Professor Emeritus Ralph Abraham says that "my research and teaching in chaos theory have made intensive use of computer graphics and sound. My interest in the DANM program would be to interest students in math as artware, and make math tools available on the digital pallette."

Art Professor Elliot Anderson states, “During the 1980's I worked as a computer graphics engineer in the field of flight simulation. I use my abilities as a software engineer and the concepts of interactivity from flight simulation to create dynamic environments using computers, video and sound. In my work I investigate intertwining and interaction with the computer, constructing an environment from computer information and an unfolding of the work in time and through interaction with computer algorithms. Computer technology allows me to detect and incorporate the body's presence, movement and proximity in a dynamic negotiation with information and processes internal to the computer.

“Currently I am exploring the idea of infection and contamination and concepts from evolutionary genetics as a mode of interaction with and within the computer. The movements, choices and/or presence of the viewer create a set of digital codes that are interpreted as 'genetic' information and are woven into the software running on the computer. In work that is interactive within the computer itself, I utilize genetic programming to create a dialog between software to evolve a cinematic scenario and effect. Sound and image are a result of software processes set in place by initial conditions that are evolved throughout the course of exhibition.”

Film and Digital Media Professor Lawrence Andrews writes, “My interest in digital media is wide and varied, but the truth be told, the digital aspect of my own work always takes a back seat to what is being communicated. I am simply a storyteller and digital media is a means to an end, nothing more, nothing less. Having said that, the area of my research that would have a direct bearing on the DANM program would center around my work in digital video. This work is supported by a strong understanding of digital compositing, i.e., the layering of various motion pictures and graphics to develop new ways of solving problems. My compositing work is broadened by an interest in environmental effects generated by 3D particle systems. My digital video work is also supported by a strong background in sound manipulation, acquisition, and design. And finally I have a new interest in moving some of my work into an interactive environment, I am now investing time into learning a new skill set. My work explores race, power, identity, narrative structures, documentary forms and reportage, with a recent interest in collaborating with groups ranging from community organizations to loosely affiliated individuals held together by little more than an often unstated common goal or interest.”

Theater Arts Dance Lecturer Tandy Beal specializes in choreography, improvisation technique, performance skills, collaborations with classical and jazz performers, circus, theater and video, children’s productions. Tandy Beal is a performer, director, choreographer, writer, teacher and...dreamer. As the Artistic Director for Tandy Beal & Company (‘71-present) and for the New Pickle Circus (‘92-2000), she has created 20 full-length shows and approximately 100 shorter works that have toured worldwide. She also wrote, directed and choreographed Viva! for the Moscow Circus which ran for two years in Japan.

Ben Carson, Assistant Professor of Music, specializes in theory and composition; music cognition and consciousness; rhythm and voice leading; and the history of musical subjects. Composer/theorist Benjamin Carson engages a variety of scientific and critical 'theories of mind' in order to investigate consciousness in music. He has developed cognition-oriented approaches to form and rhythm; he also examines those issues through lenses of critical gender and race studies. In the DANM program, Carson hopes to encourage artists to consider the deterministic relationship of particular media and technologies to their constituent 'percepts', 'affects', and 'concepts.'

Before coming to UCSC, Ben has held visiting lectureships in cultural studies and aesthetics, and was a guest in the series Perception et Cognition Auditives at Paris Universite VI. He was Artist-in-Residence (1999) for the perception laboratory at L'Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique(IRCAM). Carson's music and research has been discussed in the OPEN SPACE journal, and has been recognized at international festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad. Contact bee el cee at you see ess cee dot eee dee you.

Theater Arts Professor James Bierman states, “I have explored the development of engaging ways of presenting multimedia content for the computer. I am currently studying new strategies for interaction with instructional media, which includes the use of a variety of instructional computer games, self-evaluating quizzes, and interactive assessments of the user's understanding of concepts.”

Music Professor David Cope writes, “I have worked in DANM-related areas (primarily computer music composition) for over twenty years and see the creation of this degree as a significant opportunity for teaching many of the subjects that traditional music programs do not afford me. The proposed DANM Master of Fine Arts degree seems appropriate for offering faculty and students the opportunities to integrate teaching and research in ways that will make interdisciplinary studies possible and extraordinarily accessible.”

