OSU Urban Arts Space Opening

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The OSU Urban Arts Space, in the former Lazarus building in the heart of downtown Columbus, is opening soon! Faculty, staff and students are invited to take a sneak peek at the brand new space from 6 to 8 pm Thursday, Jan 3, at an open house hosted by Dean Karen Bell. Though the grand opening isn't scheduled until Feb 8, please stop by and take a walk through our new 10,000-square-foot facility before an exhibition is installed. The OSU Urban Arts Space is located at 50 W. Town St. Click for a map and parking information (or take COTA Bus Route #2).

Notable News

The Columbus Dispatch published a 2007 "Year in Review" feature in its arts section late last month. Top events in various arts disciplines were spotlighted . . . and OSU College of the Arts events popped up several times. Specifically, "best events" in classical music included The Elixir of Love, directed by Peter Kozma, conducted by Marshall Haddock, by OSU Opera. Best events in theatre incuded Mary Stuart, directed by John Kuhn, by OSU Theatre and Actors' Theatre; and The Trojan Women 2.0, directed by Maureen Ryan and Jeanine Thompson, OSU Theatre.

Meanwhile, Columbus Alive looked back on the arts in 2007. Mary Stuart was picked as one of the best plays of the year, while The Trojan Women 2.0 was chosen as one of the best musicals. The paper named three "best female performances" for the year. . . and they were all from OSU Theatre! They include Ashlee Mundy as Cassandra in The Trojan Women 2.0, and Julie Ann McMillan as Queen Elizabeth and Eleni Papaleonardos as the title character in Mary Stuart. For "best male performance" the paper cited OSU alum Glenn Peters for his role in Our Town. In dance, Columbus Alive included as highlights of the year: OSU Dance, From Ginsberg to Strauss ("especially Jenai Cutcher's Just the Beguine, Sarah Lehman's Ramble on Avenues and Kathryn Enright's Core"); OSU Dance Downtown last May; OSU Dance's Assorted Impulses; and last fall's OSU Dance's Small Dances for Small Spaces ("especially Tania Isaac's Stuporwoman and Bala Sarasvati's NO/ON"). Congratulations to all!

A revolutionary voice laboratory at the School of Music officially opens on Friday, Jan 18. The new Helen Swank Voice Teaching and Research Lab – named in honor of Helen Swank, emeritus professor of music – is housed in newly renovated space on the third floor of Mershon Auditorium. Culminating over three years of planning, this new state-of-the-art facility will be the permanent home for the voice pedagogy program of the School of Music, as well as the new graduate interdisciplinary specialization in Singing Health. The Singing Health Specialization is a collaborative enterprise developed by Karen Peeler (Music), Arick Forrest (Otolaryngology), Mike Trudeau (Speech and Hearing Science), and Kerrie Obert (Swallowing and Voice Disorders Clinic). It is the first of its kind in the nation, and will prepare vocalists and speech-language pathology students to collaborate in a clinical setting with otolaryngologists to rehabilitate the professional voice. For more information about the lab, contact Karen Peeler in the School of Music at (614) 292-9638.

Sidney Chafetz, professor emeritus in Art, will exhibit a selected group of prints at the Faculty Club in Profs, Pols, Poets, Et Al opening Jan 9 and continuting until Feb 22. An opening reception will be held in honor of Chafetz Jan 18, 6-8 pm, at the Faculty Club. If you're interested in attending the reception, call 292-2262.

Design alumnus Tom Rehder (BSID, 1993) has become the first and only interior designer in Georgia to be certified by the American Academy of Healthcare Interior Designers. Rehder is a project manager and interior designer for 2KM Architects Inc in Augusta, an architectural firm specializing in government, educational and healthcare design.

Damian Bowerman (Theatre) has been offered an Equity contract for the role of "Donnie" in the Columbus premiere of The Foursome at CATCO. The play focuses on four former buddies, who reconnect at their college reunion and decide to catch up over a game of golf. Bowerman says he's been cast as the "nerdy guy who doesn't know how to golf." The play will be staged May 30-June 22.

The New York Post has published a "Best of 2007" feature on the "5 top trips (and why you should plan them now)". Somewhat surprisingly, the article touts Budapest, Ontario, Venice, New Orleans. . . and Columbus. The article spotlights the "atmospheric old-city neighborhood" of German Village, and also boasts about a trip up High Street, from the edgy Short North area past the boisterous university district and into the sedate suburb of Worthington."

Want to be a star? Two opportunities are coming up to volunteer as a performer at the Wexner Center. Theatre director Romeo Castellucci is looking for male volunteers of any age to perform in a short section of Hey Girl, to be presented in January. And New York-based Nature Theatre of Oklahoma is looking for both men and women to perform in Poetics: a ballet brut in February. No experience is necessary. Click here for details.

Voice alum Ryan Ratliff (BFA and BME, 2004) has been performing in the starring role of Mark in Altar Boyz on the New York Broadway stage since last summer. Before that, he starred in the same show on a national Broadway tour, after performing in Forever Plaid in New York to great reviews.

Let it Snow!

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Snow tires may have helped this cyclist during finals week when the Oval was transformed into a fluffy winter wonderland. At least the snowy scene helped everyone get into the holiday spirit. With winter break just around the corner, the blog will not be updated again until after the first of the year. So, happy holidays. . . and keep sending your news, photos and activities to us.

Notable News
Graduate student Sucheta Bhatawadekar (Design and ACCAD) had a hand in the creation of the new ABC-TV Christmas special Shrek the Halls, which premiered last week. During Bhatawadekar's summer internship at PDI/DreamWorks, she worked on the program in the lighting department, and some of her shots aired during the show. She worked on the Shrek special with ACCAD alums Min Lee (lighting) and Michael Collery (head of matte painting).

Ken Rinaldo (Art and Technology) premiered "Our Daily Dread" (above) in Holland last week. The installation consists of 10 new, laser-cut robotic and sound sculptures, and was commissioned by the STRP festival, which had more than 10,000 visitors in less than 24 hours! "Our Daily Dread" is an installation concerned with the mechanization of our global food production.

A few weeks ago, the Big Ten Network featured our Department of Dance on its TV program Friday Night Tailgate. In case you missed the show, you can view it on the Big Ten's website. Once you're on the video page, click on "Week 11" and then "School of Thought."

