Students to learn about media arts management in new UO program

Artistic expression now takes many forms and involves traditional and interactive media that pose new challenges to arts managers and museum curators.  A new area of graduate study at the University of Oregon is launching with the addition of a media management concentration in the Arts and Administration program.

The new media management area of concentration, directed by assistant professor John Fenn III, addresses challenges created by media technologies in arts and culture sectors. It focuses on the role of media across the arts with an emphasis on knowledge and skills useful to administrators. Media management includes text, audio, graphics, animation, video, film and interactivity. The curriculum enables students to wield media as both delivery technologies and social communications strategies.

According to Fenn, media management is a central strand of arts administration that can be seen as a specialty and also a part of everyday professional practice.

“Managing media is more than being tech-savvy,” said Fenn. “It involves understanding the limits and potential for media to serve as delivery vehicle and communication strategy. It comprises a set of creative, practical and critical skills that enable such communication across an array of social and cultural contexts.”

The media management area of concentration will host interactive artists Kevin Patton and Maria del Carmen Montoya, winners of the 2009 Rhizome Commission, to meet with students and give a public performance and lecture.  The artists will visit the UO campus Jan. 25 to 29.

http://aad.uoregon.edu

http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/mediamgmt

Fringe Urbanism: Untapped Potential for Sustainable Suburbs

Fringe Urbanism: Untapped Potential for Sustainable Suburbs

Noon, Wednesday January 20

White Stag Building, 70 NW Couch, Event Room
with Live Broadcast in Eugene, Lawrence Hall, Room 206

There is currently a shift occurring within the peripheries of our cities as social constructs and physical realities collide. The re-development of suburbia holds enormous promise both as an adaptation to changing sociology and in the potential for a more sustainable approach to existing forms of development. Multidisciplinary approaches to architecture and urban design will be critical in how this transformation takes shape.

Professor Larco’s research focuses on the nexus between architecture and urbanism. He is Co- Director of the Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI), a cross-disciplinary organization that addresses sustainability from the region down to the building. SCI is engaging Architecture and Allied Arts faculty and students in research and design while providing service and technical assistance to a different city each year.

Fringe Urbanism

http://sci.uoregon.edu

Past Exhibitions: The Getty Sketchbooks Exhibit

Architects sketches document the design process for The Getty Villa in Malibu, California
PORTLAND, Ore. — (Jan. 8, 2010) – The art of the architect’s drawings and diagrams will be showcased at the UO in Portland in The Getty Sketchbooks exhibition. From Jan. 25 through Feb. 19, The Getty Sketchbooks will be on display at the White Box Laboratory at 24 N.W. 1st Ave. The opening reception will be held on First Thursday, Feb. 4 from 5-7 p.m. followed by a free, public lecture with exhibit curator, Roger Sherwood, entitled “The Death of the Esquisse” from 7-8 p.m. in the event room at 70 N.W. Couch Ave.  White Box hours are 12 p.m. – 6 p.m. Tues.- Sat.

Through exhibitions and related educational and public programming, the White Box is dedicated to creating a laboratory for the exploration of contemporary creativity and critical inquiry for students, faculty, visiting artists, architects, designers and scholars, and the Oregon community. White Box programming reflects and extends the intellectual work of the University, attracting diverse audiences with a range of specific interests. The White Box accepts project proposals year-round.

Don Genasci, professor of architecture at the University of Oregon, took the lead in bringing the show to Portland. According to Genasci, “the esquisse is a progression of hand drawings that leads to a design. It a very rational way of working to create architecture.”

Genasci stated, “It’s a really wonderful exhibition, it’s one of those rare exhibits that shows how great architects work and think. It is as close as most people will probably ever get to seeing how an architect truly works, not just any architect, but really good architects, that’s the crucial aspect of this exhibition.”

GettyPic 1_navarro sect-persp viewm Getty Master Plan

In 1993, The Getty Museum, located in Malibu, California, held a competition for the renovation of the Getty Villa. The Getty Villa is an educational center and museum devoted to classical arts and culture. Through conservation, permanent collections, rotating exhibitions, research and public programs, The Villa serves a broad audience.  The Villa is connected with the museum to create an integrated cultural institution.

Six architectural firms were invited to compete for the commission of the Getty Villa project. The architects were asked to fill blank sketchbooks with drawings and notes conveying their vision for the master plan and design of the new expansion. Although Machado and Silvetti Associates received the commission for the project, the other five firms in the competition were Craig Hodgetts & Hsin-Ming Fung, Franklin D. Israel, Gerhard Kallmann & Michael McKinnell, Juan Navarro-Baldeweg, and Alvaro Siza-Vieira. The story of the original sketchbooks submitted for the design of the Getty Villa is shared through The Getty Sketchbooks exhibition.

Comprised of twenty-one 30” x 30” painted aluminum panels, the exhibit presents reproductions of two hundred sketches and drawings from the original books in the Getty Archives. The drawings provide insights to the working process of the architects, and the original sketchbooks are a record of the use of the “esquisse” as the instrument of design.

The exhibition documents the transformation of the Getty Villa site and shows how architects’ sketchbooks were utilized in the competition to select the most appropriate design. Excerpts from personal interviews and an analysis of the concepts and design process of each architect and represented firm are included in the exhibit.

Roger Sherwood, emeritus professor at the University of Southern California School of Architecture, is the curator of The Getty Sketchbooks exhibition.  The exhibit was created with the support of a grant from the USC program Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Sherwood graduated from the UO’s architecture program in 1961.

All events are free and open to the public.