This Women's History Month, AMT Lab highlights five groundbreaking women redefining the intersection of arts and technology across disciplines spanning new media, algorithmic theater, performance art, music activism, and artificial intelligence. Each trailblazer has used the tools of her time to challenge who gets to be seen, heard, and represented. Their collective body of work makes clear that the future of art and technology will be shaped, in no small part, by women who refused to wait for a seat at the table.
In Part II, this study builds on the industry context established in Part I by shifting from macro-level analysis to audience-centered insights. While Part I identified independent adult animation as a growing global opportunity shaped by evolving production ecosystems and market conditions, Part II examines how these trends translate into audience behavior and engagement. Drawing on survey data from audiences ages 18–35 and interviews with industry professionals, this section explores what viewers are seeking from independent animated films, the factors that drive discovery and theatrical attendance, and the key elements that contribute to commercial and critical success. In doing so, Part II connects broader industry dynamics to actionable insights that inform strategic decision-making for distributors such as NEON.
This article examines how generative AI is reshaping copyright law and challenging traditional notions of authorship in the visual arts. By outlining key legal principles, including originality, fair use, and human authorship, it explores the growing tension between technological innovation and artists’ rights and highlights the urgent need for clearer legal frameworks in the age of AI.
This study provides a foundational analysis of how independent adult animation is emerging as a significant opportunity within the contemporary film industry, with a particular focus on market trends, audience engagement, and the strategic role of distributors. As global demand for animated storytelling continues to grow - driven by streaming platforms, evolving audience tastes, and international co-production networks - independent distributors face increasing pressure to identify sustainable models for developing and distributing animated films. Part I examines the evolution of the independent animation landscape and situates the project’s client, NEON’s, recent exploration of the sector within broader industry trends. Drawing on existing research, industry reports, audience surveys, and expert interviews, this section frames the study’s central research questions and methodology. By outlining the challenges and opportunities surrounding independent adult animation, Part I establishes the conceptual groundwork for the industry interviews, survey analysis, and strategic recommendations that will be presented in Part II.
This month's Byte-Sized Culture is a Black History highlight spotlighting five Black American artists — Martine Syms, Stephanie Dinkins, Rashaad Newsome, Sondra Perry, and Shaylin Wallace — who are pushing the boundaries of contemporary art through technology. Each artist uses a distinct set of digital tools, from AI systems and algorithmic video to 3D modeling, NFTs, and humanoid robotics, to examine how race, identity, and power are reflected and distorted within those technologies.
We were fortunate enough to catch an impromptu performance of Rocky Mountain High by members of Chorus America, the national non-profit service organization for choral music. Rocky Mountain High.
We are also featuring the group's performance in our most recent podcast, Technology in the Arts #44, which is dedicated to interviews from this week's 2008 National Performing Arts Convention.
One of the big problems with having comfy couches in your exhibit hall booth space:
The Colorado Convention Center really needs to do a better job keeping hobos from accessing the exhibit hall.
Though tomorrow is the first official day of the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver, CO, I had to arrive last night so I'd be ready this morning to set up our booth in the exhibit hall.
Ain't she purty? Yes, that's a leather sofa.
Fortunately, everything arrived as scheduled, so there was no need for my late night cold sweats from anxiety about a crucial booth component getting lost in transit. But when I say "everything," I mean four large 100-pound crates, two large 50-pound boxes, a cylindrical container and a large flat box.
Why so much packaging? Well, this booth is a monster. For this particular show, we're exhibiting as the Institute for the Management of Creative Enterprises, which is the parent entity of our research center (CAMT.Artsnet.org), and two master's programs (MAM.Artsnet.org and MEIM.Artsnet.org).
During a particularly hairy moment this afternoon, one of the booth's walls toppled, nearly killing the guy at the neighboring exhibit space. If I had knocked him unconscious, my plan would have been to drag his body into a restroom, pack everything back up, and fly home to Pittsburgh. Surely he would have been hit hard enough to forget who or what had struck him, right?
Anyway, the booth is all set up, and I'm looking forward to the convention. I'm especially excited to tour the exhibit hall, as on display will be hundreds of amazing performing arts groups, technology providers, arts management companies, etc.
As you can see from the image at the top of this entry, our booth features a seating area with a leather couch and chair. I'll feel a little like Dick Cavett when I sit and chat with passersby.
This week saw the arrival of the second biennial 01SJ - North America’s newest and largest festival of digital arts, and a great deal more. From a hip hop, multi-media meditation on Antarctica to robot art, from conversations with artificial intelligence to operatic performances of Google headlines about the environment, from avant-garde cinema to new musical forms - well over 100 artworks, performances, screenings, talks, and workshops will be featured at 01SJ. Festival organizers expect it to be a perspective-altering experience that entertains, enlightens, educates and involves attendees in a new understanding of our changing world.
