State University; R. Benjamin Knapp, Virginia Tech; Yvonne Houy, University of Nevada Las Vegas; Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo, Texas A&M University

The 2023 a2ru panel engaged pushbacks and possibilities of generative AI related to creative research and arts pedagogy in higher education, which launched a working group that met over the course of the year. In this session, panelists will review the themes, discussions, and outcomes of the working group.

Session 6

Workshop – Developing Modular Curved Surfaces for Immersive Projection Experiences

Room 1400, James E. Booth Hall

Gary Jacobs, RIT

Jacobs will present a design for a modular kit that allows students and researchers to learn and test projection mapping and design techniques to create unique immersive experiences.

Session 7

Panel – Addressing Global Health Initiatives through Human Centered Design

Room 2610, Campus Center

Mary Golden, RIT (moderator); Jade Meyers, RIT; Melissa Dawson, RIT; Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, PhD, SUNY at Buffalo

A moderator will lead a panel of invited scholars in a discussion about initiatives that employ technology, art and design as a means for addressing World Health Organization Sustainable Development Goals.

Session 8

Environmental Solutions Utilizing Cross-Disciplinary Higher Education Research

Room 2650, Campus Center

Mark Lee-Koven, Utah State University

Recent research of developing new ways to diminish Bird Strikes have been developed through interdisciplinary collaborations between an Architect, Artist and a Biologist. The presentation will share the process, including hurdles associated with higher education, such as, buy in and funding, promotion and the obstacles inherent in working across disciplines.

Towards an Ecological AI: Art and Adaptive Conversation with the More-than-Human World

Carlos Castellanos, RIT

I will discuss arts-based models of what I am calling “ecological AI”, which is based upon adaptation and unstructured flows of information with the physical environment. By layering AI with non-human ways of sensing, acting and decision-making, can we conceive of non-human logic as an interface or substrate for AI?

Session 9 (Livestream)

Panel – Building a Performing Arts Ecosystem in a STEM-focused Institution

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Laura Conyers, Erica Haskell (moderator), Andy Head, Alexa Scott-Flaherty, Thomas Warfield, Ben Willmott, RIT

RIT has embarked on a groundbreaking initiative to build a vibrant performing arts ecosystem. This panel of performing arts faculty, administrators and staff discuss the practical, curricular, and creative hurdles and opportunities encountered in the undertaking and describe the ways in which technology is incorporated into student performances.

Arts and AI Working Group Meeting

Room 1510, Student Alumni Union

Registration Opens

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Session 10

Gen Z Bookmobile : A Collaborative Pop-up Design/Build by Students and Their Library

Room 1510, Student Alumni Union

Amos Scully, Claire Payne, RIT

This session overviews a pop-up library display initiative between the art and design librarian collaborating with an Industrial Design teacher to develop a student design build mobile display of printed matter. The presentation discusses student learning objectives, and strategies for extended collaboration among design students, faculty, staff, and librarians.

Mining for Ideas: A Structured Process for Ideation

Anna Jordan, RIT

This talk will present a case study of a project I designed to teach ideation and iteration to graphic design students. It begins with an innovative collaborative art exercise, then guides students through a rich iteration process during which they respond to a series structured prompts, and culminates in refined works of graphic design. I will share my pedagogy and illustrate the successful outcomes with examples of student work.

Computational Creativity and Algorithmic Artwork – Using Art to Promote Learning

Thomas Kinsman, RIT

In a semester long course, computer graphics is used to teach students the basics of design, computer simulation, considerations for presentation, and “maker” fabrication. Through critique, students learn which design techniques give themselves enthusiasm, self-motivation, and joy. The result was wooden wall hangings, printed art, ceramics, and improved student self-confidence.

Session 11

Unlocking Arts-Based Health Research Potential through a Hospital-Based Arts Program

Room A500, Schmitt Interfaith Center

Jennie Vegt, University of Alberta

This presentation explores arts-based health research potentials within a hospital-based art program, illuminated by a process and realist evaluation. The modes of collaboration already emerging between artists, researchers and hospital stakeholders could lead to more meaningful data collection, impactful research dissemination, and therapeutic interventions tailored to the hospital’s diverse needs.