Film Professor David Crane specializes in film and media theory, discourses on technology, digital culture, experimental media, critical and psychoanalytic theory. David Crane works on film and media theory and history, narrative and psychoanalytic theory, technocriticism, and avant-garde movements.

Theater Arts Professor David Cuthbert specializes in lighting design, CADD, projection design, and scenic design. David Cuthbert’s background includes a solid track record of work on the West Coast as a lighting designer for such venues as La Jolla Playhouse, the Old Globe, Sledgehammer Theatre, San Jose Rep, A Contemporary Theatre, the Intiman, the Magic Theatre, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. His national tours include The History and Mystery of the Universe (about Buckminster Fuller) and two productions with the New Pickle Circus. He has also earned six awards for design excellence, including a San Diego Critics Circle Award.

Film and Digital Media Professor Sharon Daniel states, “My research and artistic practice exploit new information and communications technologies, as media, for the creation of 'Collaborative Systems.' Communication is the material, and collaboratively generated 'systems of communication' are the equivalent of the 'art objects' of this media, as I use it. However, unlike objects produced in traditional art practices these object/systems continuously evolve. A key experimental parameter of 'my' works is that they are authored not only by me, but also by participants in local and on-line communities. In these collaborations I design frameworks where participants build databases based on their own experiences and are provided with the tools they need to structure and interpret that data themselves.

“My work has evolved from interactive sculpture and video installation to experimental projects that recast networked on-line environments as public, community and collaborative sites. I see myself as an artist/scholar, engaged in an artistic, intellectual and political endeavor that incorporates both theory and practice and bridges the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences.”

Peter Elsea focuses on the connection between musicians and the new technology of music. This technology has created profound changes in the tools used by composers and performers, and the music of the next century will largely be shaped by the techniques now being developed to use these tools. Elsea is involved in this development at all levels: as composer, teacher, circuit designer, programmer, and troubleshooter. The fruits of his efforts are the UCSC electronic music studios, five rooms containing the best of recent equipment integrated into efficient composition systems.

Elsea is also developing instruments and programs that will expand the possibilities of midi beyond the traditional and commercial forms of music associated with the format.

Shelly Errington's interests and Teaching Specialites: Art forms (plastic and narrative); still photography and documentary genres; semiotics and power; nationalism; art and its markets. Area of Research: Southeast Asia and some interest in Mexico. Area of Fieldwork: Southwest Asia (Indonesia), Papua-New Guinea; some in Mexico.

Kathy Foley is a Professor of Theater Arts and editor of ASIAN THEATRE JOURNAL. She specializes in performance of Southeast Asian theater and in addition to UCSC has taught at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and Yonsei University in Seoul. She is author of the Southeast Asian material in CAMBRIDGE GUIDE TO ASIAN THEATRE, numerous articles, and performs and directs dance dramas, puppetry and other works. Her exhibitions of Asian puppets and masks have been shown at the East West Center in Hawaii, the Northern Illinois Museum of Anthropology, The National Geographic Society, and the Center for Puppetry Arts.

Kathy Foley's research interests include the use of digital imagery in theatre and performance practice, digital materials as reflection of cultural representation, the relations of puppetry, animation, and digital art, and new media in Southeast Asia.

Mark Franko, Professor of Dance and Performance Studies, Chair of the Theater Arts Department, Founding member of VPS (Visual and Performance Studies research group) is a choreographer and theorist. He has written extensively on dance and visual media (video, film, photography), and is interested in issues of dance and new media as they relate to the concept of the baroque, interdisciplinary theory and practice, and historically informed perspectives on choreography. He recently edited "Ritual and Event Interdisciplinary Perspectives" for the Routledge series "advances in theatre and performance studies."

History of Art and Visual Culture Professor Jennifer González writes, "I would like my participation in the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program to take the form of courses in critical theories of representation for new electronic and on-line art projects. In particular I hope to help graduate students develop a conceptual framework for their research projects grounded in theories and histories of modern and contemporary art."

