| Rhetorical Theory & Criticism | New Media & Technology | Visual Culture |

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Media Research:
My research is at the intersection of art, communication, and technology in contemporary postmodern visual culture.

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Teaching Philosophy

Teaching in the area of converging ideas about art and technology has been my focus almost from the beginning of my teaching career. I have always maintained that computer technologies can be a very useful tool for expressing oneself though the creation of visual media. The classroom becomes a safe environment that fosters experimentation with digital tools in the service of creativity and communication. Theory and practice work hand in hand and inform one another in the creative process. Practical knowledge of the technology allows the student to bring theoretical concepts to life in new ways and for useful purposes.

More recently, I have become interested in media technology as a cultural construct as well and a creative process. Students are encouraged to analyze and deconstruct media texts/images and consider the influence of media on individuals and on society. This provides an opportunity for exploring relationships among media texts, culture, power, and the discursive formation of identity.

Loyola University New Orleans Courses:

CMMN A201 - Digital Communication
This is a foundation course for the School of Mass Communication and serves to provide an overview of the practices and principles of digital media design and production within the context of visual communication principles and theories. Class participants create digital media projects that challenge and engage their understanding of the relationship between visual communication design and digital media production. Using the computer as an aesthetic communication tool, students design and communicate messages and expressions by combining digital text, imagery and sound and distributing them across multiple media channels.

CMMN A294 - Web Design and Production
This class serves to provide a foundation for thinking critically, creatively and independently about web design and production by creating complex communication messages specifically for the World Wide Web (WWW). Students are challenged to effectively utilize visual communication and aesthetic principles, and learn processes of planning, analysis, design, implementation, and promotion of Internet-based interactive web sites.

CMMN A394 - @Home, eWork, & iSelf: Exploring Social Media
This course examines and analyzes the character of emerging media networks, particularly “social” media and Web 2.0 applications, the relationship between the networks, and the tools and concepts of each.  Emergent and innovative media are blurring distinctions between mass and interpersonal communications channels. We take an experiential approach to digital media making and develop a practical understanding of what combination of networks is best for producing and desseminating communication messages. Throughout, we engage and critically evalute the relationship between emerging media and existing mass media networks.

University of Utah Courses:

FINE ARTS 2000 – Computers and the Arts
I created this course as the core for the Arts Technology Program in 1999 and still teach it. This course is an overview of Arts Technology creative processes and software applications. Students learn the basics of digital imaging/illustration, digital video, digital audio, web design, interactive design, and animation. Focus is on how these creative tools intersect in collaborative design processes.
FINE ARTS 3030 – Digital Arts: The Theory and Practice of New Media
This was a newly approved course for the Arts Technology Program that I created. We ask: Is it significant that our identity as an individual and a global society in the 21st century is increasingly constituted by our creation and consumption of new media?  We explore “the genealogy of the computer as an expressive medium:” past, present, and future. Through the exploration of these realms, new ways of conceptualizing ourselves emerge: our bodies, the spaces we inhabit, and the potential for personal creative expression in global constructions of mediated culture and art.
FINE ARTS 3160/THEATRE 5160 – 3D Computer Imaging
This course was the result of creative research in 3D visualization for Theatre and focused on computer modeling, rendering, and animation. Students learned to create photo-realistic and stylized imagery and high quality short animations. 
THEATRE 105/1560 – Production: Lighting and  Sound
This is one of the department’s core courses required of all Theatre majors. Originally conceived as a production skills course, I broadened the curriculum to include basic design theory and understanding of role light and sound in Theatre production and performance.
THEATRE 607 – The Art of Light
I originally conceived this course while at Middlebury College but expanded it for the MFA Design curriculum at the University of  Utah. Focused on the aesthetic, historical, cultural and physiological aspects of light in nature and by design.
THEATRE 611 – 3D Imaging for Theatre
This course was the result of creative research in 3D visualization for Theatre and focused on computer modeling, rendering and animation towards visualizing scenery and lighting designs.
THEATRE 4100/5100 – Computer Aided Design & Drafting (CADD)
This course provides practical and theoretical instruction is digital design and drafting for theatrical designers using VectorWorks.