PROFILE interactive arts & media department magazine

SPRING 2012 ISSUE

Features

STUDENT COMMUNITY PROJECT

Arts Alive 45

www.artsalive45.com

By partnering with local property and business owners, the Arts Alive 45 committee beautifies drab or vacant properties. Following the “broken glass theory,” that run-down locations exacerbate local crime, they strive to add art to the 45th ward, making it more attractive to current business owners and locals, and to invite economic development.

Before they approached Claudia Laska’s Media Publishing class for a web presence, they relied on a few online PDFs and several photo galleries to communicate their message.

A team of three students was assigned to build Arts Alive 45, an interactive website with Google integration as well as social media access. Instructing committee members how to use their new website was also part of the challenge.

Interactive Arts and Media students Rebecca Christensen, Caro Griffin and Blair Mishleau, wrote code, designed, copy edited and provided training sessions.

From the start, focus was on easy usability and maintenance per the committee’s request. The goal was complete autonomy for Arts Alive 45 and to provide them with knowledge to problem-solve basic issues and maintain and update the site entirely on their own. The IAM team used the highly intuitive WordPress CMS to build the website foundation and designed a highly customizable theme with an easy-to-use GUI. An embedded Google Map showcases the various locations of Arts Alive 45 projects and adds a simple interactive element to the site.

After several weeks of trial and error, the site went live. The homepage features a roomy, versatile slider suitable for images, text or a combination of both. Built-in Twitter and Facebook integration synchronizes communication.

Yet, despite numerous efforts to ensure easy transfer of website management, frantic questions quickly accumulated as soon as the hand-off occurred: Lost passwords, deleted code and a pesky Google calendar code added to what eventually became the exchange of approximately 100 emails. The IAM team was expected to respond in a timely and professional manner. It was a valuable learning experience for all of us.

Autonomy has now been achieved, with only some rare tweaking from the IAM team. The experience has been incredibly positive. Arts Alive 45 has an undeniable, strong web presence. Visit www.artsalive45.com

[return to Spring12 contents]

Arts Alive 45
Caro Griffin: Senior, Interdisciplinary, IAM and Creative Nonfiction
Blair Mishleau: Senior, Interdisciplinary, IAM and Journalism
Rebecca Christensen: Senior, IAM
Chair: Joseph Cancellaro, Ph.D.
Editor: Claudia Laska
Webmaster: Janet Rooney

IAM Updates

Adjunct faculty Sal Barry organized and curated Art of Play 5 ...
Adjunct faculty Claudia Laska participated in The Fluxus/Visual Poetry Project ...
Adjunct faculty Stefan Brun, artistic director of Chicago's Prop Thtr, is opening a newly translated production ...
The Mi parque app, a mobile app developed by an all-woman team including IAM students and led by IAM Academic Manager Mindy Faber along with others, was Grand Challenge winner in the Apps for Metro Chicago contest. ...

Department Chair Annette Barbier recently received a grant of $2,500 in visual art from the Illinois Arts Council for continued work on her ecology pieces. Illinois Arts Council funds will support work-in-progress that critiques our relationship to the natural environment using natural materials (native leaves or goose feathers so far) as raw materials into which text, bar code identifiers, or images of invasive (in the case of plants) or extinct (in the case of birds) species are laser cut.

Adjunct faculty Mark Temkin works on databases, data mining and web-oriented projects using both Microsoft and open-source technologies. Notable projects have included an expert system that corrects and improves the recorded music library database for radio station, WFMT, and an online music scheduling system (schedule.wfmt.com). The music scheduler, a real-time data comparison tool, constantly looks for changes in the playlist and transforms that data into the source for the station website.

Adjunct faculty Sal Barry organized and curated Art of Play 5, the IAM department's annual art show that explores games, fun and play. The show featured a variety of work from students and faculty. He also co-developed a new blogging class, called "Blogging: Beyond the Basics." The class, which is a collaboration between the IAM and Journalism departments, will make its debut in the Fall 2012 semester.

Adjunct faculty Claudia Laska participated in The Fluxus/Visual Poetry Project, one section of the exhibition, "Write Now: Artists and Lerrerforms," which was held at the Chicago Cultural Center from January through April 2012. She also performed with Dada Machine Fluxus at the Cultural Center during the 2012 Chicago FluxFest.

Patrick Lichty was appointed to the Board of Directors of the New Media Caucus. He is co-producing a documentary on the Bowery underground art scene, "Wednesdays at A's" about punk art doyenne, Arleen Schloss. He finished his first monograph, entitled "Interrogating the Net,” and is in negotiations with publishers. He has published a new issue of Intelligent Agent, covering virtual art and art as public practice, which is available on Lulu.com. Lichty has joined a research consortium on virtual learning in cooperation with Sabanci University, Istanbul. Lichty has completed a third phase of a US-Iran collaboration entitled "Your Day/My Night" as leader of the three-person American team, and will be part of a presentation of the project in Toronto in May, 2012.

Adjunct faculty Stefan Brun, artistic director of Chicago's Prop Thtr, is opening a newly translated production of Bertolt Brecht's first play: "Drumming in the Night" on March 23, 2012. Stefan has been invited by the Kennedy Center For the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. to direct one of the nationally selected new plays in their summer New Plays Showcase, July 22 to 29, 2012. The program is a collaboration between the Kennedy Center and the National New Play Network.

The Mi parque app, a mobile app developed by an all-woman team including IAM students and led by IAM Academic Manager Mindy Faber along with others, was Grand Challenge winner in the Apps for Metro Chicago contest. The app is a bilingual participatory place-making web and smartphone application that helps residents of the community contribute and share their vision for the future of Little Village’s new parks. The app has received a total $8000 in awards that will go towards app development and the community of Little Village.