Building Capacities of Care Across the Disciplines: Collaboration in Arts Learning

Aaron Knochel, Penn State

This session reviews the development of the course “Show Me Where It Hurts: Healthcare and Creative Inquiry” in art education that supports general education requirements for the arts and social sciences. Presentation will focus on course themes of care, creative research, and interdisciplinary perspectives on healthcare.

Crafting Change: Rethinking Art, Design, and Innovation in Occupational Therapy Education

Christopher Alterio, RIT

This presentation explores Occupational Therapy’s rich history with the Arts and Crafts movement, emphasizing the therapeutic value of artistic expression. It discusses the profession’s shift towards reductionism in the 20th century and advocates for integrating art, design, and innovation into OT education to revitalize the discipline.

Session 12 (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Panel – The Embellished Gesture (Virtual or Not): Reflections on dance media collaborations, and the conditions for critique

Rory Willats, Independent; Kathleen Hickey, Purdue University

In “The Embellished Gesture (Virtual or Not),” four dancers navigate online masculinities using VR and motion-tracking technology. This presentation draws insights from the dynamics of such collaborations and the shifting roles of performers, choreographers, and technologists, to reflect on broader implications for art’s responsibility in the development of emerging technologies.

Session 13

Panel – Engaging Archives: Models for Student-Centered Projects and Dynamic Collaborations in Higher Education

Room 2650, Campus Center

Landyn Hatch, Elizabeth Call, Nicole “Nic” Feldman, RIT

Amidst pandemic challenges and campus renovations, we’ve embraced innovative approaches to empowering students, cultivating community partnerships, and dynamizing faculty collaborations. Through hands-on experiential learning and student-centered projects, we leverage archives to directly support a university’s educational mission, foster co-ownership of campus spaces, and encourage skills application beyond the reading room.

Coffee Break

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Ground Works: “Creating Knowledge in Common” (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Kevin Hamilton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (moderator); Emilie Taylor Welty, Tulane University;
Cindy Maguire, Adelphi University; Leann Andrews, Penn State University

Contributors to the a2ru Ground Works 2024 special edition “Creating Knowledge in Common” discuss arts-centered university/community partnerships as sites of knowledge creation. What are the goals of these partnerships? How do art and design practices uniquely support shared knowledge creation in the public realm?

9th Annual Frameless Labs XR Showcase

MAGIC Spell Studios, RIT MAGIC Center

The Frameless Labs XR Showcase is a day of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality demos, installations, and performances from users and creators of immersive technologies and experiences involved in academia, non-profit and educational organization, and industry.

Please note that the Frameless Showcase will be open from 12pm-4pm. 

Lunch

Interdisciplinary Centers and Institutes Working Group Meeting 

Room 1510, Student Alumni Union

Academic Metrics Working Group Meeting

Room 2610, Campus Center

Session 14

Room 1510, Student Alumni Union

Panel – Exploring Creative and Ethical Frontiers: AI in Music Production

Rachel Roberts, Dr. Blaire Koerner, Jonathan Herington, University of Rochester

This panel presents a cross-disciplinary research team discussing its NSF grant-funded research into the creative and ethical uses of AI in music creation and production, and the eventual development and implementation of both new AI-based technology and educational interventions to further develop artists marketable skillsets.

Presentation – The Wisdom of Crowds: Sound, Landscape, and Public Storytelling

Scott Ordway, Rutgers University

In this presentation, I discuss my recent multimedia symphonic work, “The End of Rain”. In it, I blend vocal and orchestral music, live-triggered video, and crowdsourced texts from 225 members of the public to explore the impact of catastrophic wildfire and drought on contemporary California landscapes and communities.

Session 15

Workshop – Shadow Casting: Crafting Good Lore for Just, Joyful, and Sustaining Tomorrows

Room 2650, Campus Center

Perrin Teal Sullivan, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Emily Norton, Smith College

Through collaborative play with simple materials, light, and storytelling, we will examine how the shadows cast by our creations are also shaped by the narratives we craft to accompany them. How can we extend these practices and craft good lore to shape the trajectories and impacts of emerging technologies?