And speaking of Dance, the December 3 online issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education included in its "magazine and journal reader" section a glance at the December issue of Dance Magazine and the emergence of technology in dance programs. The article cited Ohio State's dance program.

Celebrate the Season!

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The School of Music's popular Musical Celebration Concert will take to the stage Friday, Nov 30, at 8 pm in Mershon Auditorium. The fast-paced musical experience (shown above, last year) features more than 300 student musicians and vocalists and nearly every ensemble in the School of Music, including the OSU Wind Symphony, Men's Glee Club, Chorale, Jazz Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra and many more. Selections will include Jingle Bells, Mary had a Baby, selections from Mozart's The Magic Flute and more including the traditional finale of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. Student glass artists also will be on hand that evening, selling their glass artworks in the Mershon lobby before the show. Tickets for the concert are available from the Wexner Center ticket office, 292-3535.

The event is just one activity going on in the campus area this weekend. The Wexner Center's 4th annual Columbus International Children's Film Festival is scheduled Nov 29-Dec 2, and it's also member appreciation days at the Wexner Center Store. In addition, the exhibition William Wegman: Funney/Strange continues at the Wexner Center. And that's not all -- the lively South Campus Gateway is offering a variety of activities all weekend, including holiday musical entertainment. Celebration Concert-goers can even choose to park in the South Campus Gateway garage ($1 for three hours) on Friday; free shuttles will travel between the garage and Mershon Auditorium from 7 to 10 pm.

Notable News

Students at the Ringling School of Art in Florida created a YouTube video featuring Charles Csuri (ACCAD) and the history of animation.

Daniel Avorgbedor (Music and African American & African Studies) presented conference papers at a national symposium on "Black Religion and Spirituality in the 21st Century" earlier this month at Michigan State University, and he chaired a panel and presented a paper at the 52nd annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Columbus last month.

David Huron (Music) has been honored with the 2007 Wallace Berry Award by the Society for Music Theory. Huron received the prestigious award for his book, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation, published by MIT Press. The book explores the psychological theory of expectation proposed by Huron, which grew out of his experimental efforts to understand how music evokes emotions. The Wallace Berry Award is one of three awards presented by the Society for Music Theory for outstanding books or articles in English that constitute significant contributions to the field of music theory.

Alan Woods (Theatre) reports that a staged reading of the winning full-length play in the 2007 Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition will start at 7:30 pm this Thursday, Nov 29, in Drake Performance Center's New Works Lab. The play, For Unto Us, is an original drama by James McLindon; the free reading features veteran Columbus performers Ira "Bill" Simons, Robert Monaghan and Joy Reilly. McLindon of Northampton, Mass, has four plays scheduled for six productions in the coming year. He recently retired from a partnership in a Boston law firm to write full time. More than 500 plays were submitted to this year's Heckart competition.

A new book about Marie-Galante by Ron Emoff (Music and Anthropology, Newark) has received a publication contract from Ashgate Press in the UK. The book will be part of the School of Oriental and African Studies Musicology Series at the University of London. The book is titled Resurrecting Place in the Non-Nation: Accordions, Drumming and Expressions of Self on Marie-Galante, French Antilles.

The OSU Undergraduate Student Art League sponsored a sidewalk chalk art contest prior to the OSU vs UM match-up. Eleven student artists created chalky works of art on the Oval sidewalk outside of Hopkins Hall. You can vote for the winner between now and Nov 30.

Feel creative? The Theatre Research Institute (TRI) has taken on a project to showcase short plays about "limbo" and invites playwrights to submit 10-minute plays before Dec 12, according to Alan Woods. Originally started by the International Center for Women Playwrights, whose work is archived at the TRI, the Limbo Project will present staged readings at OSU of selected plays about limbo, which can be interpreted as broadly as needed. Scripts in Word or RTF format can be submitted electronically to woods.1@osu.edu. The staged readings will be presented in January.

Chalk it Up!

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Art BFA students Sabrina Kester, sculpture, left, and Guustie Alvarado, glass, create a sidewalk mural on the Oval in front of Hopkins Hall. With their depiction of giant buckeyes, they were taking part in a Undergraduate Student Art League-sponsored sidewalk chalk art contest last Friday prior to the OSU vs UM match-up.

Notable News

Ann Hamilton (Art) is one of 50 artists in the nation awarded $50,000 each from United States Artists. The national organization provides support for artists, and last week announced $2.5 million in fellowships. Hamilton and another OSU faculty member -- poet Henri Cole -- were named 2007 fellows, and accepted their awards in Los Angeles Nov 17.

A new interactive exhibit at COSI helps teach kids (and adults) about DNA structure. The exhibit, which opened Oct 13 lets visitors learn about basic DNA structures collaboratively via the "DNA Workbench" and through creative movement in the "Action Space." The exhibit uses a rear-projection display system configured as a dynamic colorful tabletop work surface that's responsive to touch. The action space consists of a large responsive screen that displays an image of a DNA strand, which can be "pushed around" by body contours of the visitors as they move about the space. The exhibit was designed by a team of faculty, staff and grad students at OSU's Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD), including Vita Berezina-Blackburn, Susan Fisher, Alan Price, Norah Zuniga-Shaw, George Gantzer, Fran Kalal, Matthew Bain and Lise Worthen-Chaudhari.

Student musicians in the OSU Fifes & Drums took center field at the OSU vs Illinois football game on Nov 10 (above). The group, with Susan Powell as artistic director, Joe Krygier as drum instructor and Kathy Jones as fife instructor, were guests at the OSU Marching Band's halftime show, and were scheduled to march again during the big game up in Ann Arbor over the weekend.

Set your TiVo -- the public television program featuring compositions by alum Tadd Russo, listed in last week's Arts Blog, will air on WOSU-TV on Tues, Nov 27 . . . at 4 am.

The Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) invites local artists to participate in an online survey about their needs for success and how GCAC can better help them reach their goals. The survey follows on the heels of the organization's artist roundtable discussions held this month, and is available on the GCAC website.

Cincinnati's Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts is presenting Celebration of Creativity: OAC Fellowships 1980-2005 Nov 15-Jan 13. The exhibition features a diverse selection of 18 Ohio artists working across the state who have received one or more Ohio Arts Council Fellowships in the past 25 years. One of those artists is Alan Crockett (Art). The exhibition includes painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, printmaking and site-specific installations.

