Category Archives: Faculty News

Virtual exhibit gives a new look to Brooklyn

Associate Professor Sarah Drury, FMA, is one of several artists who have augmented the reality of Brooklyn through a smartphone exhibit called “Decollage: Torn Exteriors.” She is also the curator.

According to the organizers: “Augmented reality using the smartphone allows the participant to visualize digital images ‘collaged’ over the present location, as seen through the phone’s camera. Although this superimposition of visual information onto the landscape is an additive process, ‘Decollage: Torn Exteriors’ implies a tearing away of existing surfaces.”

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Theater faculty help define dramaturgy — Philadelphia Inquirer

One of the most misunderstood roles in theater, Inquirer Theater Critic Howard Shapiro tries to get a grasp on a dramaturg’s role in a production. He asked Assistant Professors Ed Sobel and Peter Reynolds to help.

“Probably if you asked 50 different dramaturgs, you’d get 50 different answers,” Sobel says. “Because the role can be so undefined, it allows a lot of latitude for doing it well and a lot of latitude for doing it badly.”

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Assistant Professor Miller creates music magazine — WHYY Newsworks

Assistant Professor George Miller, JOUR, produces a new local music magazine, Jump, out of his own laptop and those of his network of volunteers, students and interns. With low overhead costs and no ambition to get rich, the former photojournalist is committed to creating a print magazine. “We’re a big, glossy magazine — you can rip these pages out and hang them on your walls,” said Miller. The first issue will hit the streets March 11.

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Assistant Professor Morrow explains ‘the romance of film editing’

Assistant Professor Dustin Morrow, BTMM, explained how film editors manipulate time in an episode of “Academic Minute,” a new feature produced by Northeast Public Radio. “The incredible beauty of an editor’s work with time is his/her privilege to cut out life’s boring bits — inherently, this is one of the things that make movies so entertaining. For example, you may wish that instead of enduring your morning commute, the space around you could just dissolve from home to work. That works in the movies, but not in real life,” he said.

Click here to listen to his interview.

Assistant Professor Morrow explains ‘the romance of film editing’

Assistant Professor Dustin Morrow, BTMM, explained how film editors manipulate time in an episode of “Academic Minute,” a new feature produced by Northeast Public Radio. “The incredible beauty of an editor’s work with time is his/her privilege to cut out life’s boring bits — inherently, this is one of the things that make movies so entertaining. For example, you may wish that instead of enduring your morning commute, the space around you could just dissolve from home to work. That works in the movies, but not in real life,” he said.

Click here to listen to his interview.

FMA professor’s new film to screen in Arizona

Canyonlands, a new film by Associate Professor Roderick Coover, FMA, MMC, will be featured at the University of Arizona symposium, Hidden Cinema of the Southwest and Mexico on Feb. 25, and at the Bisbee Central School Project on Feb. 27. The film examines environmental issues the American West and the legacy of provocative writer Edward Abbey.

Professor Coover to lecture at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts

Professor Roderick Coover, FMA, MMC, will offer invited lectures from his forthcoming book on trends in video and new media in contemporary art at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, Del., on Feb. 17 and at the Institute for Humanities Research Phoenix, Ariz., on Feb. 28.

Associate Professor Erickson’s documentary featured on CNN

Associate Professor LeAnn Erickson, FMA, was in the midst of another project when she learned of a group of women who worked as military “computers” during World War II to perform ballistics research. Based at the University of Pennsylvania, dozens of women would figure out things like weapon trajectory. Some went on to help program the earliest mechanical computer. Her research became Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II.

Click here for the full story.

Music produced by BTMM professor to be featured during Black History Month

Some recordings of works by composer Leslie Savoy Burrs, produced by Associate Professor Jack Klotz Jr., BTMM, and Vincent Leonard are going to be featured this month on Raleigh-Durham, N.C., classical music radio station WCPE FM’s “WAVElengths” program as part of their celebration of Black History Month.

Burrs’ work is being highlighted along with that of other notable African-American composers, William Grant Still, Billy Childs, Valerie Coleman and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. during the month of February.  The show can be heard here.