Donna Hunter, Associate Professor of the History of Art and Visual Culture, states, "My research has long focused on issues of the public and mediatization. Who represents what for whom and to whom? Which means are used and what role do the means themselves play? My interest in visual culture began in the 1960s as I became aware of the many changes in and challenges to established ways of not only making but also conceptualizing art that were then being introduced. By training an art historian, I have long worked on the politicized use of images produced in France in the decades before, during, and after the French Revolution (1770s-1830s). Since the outbreak of the current war in Iraq, my research has concentrated on the various visual means, web-based in particular, used to remember or forget that many people, Iraqis as well as Americans, are dying violent deaths. This research is tied to a seminar I have regularly taught on links between death and patriotism. DANM 202 "Genealogies and Theories of Digital Arts and Culture," the course that I teach for DANM, investigates the open-ended understanding and practice of media, old and new, that were integral to experimental art from about 1910 to 1970. It also considers what was at stake when what are now 'old' media were new and how 'new' media are complicated in interesting ways when understood genealogically."

Eli Hollander specializes in film and video directing, editing, cinematography, videography, digital image generation, screenwriting

Music Professor David Evan Jones has written applications for computer-assisted music composition and has synthesized and composed with vowel resonances as a quasi-independent parameter in music composition. Professor Jones has employed a variety of means of imparting vowel resonances to musical materials including digitally controlled analog filters, digital filtering, and FOF synthesis. He has organized vowels according to a variety of principles based upon their formant structures and has developed the idea of vowels as points of “cognitive unison” between timbres which differ in other aspects of their timbral structure. His articles have appeared in Computer Music Journal and Perspectives of New Music and his composition is available on Compact Disks from Wergo, Centaur, CRI, Musical Heritage, and CRS.

Norman Locks specializes in photography.

Computer Science Professor Suresh Lodha states, “My interests include multi-modal(use of sound, music, art, vision, and touch) scientific and geo-spatial visualization, development of collaborative communities, and self-expression through creative digital arts."

"I have used a mix of 2D and 3D Graphics software such as Macromedia Director, Adobe Photoshop, SoundEdit, and Alias, Wavefront in teaching Computer Arts/ Graphics and CyberArt classes. I enjoy interaction and collaboration with faculty and students across campus focusing on self-awareness, social, and global issues. I believe arts can penetrate deeper with long-lasting effects."

Chip Lord specializes in film and video directing, and editing, video theory and history, video installation, screenwriting, documentary production.

Dominic Massaro states " As a psychologist, my interest in Digital Art and New Media centers on human experience. I have carried out research on perception, cognition, and memory, and these processes are primary contributors to art experience. My current work involves the interface between humans and technology, and how this interface can be configured to optimize human experience. Several recent projects include the physical, psychological, and literary study of time, and the development and theoretical and applied use of a completely synthetic embodied conversational agent for human machine interaction, language tutoring, and edutainment.
Please see my home page for a more complete description of my research and interests: http://mambo.ucsc.edu/psl/dwm/ ."

Michael Mateas’ research in AI-based art and entertainment combines science, engineering and design into an integrated practice that pushes the boundaries of the conceivable and possible in games and other interactive art forms. Michael is involved in launching UCSC’s game design degree, the first such degree offered in the UC system. Prior to Santa Cruz, Michael was a faculty member at The Georgia Institute of Technology, where he held a joint appointment in the College of Computing and the School of Literature, Communication and Culture, and founded the Experimental Game Lab. With Andrew Stern, Michael released Façade, the world’s first AI-based interactive drama in July 2005. Façade has received numerous awards, including top honors at the Slamdance independent game festival. Other work includes Terminal Time, a machine that constructs ideologically-biased documentary histories for mass audiences, and Office Plant #1, a desktop robot that responds to the social and emotional tone of email received by its owner. Michael’s current research interests include game AI, particularly character and story AI, ambient intelligence supporting non-task-based social experiences, and dynamic game generation.

Michael has presented papers and exhibited artwork internationally including SIGGRAPH, the New York Digital Salon, AAAI, CHI, the Game Developers Conference, ISEA, AIIDE, the Carnegie Museum, and Te PaPa, the national museum of New Zealand. Michael received his BS in Engineering Physics from the University of the Pacific, his MS in Computer Science (emphasis in Human-Computer Interaction) from Portland State University, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to CMU, Michael worked at Intel Laboratories, where he helped introduce ethnographic techniques into the Intel research culture, and Tektronix Laboratories, where he developed qualitative design methodologies and built advanced interface prototypes.

Computer Science Professor Charles McDowell writes, “My professional interest intersects with DANM to the extent that DA/NM students and faculty are engaged in creating new software. I have taught introductory programming courses for non-computer science students. I have also taught computer literacy courses.”