The 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge consists of over 100 events, exhibitions, concerts, performances, lectures and workshops at many venues across the urban landscape of downtown San Jose.
According to Artistic Director Steven Dietz, “This has the potential to be the South by Southwest of digital media in the United States.”
01SJ aspires to become the North American answer to the Ars Electronica Festival – the annual celebration of digital art in Linz, Austria first staged in 1979. “Linz is now a cultural center for the country,” said 01SJ founder and board chairwoman Andy Cunningham, “We hope to do that with San Jose.
Proposals for sessions and workshops are now being accepted for Technology in the Arts 2008 conference to be held at the Hilton Pittsburgh in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from October 9 - 11.
The conference has two primary types of programming - Hands-On Workshops and Conference Sessions.
Not an expert? You don't have to be one to organize a session. Here are some tips for pulling together a top notch session.
Proposal Criteria: A panel of arts and technology practitioners will review all submitted proposals to select the final program in early July. Sessions will be selected based on the following criteria:
In addition to the above criteria, the panel will be charged to select workshops and sessions with an eye toward providing a well-rounded gamut of topics and ideas for conference attendees.
Benefits for Session Leaders and Participants: Individuals who propose sessions selected for the conference program will each receive a complimentary registration for the conference and hands-on training day. Other session participants or speakers will be offered a severely reduced registration rate of $50 for the conference and hands-on training day. All session participants will be responsible for their own travel and hotel expenses.
Proposal Components: To be considered, proposals must include the following information:
Submit your session proposal online by June 30, 2008.
All applicants will be notified of their proposals' status by July 11. For questions or additional information, contact David Dombrosky.
So after the Technology in the Arts: Canada, we were posting presentations and resources from the conference when we ran into a slight snag. A number of the PowerPoint slide presentations were too large to e-mail. At first, I recommended that the presenters use a large file transfer site, but then a colleague showed me the virtues of SlideShare. SlideShare allows you to:
For example, here's the embedded version of Linda Roger's presentation "Virtual Concerts in the Park" from last week's Technology in the Arts: Canada conference:
Did I mention that SlideShare is free? With all of the arts conferences and presentations I have attended over the years, it's amazing that I had not heard of this resource. I can't wait until I get to play PowerPoint Karaoke!!
Conflux, the annual art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space, is now accepting session proposals. The 2008 festival takes place September 11-14, 2008, in New York City.
Find out how to submit a proposal to participate in the festival. The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2008.
Josh Futrell and I are sitting in a Web usability workshop at Technology in the Arts: Canada at the moment, and I thought I'd share some notes from the session. The workshop is being led by Robert Barlow-Busch, director of product design at Primal Fusion, a semantic web startup in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Robert's overriding thought about usability testing is quite simple but very important: "Observe people using your Web site."
Josh looks please to be learning about usability.
Why conduct usability testing?
Aside from basic usability testing, Robert also just talked about projective exercises, which determine what type of emotions people attach to your organization. In the session's particular projective exercise, we were asked to imagine that a group of car manufacturer logos were members of a family. Who in the family would each of the logos represent? Robert's point was that this type of activity is more engaging than simply asking, "What do you think about Ford, Chrysler or Volvo?"
By the way, the entire group agreed that Ford was the drunk uncle. Sorry, Ford.
How does this translate to the arts field? An example that Robert presented was for an arts organization to use this type of activity to test how people view the organization's logo in comparison to the logos of other available activities (cinema, zoo, arcade, video games, Netflix, etc.).
Other resources:
The full set of slides from Robert's workshop will be available soon at TechnologyInTheArts.ca.
Everything is ready for tomorrow's conference. Brad starts off the conference with his podcasting workshop in the morning; Josh teaches an afternoon session on content management systems; and I bounce around throughout the day to make sure session leaders have everything they need.
If you are not able to join us in person, perhaps you can attend a virtual panel session in Second Life.
The image above shows the set for Saturday's panel being held in Second Life on "Virtual Concerts in the Park" which you can attend in Second Life on Saturday at 8:00AM SLT (Second Life Time = Pacific Time) by going to this SLURL - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sea%20Turtle%20Island/46/26/22/ - which will take you to the telehub behind the amphitheatre. Hope to see you there!
Technology in the Arts bloggers David Dombrosky, Brad Stephenson, and I are packing up to go to our sister conference, Technology in the Arts: Canada, hosted by the Centre for Cultural Management at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. We're flying out tomorrow for the Friday-Saturday conference. I'll be giving a presentation on navigating the murky waters of CMS selection in a session called Content Management Systems: Would You? Could You? Should You? The simile in my presentation that I'm most proud of myself for writing? "Open Source Software (OSS) is free like a piano listed in the classifieds is free: Free grand piano. Needs tuned and refinished. You haul."