Small Dances, Big Creativity

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The Department of Dance presents its resident and visiting artist dance concert Wednesday, Nov 14-Saturday, Nov 17. The production -- Small Dances for Small Spaces -- will be presented in the EMMA (Experimental Media and Movement Arts) Lab in the ACCAD building, and will feature works from OSU's Candace Feck, Shawn Hove, Michael Kelly Bruce, Norah Zuniga-Shaw and Melanie Bales, and visitors Ming-Lung Yang (above) from Taiwan and Tania Isaac, Philadelphia. Dances include the premiere of Walks to Linko - Threadless Footprint by Yang; Stuporwoman by Isaac, Boy Sandwich by Bruce, NO/ON with text by Feck, six untitled scenes referencing film scenes by Bales, Murmer by Marc Ainger (Music) and Shaw, and bata version by Brent Haley (computer science), Hove and David Morneau (music).

Notable News

A fabulous, five minute video about our opera students' summer experience in Novafeltria, Italy, is on the front page of the OSU website. The video traces the students' experiences in the Italian language school and on the local opera stages.

Costume designs by Kristine Kearney (Theatre) have received a Peggy Ezekiel Award of Outstanding Achievement at the recent United States Institute for Theatre Technology Ohio Valley Conference held in Wilmington. Kearney's designs for the 2006 OSU production of Hair were selected for the recognition out of 26 entries.

Music alumna Kathleen Sasnett has been contracted to have her DMA thesis, "25 works for the Dramatic Soprano Voice and Orchestra," published by VDM Verlag. A portion of her work will also be published in the GNATS Journal. Another music alum, Rob Kerr, is a finalist in the Chester Ludgin Memorial International Verdi Baritone Competition.

Sarah Lewis Jones, music student, is a national finalist in the Santa Fe Young Artists auditions.

Music alumnus Tadd Russo has a couple of music pieces on a program now airing on PBS stations nationwide. The show, United States Air Force 60th Anniversary: A Musical Celebration was taped at the Strathmore Music Center in Washington DC last June, and includes the Air Force Orchestra, Singing Sergeants, Empire Brass and the original Three Mo' Tenors. Russo's Dreaming of Skies to Conquer is an original compositon in a Hollywood style, and the official march for the 60th anniversary. He also arranged a grand finale version of God Bless America.

Art Ed alum Janet Fedorenko was named an Ohio Art Education Association (OAEA) Distinguished Fellow at the organization's recent conference in Dayton. The award recognizes members who have made long-term marked contributions to the association and to the advancement of art education. She is the principal at Hanby Arts Magnet Elementary School in Westerville, and she teaches as an adjunct faculty member at OSU, Otterbein and Ashland University.

Michael Mercil (Art) recently represented the department's Living Culture Initiative in an exhibition at Allegheny College in Pennsyvlania. There, he organized an Allegheny College "campus sweep" and gave a public reading.

Reinhart Butter (Design) recently spent eight weeks as a guest professor at Kyonggi University (KGU) in Suwon, South Korea. He taught undergraduate studio courses in Industrial Design, as well as seminars for graduate and Ph.D students. Public lectures addressed the role of research in design education and provided an opportunity to compare OSU's vision on the subject with other educational approaches. Kyonggi University and its respected College of Art and Design is the latest addition to the slate of foreign institutions with which the Department of Design maintains formal exchange agreements. Two seniors in Industrial Design, Sarah Park and Joshua Morrow, are currently visiting Korea, while
one of KGU's students, Eun Jee Hyun, is spending several quarters at Ohio State. KGU is the department's first Asian exchange program; future options might include Japan and China.

Late last month the School of Music hosted Music, War and Reconciliation, the 52nd annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, which attracted 860 US and international ethnomusicologists. About 300 participants were grad students. The School of Music maintained a strong presence at the conference, with 15 faculty members and students presenting research and performing music. Four ensembles (jazz, steel drums, African and Slavic groups) also performed.

Design alum Courtney Jones has been promoted to senior interactive designer at TenUnited in Columbus.

Ken Rinaldo (Art & Techonology) premiered his installation Buzz in Portugal last week at the Research Center for Science and Technology in the Arts at the Portuguese Catholic University in Porto. Buzz is a sound and glass installation which amplifies all forms of networks related to wine production, at the center of commerce there. The bacterial networks that support wine fermentation are made visible as are sounds of bees, telephony, transportation and satellite networks, which support world-wide wine distribution. Rinaldo also presented a keynote address on networks and art.

Art & Technology alumnus Fernando Orellana opens his robotic works as part of Emergents at Laboral Centro de Arte y Creation Industrial in Gijon, Spain, as part of 10 projects by Latin American artists.

David Huron (Music Theory) has returned from a month in Russia, where he assisted folklorist Yelena Minyonok in recording elderly Cossack singers and conducting an experiment in a rural village near Volgograd.

Mid-Week Blog Update: TV Stars!

If your TV gets the new Big 10 Network, be sure to tune in this Friday for the program Big Ten Friday Night Tailgate. The show was on campus Wednesday to film a feature segment about our Department of Dance! The on-air personality, Andy (above), took a Modern Technique dance class, taught by visiting faculty member Tania Isaac. Brave and out of breath, Andy did his best to keep up with the fast-paced class. The show interviewed two students, Rachel Fullenkamp and Alana Hardison, along with Isaac and assistant chair Mike Bruce. So what time does it air? Well, the production crew said 8 pm Friday. The production company in Chicago told me 7:30 pm. And the Big 10 website (and my cable company) says it airs at 11 pm Friday, and 8 am and 10 am on Saturday. So, during one of those times you should be able to see a segment about our great dance program. Another option is to wait a week or so until the video is posted on the Big 10 website

Gee-o-Lantern?

President Gordon Gee got a chance to meet his look-alike the other day, when sophomore design student Katie Merritt introduced him to a pumpkin sporting Gee's image. Merritt was one of about 60 design students who carved creative Jack-o-Lanterns for a design class taught by lecturer Tony Reynaldo, and she chose the university president as her subject. The students were using the seasonal gourds to explore the role of lighting and tonal values in 3D perception. A few other examples of the students' carving skills are below.