Margaret Morse, Professor of Film and Digital Media with a specialty in electronic and digital art and culture states "I want to encourage  DANM students in critical thinking and writing on digital/new media and culture. These skills are just as essential for artists as they are for writers and teachers.  My own publications include work on fundamental concepts such interactivity, immersion and telematics, many essays on specific work by artists as well as critiques on contemporary culinary, body and other cultures.  My books are Virtualities: Television, Media Art and Cyberculture (Indiana UP 1998) and Software, Hardware, Artware (ZKM and Cantz Verlag 1997).  See the Medien Kunst Netz/Media Art Network online for critical introductions to numerous artists as well as essays, including my recent "Sunshine and Shroud" under Cyborg Bodies : www.medienkunstnetz.de (2005)."

Lecturer Soraya Murray is a scholar and critic of contemporary art, with an emphasis in new media history and theory. Murray has a particular interest in non-Western modernities and the effects of cultural globalization on art and visual culture. Murray received a Ph.D. in art history from Cornell University, and her writings are published in "Art Journal," " Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art," "PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art," and "Flash Art." As a DANM faculty member, she provides students who are interested in new media forms with a theoretical and historical context for understanding works that engage advanced technologies.

Murray's scholarship seeks to unearth the ways that a global phenomenon of electronic mass media and communications technologies shapes human interactions and interpenetrates contemporary experience. How do race, nation, class, gender and access affect who may share in this experience? How do the technologies that we have fashioned, in turn refashion us? Further, her research is focused on how art and technology intersect, how cultural production responds to its influential presence, and how artists have utilized new media forms to express their visions. In her analysis of photography, film, video, electronics and the digital, Murray seeks to illuminate these technological expressions within the social, theoretical and historical contexts from which they arise.

Paul Nauert specializes in theory, composition; rhythm and meter; music cognition; mathematical and computer models of the compositional process. Paul Nauert is a music theorist and composer whose areas of interest include rhythm and meter, music cognition, and mathematical and computer models of compositional resources and procedures. His recent work stems from a view of music as "time organized by sound." Current projects include an essay on harmonic progression in posttonal music, a book (with the working title Rhythms and Algorithms) on computer-based strategies for generating and coordinating musical rhythms, and software tools to support both the harmony and the rhythm projects.

Alex Pang Interests: Visualization (scientific, environmental, and uncertainty), computer graphics, virtual reality interfaces, and collaborative software.

Isabel Reichert is a video and conceptual artist. She exhibits internationally in Europe and the United States. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Underground Film Festival, the Mad Kat Women's Film Festival, and Bay Area Now. Locally, she has exhibited at The Lab, Southern Exposure, the Walter McBean Gallery, and New Langton Arts. Her work has appeared in such notable journals as Der Spiegel and The San Francisco Chronicle. She is also the recipient of the German Television Award to realize a Media Work of Art and an award recipient of the Chicago Underground Film Festival through a collaboration with filmmaker, Kerry Laitala.

Daniel Scheie (Danny) specializes in acting, directing, dramatic literature, theater history, Shakespeare, Wagner, gay studies

Warren Sack states, "My area of research is social computing. Work in social computing explores two issues: (A) How can the insights of social theory be incorporated into and used to critique and evaluate software? and, (B) How can new media be designed to address social problems? Current and past projects include new technologies for the news, Open Source software development, locative media, computer-supported translation, systems for visualizing and facilitating online discussions, and the design and analysis of learning environments. My work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and, the ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany. Before joining the faculty at UC Santa Cruz, I was an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information where I directed the Social Technologies Research Group. I have also been a research scientist at the MIT Media Laboratory, and a research collaborator in the Interrogative Design Group at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies. I earned a B.A. from Yale College (Computer Science and Psychology) and an S.M. and Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory. More about my current work can be found at this website: http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/SocialComputingLab/

Biology Professor Barry Sinervo states, “I am interested in developing media to illustrate the principles of behavior and evolution. The content of course is developed to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible. To this end I have developed a video game engine that uses QTVR to model the landscape and 3d models of the characters. The behaviors of the characters are developed in an object oriented language in which behaviors of complex characters are inherited from simple characters. In our lab, we use this game to teach science and as core media device to develop other video and graphical art. New characters can be readily added to game in a modular format. We also develop lots of video shorts (digital video storytelling) of natural history moments in the nature."

