May 26, 2024
2–4 PM Eastern Time

From Self-Teaching to Community Teaching: Critical New Media Perspectives

Online over Zoom | Register here, via Eventbrite

Join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion exploring the transition from self-teaching to community-driven education in new media. This session will delve into innovative community-led learning models, examine the intersection of traditional and emerging educational paradigms, and highlight the role of intersectionality in shaping dynamic knowledge and skill development.

CART captioning and notetaking will be available for this event.

About the Panelists

Ari Melenciano has cultivated an expansive practice within and beyond the fields of art, design, technology, pedagogy, and culture. Her natural ability to combine many disciplines reveals both their interconnectedness, and reimagines their contemporary conventions introducing new possibilities.

As an academic and educator, she is invested in creating encouraging environments for her students to explore the most emerging technologies through imaginative, critical, and cultural lenses. She occasionally teaches at universities around New York City including New York University, Parsons School of Design, Hunter College, and The Pratt Institute. She has held academic residencies at Maryland Institute College of Art, University of Denver's Clinic for Open-Source Arts, NYU Tisch School of the Arts Future Imagination Fund, NYU’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, and University of Maryland Arts-for-All. Melenciano was also a research affiliate at MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative. And, she consulted for New York City's Department of Education through their CS4ALL (computer science for all) initiative, where she designed human-computer interactive learning tools for culturally inclusive curriculum.

Emi Aguilar (she/they) is a Coahuiltecan Arts Educator, community organizer, and multidisciplinary artist, based among the Coahuiltecan homelands where her people have resided for over 14,000 years (or, what is recently known as Central Texas to Northern Mexico). They hold their MFA in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities from The University of Texas at Austin. With a decade of teaching experience, she specializes in Indigenous arts integration, digital storytelling as a community-affirming practice, and Indigenizing storytelling. More information at emxaguilar.net and @IndigenizingArtsEd on Instagram.

Fotar Tunteng is a multi disciplinary creative working in music, fashion, and digital media. As a DJ, a model, and in particular an app designer/developer he seeks to foster rethinking the limits of connection and of positive experiences. His life and work is deeply shaped by his blackness and nurtured by the black queer community. 

He's also one of the founder of Applied Archived (https://appliedarchive.com), a research based design experiment exploring the stories of social activists from the past and utilizing music for community gathering. 

Johann Diedrick is an artist, engineer, and educator whose work weaves together audio and AI technologies. Through his installations, performances, and sculptures, audiences can experience the world through sonic encounter. He shares his tools and techniques through listening tours, workshops, and open-source hardware/software. Diedrick was a 2023 Artist-in-Residence at Abrons Art Center and was the director of engineering at Somewhere Good, a 2022 Future Imagination Collaboratory Fellow at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, a 2021 Mozilla Creative Media Award recipient, a 2020 Pioneer Works Technology resident, and a community member of NEW INC. His work has been featured in The Wire and presented internationally at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, MoMA PS1, Dia Art Foundation, and the New Museum, among others. He holds a bachelor of arts in sociology of culture from the University of Pennsylvania and master’s degree from New York University’s ITP program.

About the Moderator

Tristan Sauer is a New Media Artist and Curator interested in physical computing, wearable technology, and Sculpture. Sauer's practice is critically focused on technology and capitalism, viewing their relationship as a potential modern-day Pandora's box. He is interested in the intersections between our digital and physical worlds, and how technology affects the various facets of human existence. Often expressed through his own identity as an Afro-Canadian, Sauer explores these topics through both an Afro-futuristic and Afro-Pessimistic lens.

A graduate of the New Media program at Toronto Metropolitan University, Sauer has presented locally at the Plumb, Meridian Art Centre, Gallery 1313, and Whippersnapper Gallery. He has curated as a member of Long Winter, online through Symbicocene Gallery, and REEL Asian Film Festival, and most recently in-person at Xpace Cultural Centre.

About the Event

This event is presented jointly as part of two projects: Terra Firma and Conversas.

Terra Firma is a project co-led by InterAccess and Tangled Art + Disability, dedicated to strengthening the technologically mediated relationships between arts organizations and Black, Indigenous, and Disability Justice (BIDJ)-centred communities. It seeks to support, amplify, and learn from the stated communities’ techno-cultural knowledge stewardship, accessibility, and harm reduction models. It aims to apply such learnings by prototyping and implementing organizational tools in close consultation and collaboration with the stated communities, distributing resources and sharing knowledge throughout artistic, cultural, and technological ecosystems on Turtle Island and beyond.

Conversas: Who’s Missing In This Room? is a project by FEZIHAUS™. Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts’ Strategic Innovation Fund, this series of conversations aims to address pressing issues in the arts sector throughout 2024. Given current challenges, including scrutiny on DEI investments, understanding equity within the context of decolonization is crucial. However, defining equity beyond compliance measures remains a challenge. To address this, "Conversas: Who’s Missing In This Room?" delves deeper, unpacking the multifaceted nature of equity across artistic practices and organizational structures, fostering a more inclusive and equitable Canadian arts sector.

About the Presenting Partners

FEZIHAUS, founded in 2020 by Samito, is a Montréal-based enterprise that utilizes music to bring creators together, focusing on exploration, fairness in ownership, and well-being. It's often described as a "label-inspired workroom" or "civic effort."

The creative workroom draws from various industries and fields of practice to bring its projects to fruition, counteracting the idea that Canadian artists of colour should be limited to certain genres, disciplines, and narratives.

With each project, FEZIHAUS™ continues to evolve, pushing the boundaries of what is possible through its pluridisciplinary approach, making it a unique player in the Montréal creative scene.

https://www.fezihaus.com

InterAccess is a gallery, educational facility, production studio, festival, and registered charity dedicated to new media and emerging practices in art and technology.

InterAccess’s mission is to expand the cultural significance of art and technology by fostering and supporting the full cycle of art and artistic practice through education, production, and exhibition.

https://interaccess.org

Tangled Art + Disability is a Canadian registered charity dedicated to connecting professional and emerging artists, the arts community, and a diverse public through creative passion and artistic excellence. Tangled’s mission is to support Disabled, d/Deaf, chronically ill, neurodiverse, k/crip, Mad, sick & spoonie artists; to cultivate Disability Arts in Canada; and to increase opportunities for everyone to participate in the arts.

https://tangledarts.org

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
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