Notable News

Not so long ago, music came on vinyl records encased in cardboard record covers . . . and the covers themselves were sources of design creativity and imagination. One of the artists was John Berg, who designed and commissioned record covers for musicians from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to Dave Brubeck. Paul Nini (Design) had the enviable opportunity to interview Berg recently for an article, Across the Graphic Universe: An Interview with John Berg for the AIGA journal, Voice. To read it, click here.

On a beautiful fall Friday, the center of the OSU Oval was the perfect place for a little rehearsal by the beloved Men's Glee Club. The guys entertained a group of passers-by with OSU standards like Hang on Sloopy and Carmen Ohio.

Raymond Caldwell and Elizabeth Yerian (Theatre), at left, are two of the cast members in the current production of The Trojan Women 2.0, being staged by the Department of Theatre through Nov 17 in Roy Bowen Theatre. The play, by Charles Mee, uses music -- including torch songs, blues and rock -- and drama to update the ancient Greek play. It is directed by Jeanine Thompson and Maureen Ryan. See details at right.

Bruce Mau, the visionary designer and creative mind behind the global sustanability project Massive Change, will give the fifth annual DeeDee and Herb Glimcher Lecture at the Wexner Center on Weds, Nov 7, at 7 pm in Mershon Auditorium. The talk is free and open to all; Mau also will sign books in the Mershon lobby at 6 pm. The lecture is co-sponsored by Design and the Knowlton School of Architecture.

Design students Sara Demetroff and Dena Snyder (above) presented research findings last summer at "A Green Bauhaus," a collaborative conference in Loccum, Germany, that examined issues of sustainability. They were part of a group of undergraduate and graduate design students that attended the conference to discuss their research on campus eateries and consumer culture at Ohio State. Tony Reynaldo (Design) was invited to give the keynote address; he and and faculty members Peter Chan, Paul Nini and Heike Goeller assisted with the students' research.

Design alumnus Matt Hughes is opening a new local business, Matt Hughes Interior Design LLC. After leaving an 11-year career at Nationwide Insurance, he says he is happy to make the move to entrepreneurship. He also worked in interiors for Nordstrom on the west coast. Hughes also has a side business of gift baskets and holiday decorating.

Ohio State is seeking design proposals for Brutus on Parade, a project created to raise funds for the renovation of the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library. For information, click here.

O - H - I - O

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Leave it to our talented dance students -- and their teacher, visiting professor Ming-Lung Yang -- to come up with a truly unique O-H-I-O cheer! The students include (l-r) Sarah Lehman, Paulette Jackson, Melissa Nagel, Caroline Craven, Milda Bandza, Rachel Wortman, Elizabeth McClarren, Adenike Omoyosi and Meaghan Kahler. Their salute to Ohio State is featured on the university's O-H-I-O website, which includes photos of cheers from all over the world. Click here to check them out!

Notable News

Speaking of the university's webpage, our dean, Karen Bell, is currently featured on the main OSU webpage. Her story -- along with those of a student and an alumnus -- is spotlighted in videos about "How I Got to College." The three all represent the "first generation" in their families to attend college. Click here to view!

DreamWorks, the animation studio that created Shrek and Shrek 2, will visit Ohio State's ACCAD this week. On Weds, Oct 31, at 4 pm, DreamWorks staff will present an overview of careers at DreamWorks Animation. The presentation, which is open to the public, is at the ACCAD building, 1224 Kinnear Road, BALE theatre. (take North, South Loop or Express CABS bus to ACCAD).

On Thurs, Nov 1, from 3:30 to 5 pm, Jeff Beall, pipeline architect at Dreamworks, will discuss software engineering. Jeff supervises software architecture of the feature animation production pipeline. Previously at DreamWorks Animation, Jeff was a lighting technical director for Shrek and the lead technical director for Shrek 2. The presentation is at Dreese Lab, 2015 Neil Ave, rm 480.

Design alumna Jenn Stevens has been promoted to design director at Ologie in Columbus.

Ron Emoff (Music) recently had an article accepted for publication in the British journal Ethnomusicology Forum. His article is "Truth, Talk and History in the Non-Nation: Gwo Ka's Place on Marie-Galante, French Antilles."

The Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) is inviting local artists to participate in a series of discussions about their needs for success and how GCAC can help. The organization is hosting four Artist Roundtable discussions in November at various locations around town. The first one is Nov 7, 5-7 pm, at the Columbus Music Hall. Sessions are open to any individual artist, regardless of medium. Students are welcome. For more details and to find out how to RSVP for a discussion, click here.

Call for artists! The Wexner Center for the Arts is looking for art students and local artists to design and teach week-long, half-day Summer Youth Workshops. Classes include those in art and technology, photography, digital video, sculpture, dance, theatre, poetry, 2-D media and design. If you are interested in submitting an idea for a workshop, send a letter explaining your idea and your resume by Nov 19 to Kendra Meyer at kmeyer@wexarts.org. If you have questions, call her at 292-4614.

Hopkins Hall Gallery + Corridor and the Department of Design host the exhibition "Florence Knoll Bassett: Defining Modern (excerpt)" Thurs, Nov 1-Fri, Nov 9. The exhibition is sponsored by Knoll Associates. On Mon, Nov 5, an informal talk for students with Knoll Furniture's David Bright will start at 3:30 pm in room 246 Hopkins. A reception is planned that day from 5 to 7 pm in the gallery area; a public discussion with Bright about Knoll branding begins at 5:30 pm in rooom 162. Since its founding by Hans G. Knoll in 1938, Knoll Furniture has collaborated with designers and architects to form some of its most classically acclaimed designs. Knoll products are exhibited in major art museums worldwide, with more than 40 pieces in the permanent Design Collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This exhibition, an excerpt of one that premiered at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2005, highlights some of the extraordinary designs of Florence Knoll Bassett and celebrates her accomplishments. For more, click here.

Benjamin Williams, a doctoral candidate in the School of Music, won third place in the 21st annual Young Composer's Competition for 2007, sponsored by the Austin Peay State University Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts. Williams won the award for his A Child's Garden for tenor and piano.

Ken Rinaldo (Art & Techonology) opened his installation of fish-controled robots, the Augmented Fish Reality, at the Centro Nacional de Las Arts in Mexico City Oct 12 as part of the Transitio_MX Festival Internacionel de Artes Electronicas Y Video. In addition, Rinaldo's work, the Twittering Rabbit Foot, a glass sound sculpture created at the Pilchuck Glass in 2005, was auctioned off at the Pilchuck Glass Auction in Seattle last week.

