I’ll be speaking as a part of the panel at this year’s conference for the American Society of Landscape Architects, in Phoenix, AZ. The panel is titled:
Illuminated Landscapes: Using Light Projections to Transform the Built Environment
The panel, organizerd by Jeff Schnabel of Portland State University, focuses on the repertoire and potential for projected light as a medium for urban intervention and landscape design.
I will present plis/replis at this years ACADIA conference.
Our collaborator Hyoung-gul Kook will join me in San Francisco for the conference.
The detailed conference program is here.
Sponsored by:
I joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art in the Spring of 2012.
I'll be documenting all of my teaching at http://teach.alimomeni.net.
I taught a workshop Anderson Ranch the summer of 2011. Here's the low-down (revised description):
Workshop Title: Miniature Worlds: Movement, Light, Gesture And Electronics
When: Jul 09, 2012 – Jul 13, 2012
Where: Anderson Ranch @ Snowmass, Colorado
Media and Techniques:
Electronics, Arduino-based micro-controllers, electromechanics (motors, solenoids and servos), dynamic lighting, software and programming (Arduino IDE, Cycling '74 real-time programming and Max/MSP/Jitter).
Concept:
This workshop takes an interdisciplinary approach to working with live electronics, kinetics, light and imagery. Students explore the basics of electronics work with micro-controllers and strategies for using light and movement to animate a miniature space. The metaphor of a miniature world invites students to integrate their own creative practices (in two- or three-dimensional media) into mixed-media interactive installations.
Course Web-Page: here
Work samples: check out all the final project videos from last year's course blog!
This workshop shares much of its concept/content with a course that I teach at CMU called "Animated Theater". Look at the blog from this course to get a better sense of the approach.
Here are a few of my favorite final projects from last year….
Fall 2019: Art 5490: Make Anything Talk to Anything
Professor: Ali Momeni
This course is intended for visual artists, musicians, designers, computer scientists, engineers and architects (among others) interested in exploring real-time interactive software applications. Such applications allow translations/interactions among various media; examples include sound to video (e.g. music visualizers), gesture to sound (e.g. the theramin, Wii controllers as musical instruments), gesture to video (e.g. motion tracking for interactive visualizations, interactive architecture), interactive sculptures (e.g. sensor controlled mechanics, robotics, lights, LEDs). The Max/MSP/Jitter new media programming environment will be the primary instrument of the course. Max/MSP/Jitter is a graphical programming environment that provides user interface, timing, communication with electronics, communications with the web, MIDI support, real-time audio and video synthesis and processing.
For more information see the class blog and the course syllabus.
Fall 2010: ART 8410: Studio Critique
Professor: Ali Momeni
The topic for the semester is “Practice, Research and Teaching”. We explore the subtleties of how creative research intersects with making and teaching through studio based critiques, iterative refinements of personal research and teaching narratives, analysis of local arts organizations/institutions/collectives, stabs at grant-writing strategies, and round table discussions with invited guests.
For more information see the class blog and the course syllabus.
Spring 2010: COLA 3950/5950: Art for the People, Art on Wheels
Professor: Ali Momeni
Fall 2019: Art 5670/8600: Mechanical Theaters and Toy Orchestras
Professor: Ali Momeni
"Shadow is all appearance, immateriality, without substance; but at the same time gives a way of avoiding the seduction of surface–often referred to as appearance as opposed to essence."
-William Kentridge, Excerpt from a lecture delivered at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, on the occasion of the exhibition William Kentridge, 20 October 2001-20 January 2002
Since this graduate-level seminar meets only once per week, students are expected to dedicate studio/making-time to this course outside of the class-period. In class studio days will be dedicated to demonstration of and monitored experimentation with the subject matter's instruments and techniques; in-class hours will also be used for group critiques.
For more information see the class blog and the course syllabus.
Ali Momeni UMN Tenure and Promotion index: This page contains an expanding outline to my research, teaching and service contributions to the University of Minnesota as probationary tenure-track faculty member in the Department of Art and the Collaborative Arts Program. Links to detailed descriptions, still, video and audio documentation of projects are included throughout.
This year marked a transitional stage for the Experimental and Media Arts department. Together with my colleagues Lynn Lukkas and Diane Willow, we accomplished the following:
-Official name change from Time and Interactivity to Experimental and Media Arts
-Creation of the EMA area blog with a centralized calendar and online resources for our graduate and undergraduate students
-Conceptualization and initial deployment of a comprehensive space reconfiguration: new sound studio (Regis W131), new advanced video lab (W121, the old space was given to the Regis tech staff to meet their needs), new mixed analog-digital studio shared with painting and drawing (W248)
-Preparation and submission of three major CLA-OIT Tech Fees grants (requesting a total of $150,000) for necessary upgrades of hardware and software in Regis
Myself, Jenny Schmid and Heba Amin presented our works at the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo.
Between July 27-31, 2009 I taught the 18th annual CNMAT Max/MSP/Jitter night school course (for my 9th time!). All course documentation is kept on CNMAT’s one-of-a-kind new music web portal: there you will find the course outline, video screen shots of some of the lectures, as well as patches and links.
Jenny Schmid, Heba Amin and myself gave a lecture at the Department of Art at the American University of Cairo. Our lecture was followed by an impromptu/guerilla projection of some of Heba’s work, around AUC’s scenic campus.
I was invited by Colin and Troy of Twin Cities Solutions to give a presentation at their Give & Take event held at Intermedia Arts on Oct 28, 2009. The presentation was on my work with MAW.
While in Spain for showing Smoke and Hot Air at FEEDFORWARD, I gave a lecture on Minneapolis Art on Wheels as a part of the symposium, on a panel with Eric Kluitenberg, Daniel G. Andújar, Fernando García-Dory, Carlos Motta.
According to the press release:
SYMPOSIUM FEEDFORWARD
The Symposium Feedforward. The Angel of the History, will take part on October the 23 and 24. A panel of experts and artists in new media art will debate about some of the central topics of the exhibition.
PARTICIPANTS: Christiane Paul, Steve Dietz, Sarah Cook, Margot Lovejoy, Tamiko Thiel, Chris Baker, Jose Carlos Mariategui, Stephanie Rothenberg, Angus Cameron, Tiziana Terranova, Piotr Szyhalski, Naeem Mohaiemen, Barbara Fluxá, Esther Leslie, Hasan Elahi, Konrad Becker y Marco Peljhan, Nonny de la Peña y Peggy Weil, Knowbotic Research, Tom Levin, Jaron Rowan y Clara Piazuelo, Tere Badía, Emmanuel Rodríguez, Graham Harwood, Eric Kluitenberg, Daniel G. Andújar, Fernando García-Dory, Carlos Motta, Ali Momeni.
Fall 2009: ART 1601: Introduction to Experimental and Media Arts
Professor: Ali Momeni
This introductory course explores the fundamental elements of experimental and media arts in general, and electronic art using digital production tools in particular. Students will explore a personal aesthetic and develop a critical framework for their ideas and work. Theoretical/critical readings, lectures, discussions, presentations of film, video, and new media artists are included.
The course is organized around 4 themes:
1. Image
2. Video
3. Sound
4. Performance
The weekly schedule follows this themes in order and allows students to explore combinations of media with increasing facility as the semester proceeds.
Objectives:
1. To introduce students to image/video/sound/performance and their digital production tools as a medium of artistic production with a unique visual, aural, and temporal language.
2. To foster the development of a personal aesthetic.
3. To enable students to explore and articulate the connections between digital art processes and more traditional art practices.
4. To explore historical and theoretical aspects of electronic and digital art and integrate that with their interests and creative production.
5. To provide introductory experience with creative coding for artistic creation.
6. To promote and support collaborative working pratices.
For more information see the class blog and the course syllabus.
Fall 2009
I will be representing the Experimental and Media Arts area of the department of art in the GARC committee for the next two academic years.
Primary agenda items to which I will be contributing are:
-space reconfiguration in Regis: working with Marc Knierim and area representatives to identify and reconfigure under-used spaces in Regis. the focus is to create spaces for cross-area collaboration for the graduate students
-coordination of materials for the new art department web-site.
-coordination of EMA incoming graduate student applications
Fall 2009: Development of the new Art Department website is underway. As chair of this departmental committee, I am acting as the main organizer and communications agent between the department, CLA-OIT and the CLA Web Team. All coordination of the department's efforts are organized through this website. First draft of text revisions will be gathered by 12/9/09; in the mean-time, I will be working with area heads and staff members to get all necessary content components in place for the CLA Web Team. For more information about tasks and time-line refer to the above website.
Fall 2010: Development site of the Art Department website is now on-line and being regularly revised. In addition to collecting and generating necessary/missing content for the site I am coordinating a larger effort to the departmental site to a much more visual appearance (by consisten attachment of current stills and videos to various site nodes) as well as a more communally maintainable one (by creating areas/roles within the site/staff).
Fall 2009: COLA 3950/5950
Title: Make Anything Talk to Anything: Cross-Media Real-Time Programming with Max/MSP/Jitter
This course is intended for visual artists, musicians, designers, computer scientists, engineers and architects (among others) interested in exploring real-time interactive software applications. Such applications allow translations/interactions among various media; examples include sound to video (e.g. music visualizers), gesture to sound (e.g. the theramin, Wii controllers as musical instruments), gesture to video (e.g. motion tracking for interactive visualizations, interactive architecture), interactive sculptures (e.g. sensor controlled mechanics, robotics, lights, LEDs). The Max/MSP/Jitter new media programming environment will be the primary instrument of the course. Max/MSP/Jitter is a graphical programming environment that provides user interface, timing, communication with electronics, communications with the web, MIDI support, real-time audio and video synthesis and processing. The course will be a rigorous boot-camp for this instrument; after the initial introduction in the first third of the semester, the course will be project-based where each student will develop several independent projects/works/experiments. The course is offered as an upper-level undergraduate/lower-level graduate rank. In-class meeting hours will be similar to those of studio courses in the Art Department, i.e. two three-hour sessions per week. Like other studio courses, much of that time will be spent on supervised individual work. In addition to the 6 weekly in-class hours, students are expected to considerable time outside of class mastering this powerful instrument. Students are encouraged to collaborate with one-another; collaborations with the instructor are also possible. Familiarity and comfort with laptop-based technology is a pre-requirement; this includes experience any of a variety of desktop publishing tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, GoLive, QuickTime, Final Cut) as well as a general sense of interest and curiosity in the creative potentials of the laptop and software platforms. Previous programming experience of any kind is welcomed but not required. Similarly, previous experience with Max/MSP/Jitter is not required but also welcomed.
For more information see the class blog.
Fall 2009:
I am the EMA area representative for the visiting artist committee, chaired by Jenny Schmid and Chris Larson. In addition to recommending and reviewing recommendations for visiting artists, my primary goal is to create an online presence for the visiting artist program to 1) coordinate organizational efforts and 2) to make the programs activities more publicly visible.
The visiting artist committee’s new website is here. Committee members are charged with gathering and submitting appropriate content for this site. The new Art Department website will be able to receive feeds from this site in order to make our activities visible on the primary art department website as well.
During August 3-7, 2009, Robin Mandel and I taught a week-long intensive workshop on physical computing at Anderson Ranch. The workshop was titled Physical to Digital (see Anderson’s flier).
I created a course blog that includes arduino code, references for working with kinetics as well as videos of the students final projects.
I was invited by Dave Schroeder (of Pilot Vibe) to give a lecture at the his annual Flashbelt conference. My presentation was primarily on MAW‘s use of a mix of digital and physical technologies to create real-time animation for public projections (i.e. “livedraw”).
Spring 2009: ART 3350/5350: Kinetic Sculpture
Professors: Chris Larson, Ali Momeni
This class introduces students to the diverse practices of movement and rhythm applied to sculpture. Instead of a literal translation of kinetic sculpture as sculpture that moves, we seek to deconstruct presuppositions about the limits of this practice and its history. By exploring notions of the body, movement, function, gesture and the relationship between objects in motion we will find expansive ways to collaboratively redefine this medium.
For more information see the class blog and the course syllabus.
Spring 2009: COLA 3950/5950 Art for the People/Art on Wheels
The second season of Art on Wheels, the course that allows students to get involved with Minneapolis Art on Wheels, is here! For more information please see the class blog, and more specifically the syllabus.
Sample Works by Ali Momeni
Sample Course Syllabi and Student work by Ali Momeni
I am committed to using technology in my teaching. With the help of the pedagogic tools available at the University of Minnesota, I have conducted all of my courses thus-far in a mostly paper-free manner. All course syllabi, reading assignments, references and student works are on-line. Below you will find directed links to my course materials; please use the digital copy of this document with a computer connected to the internet.
2008-2009
2007-2008
As a founding faculty member of the Collaborative Arts program, my colleagues and I have devised the major/minor requirements, established the core curriculum, created the fundamental COLA 1001 course, as well as a number of to-be-permanent course, currently offered as workshops (among the Art for the People/Art on Wheels, the precursor to MAW.
Spring 2008, Fall 2008
Together with the two other core faculty of COLA, Michael Sommers and Guerino Mazzola, and our director Michael Cherlin, we finalized and submitted the following:
1) Requirements for a COLA major in the CLA
2) Description of the COLA Fundamentals course (i.e. COLA 1001, The Art of Collaboration). The course is approved, and will be co-taught by all COLA core faculty.
Fall 2008: After a convincing argument to the department, delivered by myself and Jenski at the faculty retreat in Feb. 2007, I was appointed chair of the Public Image/Web Presence committee.
The College of liberal arts has approved (and funded) a major update of the West Bank Arts Quarter (including Arts, Music, Theater and Dance, and Collaborative Arts). The college has hired the services of bswing to evaluate the usage and needs of the arts departments websites.
Update (11/20/08)
I met with bswing on a number of occasions for interviews and discussions. They seem to be asking the right questions, though their focus seems to be the West Bank Arts Quarter, as opposed to the departments that make up the WBAQ.
Update (12/04/08)
According to the presentation on bswing on Dec. 4, 2008, the WBAQ remains only a geographical indication, while the needs of the websites for independent departments remain many, diverse and sometimes overlapping. The next stage will be a graphical presentation of a web-site by bswing to the WBAQ-wide committee to which I am the Art Department representative.
Lecture at the Mutating Media symposium in October of 2008, held at favorite Gent spot (after Ingrid and Bram’s pad of course): Vooruit. This symposium of a part of Almost Cinema 2008.
Working with Motors:
1. Our Simple Voltage Amplification Circuit
2. Graphical Resistance Calculator
3. Transistor and Diode basics
4. Our TIP122 voltage amplifier
More interfaces:
Excellent stepper motor:
Stepper Motor
Source for premade driver boards:
Futurlec Electronics (Thailand)
Basic Electronics Resources
Tom Igoe – Understanding Electricity
Electronics Calculator (Resistance, Voltage, Amps, etc.)
General Resources
Tom Igoe’s Physical Computing Site
STEIM (Netherlands Interactivity Center)
Hardware Hacking
Instructables (DIY everything)
Sensors
CNMAT’s Gestural Controller Page
ITP (Tom Igoe) Sensor Reports – plus implementation code for PIC microcontrollers
Protolab Sensor Tutorial – uses arduino microcontrollers for examples
Light Sensing Resistor Circuit
Actuators
Interfaces
Tom Igoe – Microcontroller Overview
Arduino
Learning Electronics with the Arduino
Software
iShowU (documentation software)
Electronics Retailers and Surplus
All Electronics (surplus electronics)
Digikey (retail general electronics)
Electronics Goldmine (surplus electronics)
Futurlec (dc power boards, etc.)
Jameco (retail general electronics)
Mouser (retail general electronics)
Radio Shack (retail general electronics)
Fall 2008: I served on the Curriculum Committee in the department of art. Our main considerations were:
1) re-evaluation of major project for the BFA track; after consideration of all feedback from students and instructors, we decided to recommend to the department to break the class into a number of options: 1st, an “Art and Life” course, much in the style of the present “Art in the Twin Cities” course; as many of the BFAs do not go on to pursue careers in the arts, a fitting cap-stone course would be to assure that the know their local art world well and have experienced it aesthetically and critically. Another option would be an advanced studio; most BFAs do not get a lot of studio experience in our department (more than P are transfer students). An additional upper level studio would allow them valuable time to develop their voice
2) re-consideration of the Public Spaces position for grads: the last three graduate students have quit this position due to its unrealistic demands. A potential solution can be to make the BFA show juried, and therefore smaller.
3) re-consideration of the 2-year language requirement for BFAs. This question is to be investigated further
Fall 2008: COLA 1521/3521/4521: The Art of Collaboration
Professors or record: Ali Momeni,
Participating professors: Guerino Mazzola, Michael Sommers
A collaborative creative environment where over the course of a semester, students from different disciplines create a installation or performance that expresses their independent and collective talents and interests.
Find more information on the class blog.
Fall 2008: COLA 1001: The Art of Collaboration
Professors: Guerino Mazzola, Ali Momeni, Michael Sommers
This introductory course presents the characteristics and the challenges of collaboration through three representative approaches from the visual arts, music, and theater. The course unfolds around concrete problematic situations arising from the project of a collaborative and multimedia-enhanced project.
The class includes lectures by guest artists as well as exploration of the cultural landscape of the Twin Cities.
See the syllabus and class description or find more information on the class blog.
Fall 2008: ART 8400: Theoretical Constructions in Contemporary Art
First Year Graduate Seminar
Professors: Ali Momeni, Jenny Schmid
This course focuses on theories of contemporary art and how they have created a foundation for current art practices. In addition to reflecting on theory, this class seeks to collectively explore new paradigms in the ways that artists are working today- through the creation of collectives, the globalized community and artist-as-curator model. Can post-modernism shift to not just operate as a resistance against an historical Western paradigm, but rather formulate new approaches that are based in a globalized, less provincial and more dynamic way of thinking?
Here are links to the syllabus/course description, the class blog, and the assigned readings.
Between July 21-25 of 2008, I taught the 13th annual MaxMSP Night School, hosted by CNMAT. This was the 9th year I taught at the night school, crazy!
I have posted all course material on CNMAT’s 2008 Max/MSP Night School page.
Spring 2008:
I was recommended by UMN Vice President Steven Rosenstone to Weismann Art Museum Director Lyndel King to serve on the advisory committee for the museums expansion project.
The project involves the construction of several new gallery spaces, as well as a “Target Collaborative Studio”, on the front side of the museum.
The project should be completed by 2010.
I gave a lecture to a class of bright eyed Carletonites, makes me miss Swarthmore College….
Here is the announcement.
Spring 2008:
I was invited by Vice President for Scholarly and Cultural Affairs, Steven Rosenstone, to be a part of the 6-member technology advisory committee for the ambitious re-design of Northrop Hall, one of the oldest buildings on the UMN Twin Cities Campus.
We collectively came up with a list of wants, needs and ideas; they include: the maximization of public spaces, the allocation of the best spaces in the building to those public spaces, the need for a highly wired building, the possibility to use the outside of the building (e.g. projections) as well as the inside, the possibilities of visualizing the activity inside the space on the outside architecture.
Fall 2008:
Benjamin M. Johnson has been appointed to the position of Concerts and Lectures at the University of Minnesota, here‘s the announcement.
Video documentaiton of a panel discussion on Feb. 13, 2:30-4:30pm, in Regis Art Center’s In-flux space.
The participants were the following:
-Mary Altman, Minneapolis Art Commission Public Arts Coordinator (confirmed)
-Mike Hoyt, Director of Kulture Klub (confirmed)
-Nora Paul, Director of the Institute for New Media Studiesat the U of M (confirmed)
-Jim Nystrom, UMN Police officer responsible for West Bank and Athletic Facilities (confirmed)
-Tracy Smith, UMN General Council Attorney in charge of student activities (confirmed)
-Steve Johnson, UMPD Deputy Chief
I acted as a moderator for the first segment of the panel discussion (about one hour); we then open the discussion to questions and answers for another hour.
I was invited to give a lecture on my work as a part of the UMN Electrical and Computer Engineering Department‘s colloquia series.
Below, a video recording of the lecture….
I’m teaching a course along with Professor Doug Geers from the School of Music, on the topic of treating time. The course is titled Interdisciplinary Media Collaborations: Treating Time and here is the course description.
I received a grant from University of Minnesota’s CLA-OIT to support a course I devised inspired by Graffiti Research Lab. The course is titled Art for the people/Art on Wheels here’s the course description.
I am immeasurably excited about the possibilities of the course…
My first course at the University of Minnesota’s Art Department focusing on generative video with Max/MSP and Jitter.
Check out the course’s blog.
It is finally official:
I have started a faculty position at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The position is a tenure-track assistant professorship, appointed in the Department of Art and the Interdisciplinary Program for Collaborative Arts (IPCA).
I am looking very forward to the new life, the new environment, new possibilities and my new immediate colleagues: Guerino Mazzola (Music), Michael Sommers (Theater), Diane Willow (Art, Time and Interactivity), and Lynn Lukkas (Art, Time and Interactivity) and Michael Cherlin (Music, Director of IPCA).
This fall, I will teach two courses; the first on Experimental Video, and the second on Time.
And the best part: my email address in a university with 60,000 people: ali at umn dot edu
Let the good times begin….
Course evaluation form results from 2005, 2006 and 2007, with 38 out of 62 students responding to the survey.
A PDF version of CNMAT’s MaxMSP Night School Student Evaluation is here.
Between July 23-27 of 2007, I taught the 12th annual MaxMSP Night School, hosted by CNMAT.
A few related links:
–Course Syllabus and Patches
–Course Evaluation Form (please fill it out if you took the course!)
–Evaluation Results
In the 2005 academic year, I taught interactivity design and real-time programming at ENSAD‘s ARi program.
My Max/MSP/Jitter patches for the initial intensive workshop are here by day:
–Monday
–Tuesday
–Wednesday
–Thursday
My students’ projects are documented here.
Between July 24-28 of 2006, I taught the 10th annual MaxMSP Night School, hosted by CNMAT.
A few related links:
–Course Syllabus and Patches
–Course Evaluation Form (please fill it out if you took the course!)
–Evaluation Results
In the 2004 academic year, I taught interactivity design and real-time programming at ENSAD‘s ARi program.
My Max/MSP/Jitter patches for the initial intensive workshop are here by day:
–Monday
–Tuesday
–Wednesday
–Thursday
–Friday
–One more day
My students’ projects are documented here.
Between July 11-15 of 2005, I thought the 10th annual MaxMSP Night School, hosted by CNMAT.
A few related links:
–Course Syllabus and Patches
–Course Evaluation Form (please fill it out if you took the course!)
–Evaluation Results
In the 2003 academic year, I taught interactivity design and real-time programming at ENSAD‘s ARi program.
My students’ projects are documented here.