Brad's delivering his hands-on session Attack of the Pod People: Engaging Your Audience with Audio Podcasts. He's currently trying to figure out how to get 50 pairs of headphones into Canada without breaking them or causing him to be pulled aside at any security checkpoints.
If you're going to be at the conference, be sure to stop us and say hello. If you're not, no worries. We'll be posting thoughts and musings about what we learn from our friendly neighbors to the north during and after the conference. Plus, there's the U.S. conference coming up on October 9-11, 2008, in Pittsburgh.
Want to be one of the cool kids? Sure you do. Who doesn't? The Center for Arts Management and Technology is currently offering sponsorship opportunities for its 2008 Technology in the Arts Conference, scheduled for Oct. 9-11 in Pittsburgh, PA.
Be almost as cool as this guy.
Some additional sponsorship notes:
Want more info about the conference? Follow this page for regular updates.
Want more info about sponsorship opportunities? Get it here.
Come on... everyone's doing it.
(Image in this post licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy of ninjapoodles' Flickr photostream.)
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CAMT team members will attend Museums and the Web 2008 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 9-12, 2008. The annual conference explores "the on-line presentation of cultural, scientific and heritage content across institutions and around the world." If you are planning to attend MW '08, please email CAMT, as we'd love to connect with you. |
Today kicked off the 2008 NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. On my way toward downtown, I took this photo of Jackson Square on my cell phone.
I spent about three hours in the Science Fair (normally called an "exhibit hall" at other conferences) absorbing as much as I possible could about the various technology product and service providers who work with nonprofit organizations. I met some people doing really wonderful work, and I hope to introduce them to you as sponsors for our 2008 Technology in the Arts Conference in October! Click here for a list of companies in residence at this year's Science Fair.
After the Science Fair, I went to dinner with my fellow CAMT teammates Haebin and Guillermo, who wanted to find a place to get seafood and alligator. We ended up at the Cajun Cabin on Bourbon Street. Check out Haebin playing the spoons with the restaurants cajun/zydeco band!
After dinner, we ventured further into the wilds of the French Quarter. It turns out the Haebin has an fun-loving inner rock star who just had to get up onstage at the Cat's Meow to do a karaoke rendition of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Cyndi Lauper would have been proud.
On my walk back to the hotel, I passed an interesting gallery on Royal Street and took a photo of this large scale facial sculpture.
Day One - Thumbs up for me.
2008 Nonprofit Technology ConferenceBuilding Community: Connections Around the Globe and Around the Corner March 19-21 New Orleans, LA
2008 Museums & the Web Conference April 9-12 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Brad and I are in Toronto working with our colleagues in the Great North on developing the content for the Technology in the Arts - Canada conference for May 9 & 10 in Waterloo. During a few moments yesterday when I hit the streets with my Visa (aka shopping), Teresa Hollingsworth from the Southern Arts Federation called me to give me her celebrity sightings report from the Sundance Film Festival. Once my petty jealousy cooled down, I wondered what interesting intersections of art and technology were taking place at Sundance this year. Here's what I've learned:
Okay, now I am more jealous. Next year, Teresa definitely has to take me with her to Park City!
Well, I’m down in sunny, breezy Miami, FL, enjoying the warm weather and the Americans for the Arts NAMC. It’s been a busy two and a half days of conferencing, and I just wanted to take a minute and share a few cool things I’ve learned while here:
Well, that’s all for me. I’ve got to grab a bite, hop on a flight, and head back to wonderful, but cold, Pittsburgh, PA.
For more information about AFTA's NAMC, please visit: http://www.artsusa.org/events/2007/abc/namc/default.asp
It's been almost three weeks since the 2007 Technology in the Arts conference and, I'm sure you're wondering, what happened to the Technology in the Arts blog!? Well, my friend, you're not alone. I've been wondering the same thing. Particularly when I'm dozing off to sleep after another long hectic day and it pops into my head that, once again, I haven't written anything.
Rest assured that things have not really slowed down that much on the Conference side of things at CAMT. We've been busy making all the session evaluations electronic, determining how best to analyze our results, tying up all the lose monetary ends (event planners, I know you feel my pain), and, well, generally cleaning up. (Don't you like how I tell you to rest assured? I'm sure all of you were having panic attacks over whether or not we were working on the conference!)
Oh, and there's been one other tiny, little, minor change: I've moved to San Francisco. That's right. I'm actually sitting and writing this now from the City by the Bay. This transition has been a long time in the coming, and I'm delighted to say that the new ED of CAMT is a phenomenal man and one who loves the arts and technology... David Dombrosky.
In fact, David and Jerry Coltin are going to meet up with me here in SF tomorrow and Friday for a good old fashioned brain dump. Then, David will start full-time at CAMT on November 26. I, on the other hand, am starting an arts management consulting firm and my first client is... wait for it... CAMT! For whom I will be running both the Technology in the Arts conference in Pittsburgh as well as our new sister conference in Waterloo, Ontario.