A Peek Downtown

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Take a peek at the College of the Arts' new Urban Arts Space, now under construction downtown. We shot a video of talented music students Jeremy Amweg on sax and Marshall Skinner on bass (click video above) playing in the galleria just outside the entrance. The video will be used as part of a meeting with donors and friends of the university this week. The Urban Arts Space encompasses 10,000 square feet of exhibition and performance space in the former Lazarus building at the corner of High and Town Streets in downtown Columbus. It is scheduled to open in January with the exhibition "Midnight Robbers: The Artists of Notting Hill Carnival." You'll be hearing much more about the Urban Arts Space soon!

Notable News

Jeanine Thompson (Theatre) is "guest contributor" to the Columbus Dispatch's theatre blog, where she has written about her memories of the late Marcel Marceau. Click here to view.

The book Music Divided: Bartok's Legacy in Cold War Culture, by Danielle Fosler-Lussier (Music) has been published by the University of California Press. The book explores how political pressures affected musical life on both sides of the iron curtain during early years of the Cold War.

Alumnus Darwin Bearley (BFA, sculpture, 1969) recently had a book published about his 30-year-old collection of Amish quilts. The book, Antique Ohio Amish Quilts, the Darwin D. Bearley Collection, was published in Zurich by Bernina Sewing Machine Co. and was used as the catalog for exhibitions in Germany and France in 2006.

Reservation Road, the newest movie by acclaimed director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) features string arrangements for young orchestra by music alumna Constance Barrett (DMA 1994, MA 1988), who also coordinated and directed the on-film student orchestra.

Robert Ladislas Derr (Art) is performing and exhibiting a four-channel video installation for the LIVE Biennial in Vancouver, British Columbia. Click here for info.

'Steve Canyon' Creator Honored

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Pioneering cartoonist Milton Caniff -- creator of the innovative strips Steve Canyon and Terry & the Pirates -- is being honored this month with an art exhibition in Hopkins Hall. "Milton Caniff: American Master" showcases Caniff's work in the gallery (above), while the corridor hosts "School of Caniff," an exhibition of works by cartoonists influenced by Caniff, who was an Ohio native and OSU grad. The show runs until Oct 28, and is presented in conjunction with the 9th triennial Festival of Cartoon Art, hosted by OSU's Cartoon Research Library. A reception is planned Oct 26, 4-7 pm.

Notable News

The Department of Art Visitors Series and Wexner Center for the Arts present a conversation with Matt Mullican at 4:30 pm, Weds, Oct 17, in the Wexner Film and Video Theatre. Mullican's work is based on a system of categorizing experience, a spectrum that ranges from pure subjectivity to pure objectivity. Through this system, he explores the ways we represent, navigate and reinforce our individual and collective perspectives on reality. He has explored and developed these themes in a wide range of media. He also has been exploring the trance persona that first appeared during his performances under hypnosis in the '70s. The program is free. For information, click here.

The School of Music and Ethnomusicology area will host the Society for Ethnomusicology's 52nd annual meeting later this month in Columbus. The conference -- Music, War and Reconciliation -- will include discussions, concerts and workshops. From the School of Music: Margarita Mazo is serving as local arrangements chair for the conference; Udo Will and Daniel Avorgbedor are also involved in the planning of the event. For more about the conference, click here.

At a reception honoring Sidney Poitier, following his Oct 3 lecture in Mershon Auditorium, Pheoris West (Art), left, presented the acclaimed actor and director with a piece of his artwork as a gift from the college.

A short play by Alan Woods (TRI) will be produced next month in California by the South Coast Storytellers Guild as part of "Tellebration! A World Wide Event". Woods' play, Bread and Pigeons, will be part of the annual event that strives to acquint local communities with the ancient art of storytelling. Tellebration began in 1988 in Connecticut and has grown and spread across the US and into other countries.

More than 15,000 people braved the heat on Saturday, Oct 6, to attend the Buckeye Invitational, a showcase of more than 30 high school bands from across the state. Hosted by the OSU Marching Band, the event was held all day in Ohio Stadium and concluded with a performance by the Marching Band, according to Jon Woods, director.

Bruce Mau, renowned designer, professor and theorist, will speak at the Wexner Center at 7 pm Weds, Nov 7, in Mershon Auditorium. A book signing preceeds the free lecture at 6 pm. The event is co-sponsored with the OSU Department of Design and the Knowlton School of Architecture.

Design alums Tom Webster and Richard Rinsma (1985) were featured in an article in the Oct 10 business section of the Columbus Dispatch. Their Powell firm, Eyethink, was spotlighted for its contributions to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, including a "celebration of Buckeye football history and tradition" they designed for a 136-foot hallway there. They've also done projects for the John Glenn School of Public Affairs and OSU Medical Center.

History of Art alumna Sally A. Struthers is guest curator of the Dayton Art Institute's exhibition "The Roman World: Religions and Everday Life" featuring the Brooklyn Museum's Tree of Paradise, Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire. The exhibition continues until Jan 6. For more, click here. Struthers -- who earned an MA in 1986 and a PhD in 1992 at OSU -- is dean of liberal arts, communication and social sciences at Sinclair Community College in Dayton.

Photography alumnus Marc Tasman unveiled his "Proposal for the New American Flag: Representing a New Constellation" at the Institute of Visual Arts in Milwaukee on Oct 12. Tasman's installation includes videos, posters, maps, letters to government officials and hundreds of the new American flags ranging in scale from 4 inches to 9 feet. He is campaigning to officially change the design of the American flag to better reflect post 9/11 realities. His piece is part of an exhibition of work by seven artists who received fellowships from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

Poitier: Warm, Witty, Elegant

Photos of the Week

Standing ovations greeted Sidney Poitier at an afternoon student event and an evening public lecture last Wednesday (Oct 3) when the Academy Award-winning actor, director and author was on campus as a guest of the College of the Arts. Poitier, who was a Barnett Distinguished Visiting Lecturer, engaged 160 theatre and art education students, along with some staff and faculty, at an afternoon workshop in Roy Bowen Theatre. During the relaxed, unscripted program, Poitier sat on stage with Karen Bell, dean of the college, and answered questions from the audience (see photo below). He reflected on his life, and told moving -- and sometimes amusing -- stories from his long, illustrious acting career. That evening, Poitier charmed nearly 1,500 individuals from the community (see photo above) as he presented a series of "snapshots" -- stories from his childhood and early adulthood -- that shed light on some of the experiences that helped to shape and direct him.


Notable News

2007 graduate Jonathan Anderson (Design) has landed a job as a film title designer with Prologue films in Los Angeles. The studio produces live action and graphic design for film.

The exhibition Midnight Robbers: The Artists of Notting Hill Carnival opened to a crowd of more than 150 people in London City Hall on Wednesday, Sept 26. This exhibition explores London’s Carnival, Europe's most spectacular street performance. It marks the bicentennial of the abolition of slave trading in British colonies, and reflects on slavery legacy of which Carnival is a significant part. The exhibition was planned and organized by the Carnival Exhibition Group, directed by Lesley Ferris (Theatre) and Ruth Tompsett (Middlesex University), to promote the history, heritage and practice of Carnival arts, through the creation of public exhibitions and publications. Dorothy Noyes (Center for Folklore Studies) serves on the advisory board. The technical innovation of the exhibition is the creation of the Carnival Interactive multimedia program developed by a team from the Department of Design. Lead by Brian Stone (Design) this program will enable users to interact with an on-screen computer presentation. The program creates the illusion of a 3D environment and offers something new to discover each time it is used. The exhibition is scheduled to open at the College of the Arts Urban Arts Space in January. Below are Ruth Tompsett, Brian Stone, Brandan Craft (lead developer) and Lesley Ferris.


Check out the Oct 11 OSU Library's ReadAloud program, presented at the Wexner Center Cafe from 3 to 4 pm. Featured readers will be: Gretchen Donelson (Fine Arts Library), who will read Hundertwasser; Amanda Gluibizzi (Fine Arts Library), who will read from Sol LeWitt's Sentences on Conceptual Art; and Joe Shaw (University Libraries), who will read from Gertrude Stein's How to Write.

The Department of Art's Living Culture Initiative participated in the Scarlet, Gray & Green Festival on the South Oval Friday, Oct 5, noon to 6 pm. The event was organized and hosted by Students for a Sustainable Campus, and featured exhibits by 50 environmentally friendly businesses and organizations. The Department of Art hosted a table there.

Daniel Avorgbedor (Music, African American & African Studies) presented a paper at a national symposium on music and missions in Africa at Wheaton College in Illinois last month. In addition, he has published "Language Plots in Musical Spaces: A Response to Adams Bodomo and Manolete Mora," in Empirical Musicology Review, Vol 2, No 3, 2007.

Robert Ladislas Derr (Art) and Marcy Freedman co-curated First Person Video to be screened at the Van Brunt Gallery in Beacon, NY, Oct 13.

Sidney Poitier Visits Wednesday

Photo of the Week

The College of the Arts is honored to welcome Academy Award-winning actor, author and director Sidney Poitier to campus Weds, Oct 3, as a Barnett Distinguished Visiting Lecturer. Poitier, who has been a political and artistic trailblazer for more than half a century, will present a public lecture recounting the uplifting story of his life at 7:30 pm that evening in Mershon Auditorium. Tickets are $22 reserved seating; $10 students with ID, available at the Wexner Center Ticket Office, 292-3535. Poitier is well known for films such as The Blackboard Jungle, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, To Sir, With Love and In the Heat of the Night, and is the first black actor to win an Academy Award (Lilies of the Field, 1963). The native of Cat Island, The Bahamas, grew up in poverty but rose to fame in a pioneering cinematic career. He recently published a book, The Measure of a Man: a spiritual autobiography.

Last Monday, the College hosted a Movie on the Oval to welcome students back to campus, and to screen one of Sidney Poitier's movies, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. The clear, warm
evening was enjoyed by students, staff and Arts Scholars volunteers, who snacked on popcorn and smoothies -- donated by IntaJuice -- during the film. Karen Bell, dean, and Mary Hickey, Arts Alumni Society president, were on hand to chat with students. Musical entertainment before the film was provided by music students (above) Jeremy Amweg, right, and Marshall Skinner.

Notable News

The winners have been announced for the 2007 Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors. This competition honors Eileen Heckart (1919-2001), the distinguished actress whose career was recognized with Oscar, Tony and Emmy Awards, by encouraging the creation of new plays celebrating older American performers and artists. It is sponsored by OSU's Theatre Research Institute. Winners in three categories -- 10 Minute Plays, One Act Plays and Full Length Plays -- hailed from everywhere from Toronto to Oakland, California. The list of winners can be found by clicking here.

Music alumna Maureen McKay ('03) performed the role of Caroline Gaines Sept 26 at New York City Opera's debut of the opera, Margaret Garner. The opera is the product of a collaboration with author Toni Morrison and Grammy Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour, and is based on events that inspired Morrison's novel Beloved.

What does the OSU Marching Band do on a fall Saturday when it’s not performing at an away football game? Why, it hosts a huge marching band invitational, of course! The Buckeye Invitational will welcome 30 of the finest Ohio high school marching bands to Ohio Stadium on Saturday, Oct 6, from 9 am to 5:15 pm. Audience members will have the chance to see “the pride of the Buckeyes,” the OSU Marching Band perform at the end of the festival, at 4:45 pm. TBDBITL will begin with its traditional Ramp Entrance, followed by a football halftime show featuring the music of Buddy Rich, and concluding with the greatest tradition in college band history — Script Ohio. Tickets for the festival will be sold at the door on the day of the show for $7 per person. Tickets sold at Gate 7 on the northwest side of Ohio Stadium. A, B and C decks will be open for seating on the west side of the stadium for all spectators. For information, call the OSU Marching Band office at 292-2598 or click here.

Robert Ladislas Derr (Art) will have a video installation in the 2007 Around the Coyote Fall Arts Festivel in Chicago in October. Click here for more.

Sam Short (Art Ed) has accepted the position of associate editor for the International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability. She also will be presenting a paper at the 33rd annual meeting of the Social Theory, Politics and the Arts conference Oct 11 in New York City.

Christine Ballengee-Morris and Pat Stuhr (Art Ed) are traveling to Fairbanks, Alaska, for the Native American Art Studies Association Conference; they will give presentations for a panel Ballengee-Morris organized -- Decolonizing American Indian Arts or Mounds, Casinos and Bears, Oh My.