Professor Catherine Soussloff writes and teaches on theories of subjectivity and performativity central to thinking about digital media today. In addition, her teaching and research extend into the histories of all visual arts media from the Renaissance to the present. Graduate coursework and advising in DANM will incorporate any or all of these.

Interests: Professor Soussloff’s general research area is the historiography, theory, and philosophy of art in the European tradition from the Early Modern period to the present. Recent areas of publication have included: Viennese art and culture in the early 20th century, performance theory and visual culture, the history of the discipline of art history, the theory of painting in Italy and France in the 17th century, Jewish studies, and theories of media. Professor Soussloff has also written on Italian Renaissance art theory and sculpture, film, and photography.

Elizabeth Stephens (Beth) specializes in sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and web media.

Renee Tajima-Pena's research focus is documentary film and video focusing on Asian American and immigrant communities, media and social change.

Hai Tao Interests: Image and video processing, computer vision, vision-based graphics, and human-computer interaction.

Ted Warburton’s areas of interest include dance cognition and creativity, curriculum and instruction, research and assessment methods, and technology in dance. He says "I work primarily in the area of dance/digital media. I contribute to DANM as a participating faculty in the performative technologies group. Like many contemporary artists and directors, I employ digital software tools and vehicles to create the visual, aural and connective materials for my works. I go a step further by making digital technologies and remote collaborations essential components in live performances that fuse dance, theater, media, and network designs. I am attracted to this work because of the potential to enliven electronic media – to create the body electric – through the intersection of embodied, humanizing chaos on our ordered, technological society. Recent examples include "Lubricious Transfer" (2005), which used digital media and the Internet2 to create multi-site, simultaneous performances that were broadcast live to local and remote audiences in Santa Cruz and New York City; "öötöö (nightwork)" (2006), a telematic dance performance that created a shared interactive media environment between performers at UCSC and UCI; and the critically-acclaimed "Terra Nova" (2007), which melded choreography, computer animation, and motion-capture technology into a landscape of moving images and ideas. These projects were made possible in part by the Dance New Amsterdam Foundation, Jacob’s Pillow Dance, Indiana University, National Endowment of the Arts, National Science Foundation, New York University, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Cruz’s Arts & Lectures, Arts Division, Arts Research Institute, and the Committees on Teaching (COT) and on Research (COR).

Jim Whitehead, Associate Professor in Computer Science, has research interests in collaborative writing, hypertext, and computer games. He led the development of the WebDAV protocol for remote web authoring, and has a ten-year history of research on hypertext systems, and mechanisms for recording the history of evolution of hypertext structures. His interest in computer games stems from a desire to understand how to construct fun experiences, understand the nature of game rule systems, and to harness the power of these engaging worlds for education. Jim's teaching aims at providing students a deep understanding of the technical tools necessary to be proficiently expressive in diverse computational media, ranging from the Web (CS 183) to mobile cell phone games (CS 116), and general understanding of game design (CS 80K). He was the General Chair of the Association for Computing Machinery's Hypertext 2004 conference, held at UC Santa Cruz.

In Memoriam - Jane Wilhelms, a longtime professor of computer science at UCSC, died of cancer on March 26 in Santa Cruz. More information on the UCSC career of Professor Wilhelms can be found on the following Currents Online memorial. Our deepest condolences to Professor Wilhelms's family and friends.

Computer Science Professor Jane Wilhelms stated that“My major research area is concerned with 3D computer modeling and animation. I also teach courses in computer graphics and computer animation. I teach a lower division general education course, Computer Art and Graphics, that teaches computer graphics techniques and software without assuming any knowledge of computer science. I'm interested in working with artists using computers for 3D graphics. I can help them understand the principles of computer graphics and techniques, and they can teach me how to improve the aesthetic quality of my work.” Dr. Wilhelms was one of the first to use physical simulation (Newtonian Dynamics) to simulate humans and animals in her doctoral work at UC Berkeley. She has done seminal research in anatomically based modeling, where actual three-dimensional geometric bones, muscles, and soft tissue are used to produce realistic motion of the outer skin tissues of simulated creatures. She has also done research in modeling of fur and reach cones for joint limit simulation. Her most recent research involves extraction of 3D creature motion from unrestricted video sequences using techniques from computer graphics and computer vision.