Now that you're fully in the know, feel free to stop stressing over the terrible, terrible lack of blog postings at your favorite blog. And feel free to drop us a note... Particularly if you attended this year's event! We'd love to hear what you thought, and any ideas you have for making the event even better next year!
Elizabeth Perry, one of our Technology in the Arts 2007 presenters, was kind enough to set up a wiki site for post-conference discussion. You can access the wiki at http://tita.pbwiki.com/.
The site is public, and the password is tita2007.
Please post any interesting conference follow-up information. If you were a presenter this year, please also post a way for people to access your session content. A great way to do this is by using SlideShare. It's easy... and free!
Hello TitA 2007 Attendees! We are very excited to welcome you to Pittsburgh this week for the 2007 Technology in the Arts conference. This email contains information to help you with orienting yourself and getting around during the conference. If you have any questions that aren’t answered here, feel free to email me (cmorrow@cmu.edu), Brad (bstephenson@cmu.edu) or Josh (jfutrell@cm.edu) with any questions or concerns.
Conference Hosts:
Technology in the Arts is made possible by the generous contributions of time and expertise of members of the arts community around the country. Event volunteers and CAMT staff will have the designation “HOST” on their nametags. Seek out these wonderful people at any time if you have questions.
Preconference:
Those of you registered for the pre-conference tours to the Entertainment Technology Center and the Pittsburgh Glass Center should plan to be on the CMU campus in time to check in and orient yourself before the 1:00 departure time. Please see the shuttle information below, in the “getting to and from the CMU campus” section. The shuttle will leave from the front of Hamburg Hall at 1:00.
If you’re participating in the Heinz School Career Services mock interviews and lunch prior to the tour, you will be directed to the shuttle pick up point following lunch.
Birds of a Feather dinners:
Anyone registered for the conference is welcome to join us for our dutch treat Birds-of-a-Feather dinners on Thursday evening. We will be meeting in the main lobby of the Omni William Penn Hotel at 6:30 p.m. A CAMT staff member will be serving as the host for each of the interest groups, will be posted in the lobby at 6:30 with a sign, and will escort your group to its designated restaurant.
If you haven’t indicated an area of interest for the dinner, don’t worry! Just plan to meet us in the lobby of the Omni at 6:30 and we’ll get you taken care of.
Getting to and from the CMU campus:
The Technology in the Arts conference takes place on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. The majority of programming will be held in Hamburg Hall (the same building as last year), with the keynote and plenary lectures in the University Center. The campus is in a different neighborhood than the hotel, which is downtown.
We have Technology in the Arts shuttles that will be running throughout the conference between the Omni William Penn Hotel (downtown) and Hamburg Hall on the Carnegie Mellon University campus (Oakland).
THURSDAY: 8:45 – first shuttle to campus departs from the Omni William Penn 1:00 – pre-conference tours shuttle departs from Hamburg Hall 1:15 – last shuttle to the hotel departs from Hamburg Hall
FRIDAY: 8:30 a.m. – first shuttle to campus departs from the Omni William Penn 7:30 p.m. – last shuttle to the hotel departs from Hamburg Hall
SATURDAY: 8:30 a.m. – first shuttle to campus departs from the Omni William Penn 6:30 p.m. – last shuttle to the hotel departs from Hamburg Hall
Internet Access:
We have arranged for all Technology in the Arts conference attendees to have access to Carnegie Mellon’s wireless network throughout the event. Once you’re on campus, you may register your computer by opening a Web browser, and entering the following login information: USER ID: cc347 Password: Z!1xeqed
Flickr Site:
We encourage you to bring your digital cameras (or camera-enabled phones) to help us document the 2007 conference. To have all our images together we invite you to add your photos to our Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/tita/
If you don’t yet have a Flickr account, creating one is free and easy: http://www.flickr.com/. If you’re a Yahoo! member, you can use that ID to set up your Flickr account. Once your account is set up, you sign in and go to the TitA group page, join the group and then you can return to your photo pages and add any of your pics to the group.
Close out bash:
The closing party on Saturday will be held at the Andy Warhol Museum. The Museum is just blocks away from the hotel, and conference hosts will be escorting attendees from the hotel to the museum from 8:00 – 9:00. Look for the people with Technology in the Arts signs in the lobby. There is also a map to the museum located in your program book. Everyone registered for the conference may attend the party.
The VIP dinner preceding the party will be held at Bossa Nova (the same location as last year’s VIP dinner). I and another CAMT staff member will be meeting up with everyone attending the dinner in the lobby of the Omni at 6:00. We will depart for Bossa Nova at 6:15. If you haven’t already purchased tickets to the dinner, you may do so at the registration desk when you arrive.
Should you need it later, this information is available in the program book you’ll receive when you check in at Hamburg.