Back to School

Photos of the week

Welcome back to Ohio State! On the first day of classes, some College of the Arts staffers -- including student worker and music student Tricia Fairman (right) spent the morning on the Oval to hand out arts calendars and Frisbees . . . and to point new students in the right direction for their next class. Musical entertainment was provided by flute students (l-r, above) Kathy Cameron, Logan Kelly, Jenny Li and Janet Fleck.

Notable News
Movie Night is Monday! Don't forget all College of the Arts students are invited to our Movie on the Oval Monday, Sept 24. We'll be screening the Sidney Poitier film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner at 7:30 pm, preceeded by some musical entertainment from music students Jeremy Amweg and Marshall Skinner and a short of student animation from ACCAD. The fun begins on the northeast corner of the Oval around 7 pm with smoothies and popcorn. Pass the word!

Note: Tickets to An Evening with Sidney Poitier are selling now! The Academy Award-winning actor, director, author and diplomat will present a lecture Weds, Oct 3 at 7:30 pm in Mershon Auditorium. Tickets are $22 reserved seating; $10 OSU students with ID. Tickets available at the Wexner Center ticket office, 292-3535.

Karen Eliot (Dance) has a book coming out next month -- Dancing Lives: Five Female Dancers from the Ballet d'Action to Merce Cunningham (University of Illinois Press). The book examines the lives and careers of five female dancers, Giovanna Baccelli, Adele Dumilatre, Tamara Karsavina, Moira Shearer and Catherine Kerr.

Photography grad student Herb Vincent Peterson was invited as a visiting artist and lecturer at the 75th year Sylvia Plath Symposium at the University of Oxford in London. He will be installing an interactive video installation and performing at the Oxford Art Museum in conjunction with the symposium; the show runs Oct 27-Nov 24. Click here for more.

Tim Gerber (Music) has been named the 2007 Distinguished Alumnus in Music Education at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. The Music Education Association of Oberlin purchased and dedicated a commemorative brick in his honor at the National Association for Music Education "walk of fame" in Reston, VA. The award was presented earlier this month in Oberlin, where Gerber gave a talk on the state of music education in America.

Robert Ladislas Derr (Art) will exhibit one of his videos in Pixilerations Sept 28-Oct 13 at Sol Koffler Gallery in Providence, RI. Over the summer, Derr performed Chance: Cincinnati for the Weston Art Gallery's Summer Party at the Aronoff Center for the Arts, and exhibited in the One Minute Film & Video Festival in Switzerland and OUTVIDEO Festival in Russia.

Ann Hamilton (Art) lectured at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with her re-installation of the museum's recent acquisition of indigo blue, currently on exhibit in the permanent collection galleries there. While in California, Hamilton worked in residence at Gemini GEL in LA, where she and author Joan Simon from the Whitney Museum were part of the Hammer Conversations, an ongoing series that pairs creative thinkers from a range of disciplines for engaging discussions on culture, science and the arts.

Guess Who's Coming to Campus?

Come say hello to new and returning students! All College of the Arts students are invited to an Outdoor Movie on the Oval! Hosted by the College of the Arts and Arts Alumni Society, the event will feature the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner on Mon, Sept 24, on the northeast corner of the Oval. Entertainment starts at 7 pm; the movie starts at 7:30 pm. Free smoothies and popcorn for the first 300 people! The event is free; just bring a blanket if you wish, to sit on the grass. Rain site is Hughes Auditorium.

The 1967 Academy Award-winning movie stars Hollywood favorites Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. It's being shown as a prequel to Sidney Poitier's visit to Ohio State. He will be on campus on Oct 3 as a Barnett Distinguished Visiting Lecturer. Poitier will visit with Theatre students in the afternoon that day, and will present a public lecture in Mershon Auditorium at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $22 reserved seats; $10 OSU students with ID. For tickets, call the Wexner Center ticket office at 292-3535.

Brian Windsor (ACCAD) has won the Jim Henson Award for Innovation for his research in using motion capture technology to create computer-generated puppets. Windsor, who is manager of ACCAD's motion capture studio, creates real-time digital puppets that can be manipulated with a common game pad. His research was presented at the Puppeteers of America National Festival in Minnesota in July. Click here.

Mary Hickey, Arts Alumni Society president, holds the rapt attention of new OSU President E. Gordon Gee at the Sept. 8 Arts and Sciences Annual Alumni Tailgate Party. Gee stopped by and mingled with the crowd at the annual get-together. This year's event, held on the Oval side of Derby Hall, attracted more than 900 alumni from the five Arts and Sciences colleges, and included tailgate food, fun and entertainment from the cheerleaders, Alumni Men's Glee Club, Men's Glee Club and Buckeye Brass Band. The always-popular silent auction raised funds for student scholarships, and auctioned off such popular items as an authentic drum major baton, donated by alumnus John Gray; an authentic marching band hat, donated by Jon Woods; a signed Troy Smith jersey, donated by Mary Hickey; and much, much more! More news and photos from the tailgate party will be posted on our website (arts.osu.edu) soon. For information about the Arts Alumni Society, contact Victoria at osuarts@osu.edu.

Alan Crockett (Art) has four paintings in a group exhibition, "Mapping the Terrain, New Directions in Abstract Painting," at the Southeastern Louisiana Contemporary Art Center. The show opened Sept 13. A catalogue featuring the artists is being produced. Crockett also will give an artist's talk Oct 4 and will make studio visits with painting students there.

Ann Hamilton's (Art) eight story Tower, installed on the Oliver Ranch in California, is featured on Spark's website. Click here to view it.

Marc Ainger (Music) and Norah Zuniga-Shaw (Dance) were featured in the International Computer Music Conference 2007 in Copenhagen last month with the interactive movement and sound system they created call Murmur. They worked with some of the word's best circus artists to create a new work specific to the location. Murmur was developed in the EMMA Lab at ACCAD with Matt Lewis (ACCAD) and premiered in Columbus at the NEO Gallery last February. The performance and workshops are the culmination of Zuniga-Shaw's Arts and Humanities Seed Grant research in locative media and interactive performance.

