Experience projects developed during the Immersive Media Design Program’s New Works Incubator, a six-week summer development program designed to support the creation of immersive media projects by students from across the UMD campus. The Incubator enables individual student creators and teams to explore new areas of immersive media and to create works based on their own interests and initiative.

The following works are being showcased at the Iribe Center:

Hartley Carlson: Synaptic Altitude

Synaptic altitude aims to provide an interactive, immersive, and educational experience on how vital exposure to the arts is for developmental neurology. Research has shown the significant influence art has on the development of regions in the brain highly involved in the generation and execution of creativity. Art is one of the most fundamental human expressions, yet the understanding of how it can impact the functional connectivity of our brain, is widely unknown. This work is a visual interpretation of how our brain might be influenced by art at a neuron level, and allows users to leave a lasting mark on the represented activity through their gestural drawings.

Made up of steel, burlap, and fabric, the installation resembles a dense neuron forest cascading down to the floor in a dimly lit surround. An evolving projection begins to display gestural drawings, colors, and creations made by viewers on a laptop nearby. These drawings are compounded and intensified in an algorithm and then are projected creeping up the neurons. Once a neuron is full, the connection between it and an an adjacent neuron is made, shown through pulsating animation. This process will continue until all the surrounding neurons are lit up and connected, signifying the strong influence arts have on the connectivity of creative regions in the brain.

Dani Feng & Brayan Pinto: Backrooms at CosmiCorp

It's your first day at Comicorp but all your coworkers are lost in the backrooms. Now it's your job to find them all and make it to the accounting department party!

Isabelle Klimanov & Ian Vinkler: Pthalo

Pthalo the Plush Cat is an augmented reality platformer experience that immerses the player into the illustrated adventure of the titular Pthalo, the plush cat, and his journey back to his friends, Lamby and Bunny, in the toy box! 

Marilyn Ortega & Danika Perez: “&#@_SCREENCACHE_%*$!”

&#@SCREENCACHE%*$! is a commentary on media content’s rapidly altering state in society, demonstrated through several different media formats on separate, but collaborative, screens. We present the audience with a visual immersive experience using monitors that play simultaneously, creating a conglomerate narrative that travels through media history. The different screens show a progression of TV shows, social media videos, and web interfaces throughout the last 40 years, leading into a chaotic mixture of content.

&#@_SCREENCACHE_%*$! aims to convey a nostalgic journey through our past and present experiences with online and television content, and question its role in our lives as it changes into a dubiously healthy form of entertainment.

More projects from the New Works Incubator are available to view at the Iribe Center on Thursday, September 8 from 6-8PM and Friday, September 9 from 11AM-5PM.

For your safety, we strongly encourage but will not require FestGoers to follow the UMD Athletics bag policy for events at The Clarice. All bags will be searched by security personnel upon festival entry, and FestGoers who travel light will be able to enter the festival more quickly and easily. Only empty water bottles will be permitted; there will be free water stations and opportunities to purchase beverages inside the festival.

_______________________

This event is part of NextNOW Fest 2022. NextNOW Fest is a signature event in University of Maryland's Arts for All initiative, which leverages the combined power of the arts, technology and social justice to address the grand challenges of our time. In addition to the festival's student, academic and touring artists lineup at The Clarice, NextNOW Fest will continue partnerships with student-led groups, academic departments and community organizations to hold the festival at sites throughout campus and into College Park!

VIEW FULL 2022 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE