Monday, July 8, 2013

Dissertation, Defense, Graduation, ¡CityArts!

Been a long time since I posted.  After last fall's successful performance of The (unfinished) Ballad... I completed the second component of my Ph.D. dissertation, my paper The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery: The Creation of a Multimedia Murder Ballad and The Development of a Working Method for Roving Performances.  It included a detailed listing and analysis of all the components of the piece, from musical scores to physical computing to the history of the Mathewson Street Church in which it was performed.  It continued with an analysis of other roving-audience performances such as one I previously collaborated on (Mercy Brown and the Devil's Footprint), and the most famous contemporary roving performance, Sleep No More.  It concluded with the listing of a working method for roving performances based on my previous work, collaboration, and observation.

I successfully defended my dissertation on April 12.  
•Thanks to my committee members Todd Winkler, Butch Rovan, Dana Gooley, and Erik Ehn!  

I graduated with my Ph.D. on May 26, 2013.
•Thanks to all my friends and family for their support!  Especially to my 96 year old grandpa Harry who made it all the way from California!!!

I was lucky to receive two job opportunities on the west coast, but decided to turn them down to focus on things here in Providence.

I was again very lucky to have gotten a job as a media consultant and video teacher at Providence ¡CityArts! for Youth, a fantastic, veteran non-profit organization that provides free art instruction to 8-14 year old, under-served students in Providence.  My job has been to use a $15,000 grant budget from the Angell Foundation to build a new digital medial lab for ¡CityArts!    I will then be teaching video class to middle-schoolers at the end of the month (eep!).




















 
 Thanks to all my friends, family, and creative brothers/sisters in arms for their support getting me to this point.  I'm anxious and excited.  Will share more soon...






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