Session 16

Panel – Creative Connections: Breaking Departmental “Silos” to Inspire Real Collaboration

Room 2610, Campus Center

Kevin Bergeron, Michael Buffalin, Tiffany Brodner, Jim Yarrington, RIT

Universities are seeking to build interdisciplinary spaces in response to modern educational models. We intend to discuss strategies for creating collaborative engagement and seamless connections—innovations we consider an emerging building type. Going beyond co-location, two new academic buildings foster true collaboration among disciplines ranging from arts to engineering.

Session 17 (Livestream)

Panel – Felicific Calculus: Technology as a Social Marker of Race, Class, & Economics in Rochester, NY

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Eric Kunsman, RIT; Dr. Janelle Duda-Banwar, Independent; Rebekah Walker, RIT; Michael Riordan, Independent

Our team will discuss our project’s intersection of art, technology, and design, focusing on how Monroe County’s payphones are used as both a social marker and a lifeline. We have utilized mapping, photography, and audio stories played back through modified payphones to engage our audience with a visual sociology documentary.

Exhibit Hall

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Creative Aging Program with Interactive and Immersive Reminiscing

Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo, Texas A&M University

This project explores using VR and AI to enhance the reminiscence experience for older adults. AI creates immersive VR environments from personal photos, allowing participants to virtually revisit cherished memories. Guided conversations within VR encourage storytelling and potentially improve cognitive function and well-being.

Collaborative Meet Cute: Shoot Before You Poop

mari jaye blanchard, Dennis McCorry, RIT

Cross-disciplinary collaborations focusing on low stakes projects can be particularly formative and fruitful. They allow for levity and play along with an exchange of ideas and processes as evidenced by the digital game created by two academics in adjacent fields.

Fashioning the Future: Integrating AI into Fashion Education

Margarita Benitez, Kent State

Integrating AI into fashion design education leverages technological advancements, empowering students to shape AI’s future in the industry. This integration allows educators to highlight AI’s challenges and opportunities, guiding students to analyze its impact on traditional making practices and the digital-analog balance in design methods.

Can creative edge cases reveal AI training biases? The case of the Mojave Joshua Tree

Julian Kilker, University of Nevada Las Vegas

Using generative AI images of the Joshua tree, this project argues for examining subtle errors from “edge cases.” Generative AI need not be intentionally used for visual disinformation; rather, the embedded presence of subtle biases in any visual topic can result in artistic misinformation, with creative collaborators being unwitting partners.

Designing a New Approach to Music Therapy

Daniel Phillips, RIT

An interactive music therapy device created that enables children to interact independently and collaboratively with therapists as a result of a collaborative design project between a major university, a design firm, an engineering firm, a designer of therapeutic devices and a local service provider for children with multiple challenges.

Camaraderie: Rearrangements of Desire in Design Education through Performance Practice

Steven Chodoriwsky, University of Utah

This presentation examines the role and relevance of performance activities in the context of early design education through body- and movement-centered experimentation. It reflects upon, and advocates for the impact of, these “plays” or “demonstrations of knowledge” as sites of embodied knowledge, collective camaraderie, and critical spatial practice.

Felicific Calculus: Technology as a Social Marker of Race, Class, & Economics in Rochester, NY

Eric Kunsman, RIT; Dr. Janelle Duda-Banwar, Independent; Rebekah Walker, RIT; Michael Riordan, Independent

An exhibition featuring my photographs and maps displayed on a TV, showcasing the intersection of art, technology, and design. Centered on Monroe County’s payphones, it highlights their dual role as social markers and lifelines. Physical payphones with audio stories will be included to illustrate technology’s role.

Integrating Tradition and Technology: Documenting Rapa Nui Craftsmanship

Nicolás Morales, Macarena Cabrera, Martín Pastenes Rojas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

In the digital age, craftsmanship serves as vital evidence of human creativity and cultural techniques. A pilot project in 2023 began documenting a collection of crafts from the Americas and the Pacific, focusing on Rapa Nui woodcarvings. It aims to demonstrate the evolution of carving techniques, integrating ancestral knowledge with modern technology.

Arts and Teaching: Integrity-based Service Learning for Engaged Scholarship

Marianne Daher, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Integrating arts into teaching cultures via an Integrity-based Service Learning Model is presented. A cultural community intervention with students participating through their professional practice and research internships courses is discussed. The model aims to prevent academic social tourism, emphasizing meaningful learning and quality service for an integral and transformative education.

Shore Thing – 2024 Emerging Creatives Challenge Grant Winner

Abby Tuckett, RISD; Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios, Virginia Tech

As young people face the impacts of climate change on their communities, schools need effective low-cost resources to help students comprehend large-scale processes. Shore Thing, a board game, brings sea level rise and its impacts on shorelines to the classroom while promoting understanding and acceptance.

Presentation of 2024 a2ru Award for Excellence in Arts in Health Education (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Ferol Carytsas, University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine

Keynote (Livestream)

Ari Melenciano, artist/technologist

Reception

SHED (Student Hall for Exploration and Discovery)

Registration Opens

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Session 18

Panel – Teaching the Next Generation in a GenAI Creative Economy

Room A500, Schmitt Interfaith Center

Sarah O’Connell, Yvonne Houy, Julian Kilker, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Julian Chambliss, Michigan State University; Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo, Texas A&M University; Keli DiRisio, Juan Noguera, Rochester Institute of Technology

This panel explores preparing the next generation working in the Creative Economy: How is GenAI affecting stakeholders in the Creative Economy? How can arts research be used for crafting policy to advance responsible innovation across sectors? In the face of disruptive technologies, what teaching practices support students in the arts?

Session 19

Workshop – Neuroscience Meets Arts-Based Interventions: Development of a Digital Mobile Tool for Anxiety and Stress in Higher Education

Room 2650, Campus Center

Becky Zarate, Lynn Maxfield, University of Utah; Bill Doan, Sarah Myruski, Penn State

Experiential teaching cultures are used widely in arts education, with particular focus on the studio arts, multisensory model. This has sparked interest in other disciplines, particularly in the health science teaching cultures. This workshop offers hands-on arts-based interventions that explore opportunities for translation and integration of methods and new tools.

Session 20 (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

We Learn (and Profit) by Making Things

David Long, Nathan Irving RIT

Pedagogy researchers have long embraced “making culture” as amplifier to learning. But when students have entrepreneurial agency to create, design, innovate and engineer outcomes in a project-based charge, the learning efficacy is even more heightened. This presentation will summarize our experience with media-based entrepreneurial making in a traditional educational ecosystem.

Strategies for Providing Students with Creative Industry Experience Beyond Traditional Internships

Jesse O’Brien, Jenn Hinton, RIT

This presentation describes an academic/studio hybrid approach to education. RIT runs an in- house studio that hires students to work on real digital media projects, where students and faculty collaborate on cross-disciplinary teams. Through a post-mortem style presentation, we will share what we have learned through our experiences with attendees.

Session 21

Room 2610, Campus Center

Random Actor: A Design Tool that Connects Computation and Human Performance

Clay Hopper, James Grady, Boston University

Experience the future of interactive design with RANDOM ACTOR—a revolutionary software merging projection mapping and generative graphics. Witness live demonstrations showcasing its seamless integration in theatre, choreography, art installations, and music performances. Explore the intersection of technology and artistry, redefining narrative storytelling in real-time.

Camaraderie: Rearrangements of Desire in Design Education through Performance Practice

Steven Chodoriwsky, University of Utah

This presentation examines the role and relevance of performance activities in the context of early design education through body- and movement-centered experimentation. It reflects upon, and advocates for the impact of, these “plays” or “demonstrations of knowledge” as sites of embodied knowledge, collective camaraderie, and critical spatial practice.

Coffee Break

Fireside Lounge, Student Alumni Union

Closing Keynote Conversation (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Kelly Hurlburt, Adobe; Ari Melenciano

Closing Remarks (Livestream)

Ingle Auditorium, Student Alumni Union

Maryrose Flanigan, a2ru