You’ve arrived at the University of Illinois with a wealth of experience, what are some of the highlights of your past work, and what drew you to campus?

The most important and relevant highlight from my prior work is probably the creation of the Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center at ASU. That project took almost a full five years from concept to completion, and I think it is going to be a force to shape change in the field for a long time to come. It unites the arts, engineering, design, and social sciences in ways that lead to innovative work that advances both the application of technology and understanding of how it moves in the world. 

Photo Credit: Apeiro Design

Beyond the MIX Center, I think I am most proud of my creative work that unites artists and scientists as collaborators on a fundamental level. I’ve done a lot of that work, but I think my favorite was a collaboration called Luna City that brought together over thirty scholar-collaborators from across a multitude of fields as well as visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson to create a 5,000 sq ft immersive installation that allowed visitors to explore the first permanent human habitation on the moon.

What are some lessons learned from your leadership roles at ASU that you want to bring to your work here both as Dean of FAA and within IMMERSE?

ASU and Illinois are vastly different cultures. I love Illinois’ rich history of fundamental research and outstanding, long-term quality, as well as its focus on the student experience. I think I can bring some of ASU’s spirit of innovation and risk-taking to that mix. But perhaps more importantly, I think my years spent intentionally developing a practice in cross-disciplinary collaboration will be useful in helping to expand and enrich the linkages between Colleges and Institutes. IMMERSE already lives in that space, so I’m super excited to see where we can go together.

What aspects of Illinois do you find hold the most opportunity as we seek to lead at the frontier of Immersive Computing?

I don’t think the wider world understands enough about how absolutely crucial the University of Illinois has been in the development of technologies that are cornerstones of our modern world. The incredible depth of faculty expertise in computing technologies is an asset few can match. I’m excited, however, to see how the arts and design at Illinois can establish field leadership in this area as well. FAA has extraordinary depth and breadth of creative practice, and I think, so far, its faculty’s exploration of immersive computing as a medium has been limited due to the narrow bridges which so far have connected FAA island to the rest of UIUC.

Where do you see the role of Fine and Applied Arts in the Immersive Computing community? 

One of the big themes of my experience in the Immersive Computing field and adjacent disciplines is that projects that engage rigorous and creative design and storytelling from the start–even if they aren’t artworks or focused on entertainment–are more successful at impacting users and inspiring widespread adoption. FAA is one of the most extraordinary communities of creative designers and storytellers in the country. There is so much to explore here.

Photo Credit: Worlds in Play

When you have moments away from leadership duties - where are your current research interests? Are you teaching any courses?

Ha. At the moment all I have time for, mostly, is to lay awake at night and think about the research I could be doing if I had more time. In the short term, I am designing some projection dome visuals for a performance of Sinfonia da Camera at the Pygmalion Festival. It will bring together astronomic and geologic imagery with more painterly animations that draw from different cultural creation myths to help illuminate Sinfonia da Camera’s performance of Francois Milhaud’s La Creation du Monde.

Photo Credit: Maddie Rice - Smile Politely

I am teaching one course this fall. FAA102 Design Beyond Boundaries is an interdisciplinary course that will bring together designers of all disciplines to explore the ideas that unite our fields.

I also have two book ideas that I am kind of passively working on in those sleepless moments. One is an exploration of the “magical academy” trope in popular culture and how that relates to a deep psychosocial need for transformative, imaginative experiences in education. The other is a book on the nature of immersive experiences (both computer-powered and not).