Stories

Congratulations to Jyn Arro (BA '20) on the publication of her first volume of poetry, "Book of Mirrors."

Arro writes, "Book of Mirrors is a collection of poetry and prose about pain and sorrow; change and healing; love and sensuality; pride and femininity; resilience and power. Through four parts it is my wish that you see yourself reflected in these words, and know that the person in the mirror is not so wrong or hideous as distortions would have us believe."

Arro's works often explore themes of spirituality, beauty, femininity, queerness, and the nuances and complexities of her mixed-indigenous, Xicana ancestry. When she is not exploring expression and entertaining her curiosity, she is recording the A Poetic Mess podcast, playing video games, or growing her divination deck collection.

https://jynarro.com/

PhD student Emilia Yang will showcase her project AMA Constructing Memory at the Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin as part of their curated exhibition "The Art of Change." The project is an Interactive Art Book about the memories of the victims of state violence in Nicaragua. Learn more here.

Yang's project Love and Remembrance, a VR experience about the affective landscapes of the protests and the right to memory, was also selected for the Vancouver International Film Festival's Immersed XR Market. Learn more here.

Projects by MA+P undergraduates Katie Chan and Katie Liu were selected by the Processing Foundation as part of the 2021 Google Summer of Code initiative.

Read the announcement here.

An interview with MA+P graduate certificate alumnus, Vanessa Monterosa.

Read the full interview here.

As the CEO of Emblematic Group, Nonny de la Peña (PhD '19) uses cutting-edge technologies to tell stories — both fictional and news-based — that create intense, empathic engagement on the part of viewers. She has been called “The Godmother of Virtual Reality” by Engadget, while Fast Company named her “One of the People Who Made the World More Creative” for her pioneering work in immersive journalism.

Watch her TED talk here.

An interview with Media Arts and Practice alumna, Jordan Fowler.

Read the full interview here.

Behnaz Farahi, a Media Arts and Practice PhD student, redraws the boundaries between humans and technology.

Read the full story here.

An interview with a Media Arts and Practice undergraduate alumnus, Chandler Zausner.

Read the full interview here.

Congratulations to PhD alum micha cárdenas on the upcoming publication of her book "Poetic Operations: Trans of Color Art in Digital Media." In her analyses of Giuseppe Campuzano’s holographic art, Esdras Parra’s and Kai Cheng Thom’s poetry, Mattie Brice’s digital games, Janelle Monáe’s music videos, and her own artistic practice, cárdenas shows how algorithmic analysis provides new modes of understanding the complex processes of identity and oppression and the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race.

The book will be released in January 2022.

Read more, from Duke University Press

Professor Alex McDowell's Planet Junk project, a student collaboration across 12 universities, was featured in Dezeen magazine. McDowell challenged students to use the worldbuilding methodology to imagine and evolve a 300-year future society that is built on the detritus of a ruined civilization. The USC contributors to the project were students enrolled in McDowell's course, IML 475: World Building, Narrative Design and Design Visualization.

Read the story here.

MA+P adjunct faculty member Ashley York is one of nine filmmakers selected by the Smithsonian for the "Futures We Dream" film showcase. This showcase, part of the upcoming "FUTURES" exhibition, will present uplifting visions of communities across the U.S. from award-winning independent filmmakers.

Read the full announcement here.

Laila Shareen Sakr (PhD '15) and Susana Ruiz (PhD '15) received an extension grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for their project "Arab Data Bodies: Social Media in Mixed Reality." The ACLS Digital Extension Grant program supports digitally based research projects in all disciplines of the humanities and humanities-related social sciences.

Read the grant announcement here.

An interview with Media Arts and Practice alumnus, Michael Kozlowski.

Read the full interview here.

An interview with Media Arts and Practice alumnus, David Viramontes.

Read the full interview here.

In the summer of 2016, three USC scholars gathered at an 18th-century castle in Austria to teach 70 college students from around the globe how to dream about the future. The Salzburg Global Seminar likely qualifies as the most glamorous venue to host workshop leaders Henry Jenkins, Sangita Shresthova and Gabriel Peters-Lazaro, but it's only one of many places where the trio has championed the practice of "civic imagination" through world-building exercises. Additional to the workshops they've run over the past eight years, Jenkins, Shresthova and Peter-Lazaro have produced two recent books filled with fresh thinking about media activism.

Read the full story here.

An interview with Media Arts and Practice student, Luke Greenwood.

Read the full interview here.

Congratulations to alum Behnaz Farahi, who won the prestigious Cooper Hewitt 2021 National Design Award for Digital Design.

Read more here.

PhD student Benjamin Nicholson's performance, "Deathless and Taxless: A Corporate Exorcism," was featured in the 2021 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Learn more here.

MA+P adjunct faculty member Qianqian Ye has just been appointed as the new co-lead of the p5.js project, with evelyn masso. Congratulations to Qianqian and evelyn!

Read the full announcement here.

On Our Radar 2021 features noteworthy projects in all disciplines that advanced to the final round in the competitive selection process for the Creative Capital Award. This year, micha cárdenas (PhD '15) and Susana Ruiz (PhD '15) and their project Oceanic is one of the many incredible projects highlighted.

Read about the project here.

An interview with Media Arts and Practice alumnus, Eric Liu.

Read the full interview here.

Created by Behnaz Farahi (PhD '20), these masks are meant to empower women to communicate on their own terms by sidestepping the male gaze.

Read the full story here.

After seeing the distance between kids and their elders in his own Jewish community, Ethan Kurzrock (BA '21) developed the Haggadah Project for L.A. middle schoolers.

Read the full story here.

Virginia Kuhn talked with the LA Times about the Lil Nax X’s new video “That’s What I Want” and radical queerness.

Read the story here.

MA+P PhD alumna Nonny de la Peña, dubbed the "Godmother of Virtual Reality” by Forbes and the Guardian, is joining Arizona State University to design and lead a new graduate program and center in emerging media and narrative based in Los Angeles.

Read the story here.

We are pleased to announce that MA+P faculty member Dr. Virginia Kuhn has just published a new book entitled "Shaping the Digital Dissertation: Knowledge Production in the Arts and Humanities." Dr. Kuhn serves as both a contributor to the volume, and co-editor with Dr. Anke Finger of the University of Connecticut.

Read more, from Open Book Publishers

USC students create the digital future in a new interactive building.

Read the full story here.

An interview with Media Arts and Practice alumna, Carolyn Diloreto.

Read the full interview here.

While its physical location was closed by the combined impact of government reprisals and the global pandemic, museum director Emilia Yang Rappaccioli (PhD '21) discusses how the museum lives on as a digital space.

Read the full story here.

Media is just for consumption, right? But what if we told you that media can be used to envision a better future for humanity? This is what is on the agenda of Karl Baumann (PhD ’18).

Read the full interview here.