Steven Gutierrez, an MFA candidate in Art & Technology, served as the 2006 Lancaster Arts Festival artist in residence. This summer, his work was on display at the 2007 Lancaster Festival. His installation, Bitter-sweet, investigates and reflects on the economic choices ewe make in our daily lives and their resulting impact on the environment.

Philip von Raabe, professor emeritus in Art, has an exhibition -- Prints -- at the OSU Faculty Club through Oct 26. The solo show includes mixed-media monoprints.

Summertime!

Congratulations to all of our graduates!!! And to everyone -- have a wonderful summer!

Photo of the Week

Several weeks ago, Jeff Haase (Design) and design students Ron Croe and Julie Evers participated in the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA) event called Dining By Design. The group was enlisted for the fundraiser to design an "environment" that would accommodate 10 for dinner; in their case, for a group of folks from the OSU Medical Center. The event, started 18 years ago, is in New York City each year, and also travels to selected other cities. The Columbus event was held at the CCAD annex in downtown Columbus, and some of the 43 tables will be featured in Elle Decor magazine. Our design crew's table (above) used a sculpture of broken mirrors hanging above an all-white table to reflect projected images throughout the space.

Notable News

At the 35th Graduate School Awards Reception May 30, almost 20 College of the Arts grad students were recognized with honors and awards. Receiving the Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship were: Alexandra Copley, David Efurd, Wing Sze E. Ho, Amy-Ruth Holt, Jodi Kushins, Colleen Leonardi, Karen Mozingo, Anna Reed, Sky Shineman and Jaclyn Thompson. Vicki Daiello received the Graduate Associate Teaching Award, and Matthew Baumann was presented with a US Student Fulbright Award. Earning the Presidential Fellowship Award were Amy-Ruth Holt, Laurie Ann Kilker, Karen Mozingo and Jennifer Schlueter. Maribea Barnes and Matthew Saunders were presented with the Preparing Future Faculty program award, and Alisha Leighanne Miller received the Mary Hubbell Osburn Memorial Graduate Scholarship.

College of the Arts students receiving Undergraduate Student Goverment (USG) Undergraduate Student Academic Enrichment Grants are, from Art, James Burke, Kevin Duffy, Dina Sherman, Monica Song, Mary VanWassenhove, Nina Wesler and Doo-Sung Yoo, and from Design, Jennifer Lau.

Robert Ladislas Derr (Art) will exhibit in "Maps and Journeys" June 26-Aug 4 at the Studio Place Arts Gallery in Barre, VT.

Music alumna Marianna Suri has been cast in the role of Inez in Verdi's Il Trovatore with the Kazakh National Opera for the Paphos Opera Festival in Cyprus.

Lakeside Jazz

Photo of the Week

The popular OSU Jazz Ensemble, directed by Ted McDaniel (Music), performed its final Mirror Lake concert of the quarter last Thursday, May 31. The group also welcomed OSU alum Ladd McIntosh -- well-known jazz composer, conductor and performer -- who guest conducted the musicians in several of his compositions.

Notable News

The Department of Design presents its Annual Student Design Exhibition Tuesday, June 5-Thursday , June 7 in the Physics Research Building, 191 W. Woodruff Ave. The popular annual show will spotlight more than 50 design students' work in industrial, interior and visual communication design. On Wednesday, June 6, the festive Professional/Alumni Night -- complete with a reception and product raffle -- is open to all 6-8 pm.

A number of Department of Dance faculty members and grad students are heading to Paris June 21-24 to present their research at the conference, Rethinking Practice and Theory. The conference is a partnership of the Society of Dance History Scholars, the Congress on Research in Dance and the Centre National de la Danse. Of the 440 proposals, 110 were selected for the event, including those from five faculty members, three graduate students and a dozen or more alumni from Dance, along with a grad student from Theatre. Presenters include Karen Eliot, Candace Feck, Nicole Stanton, Norah Zuniga-Shaw, Hanna Kosstrin, Annie Beserra, Anna Reed, Jenai Cutcher and Karen Mozingo.

A few weeks ago we listed College of the Arts students who participated in the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum. Since then, we've found out that more of our students were involved! Also taking part in the May 16 showcase were James Burke, Joanna Lees, Linda Diec, Nathaniel Ricciuto, Matthew Vrabanac, David Murphy, Alex Walp, Susan Sprague, Angela Pegan, Andrew Cronacher and Ashley Brook.

Vesta Daniel (Art Education) has received the 2007 Faculty Award for Excellence in Community-Based Scholarship at OSU's annual Celebration of Excellence in Community Service and Scholarship. At a May 10 reception, she was recognized for her outstanding work as a bridge-builder between the university and the community for more than 20 years.

At the same event, CAPA was recognized for its work with the College of the Arts and presented with the Award for Excellence in Community Partnership Building. The organization was recognized for its role in the College's downtown initiative, particulary for working with the Department of Theatre for the recent productions of The Rocky Horror Show and Hair.

Art & Technology undergraduate student Bill Shakelford has been reviewed by David Pogue in the NY Times, while the BBC, Boing Boing, Engadget, Gizmodo, Make Magazine and SCI-FI have all written about his electronic sculpture Spamtrap.

Alan Woods (Theatre) just found out that his short play, The Safari, will be produced in Cape Town, South Africa, this summer, while another short play, Limbo, Ohio, will be produced in Phoenix in November.

Art & Technology news: Graduate student Ryan Ross was commissioned to create an electronic light installation called Numeric Identities for the Museum of Neon Art and the Bert Green Fine Arts gallery in Los Angeles. The work can be experienced until Oct. 31. Sonya Lucas had an opening of hand drawn animations June 2 at Elements Gallery, 509 High St. And former graduate student Anthony Castranova has been commissioned to create a site-specific sculpture for the Rubin-Deutch family in Rumson, NJ.

An archive for the African American Playwrights Exchange (AAPEX) has been established at OSU's Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute, according to Alan Woods (Theatre). AAPEX members can deposit scripts, programs, photographs, correspondence, etc. of productions, ensuring that the materials will survive and will be protected.

On May 16, Reinhart Butter and Jim Arnold (Design) presented a summary of a three-year comprehensive research and design project on advanced automotive seating at an SAE/Government conference in Washington, DC. The project was funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and conducted in collaboration with Necip Berme (Mechanical Engineering). Main focus of the research was the improvement of vehicle safety through improvements of current seat restraint systems. There is a chance of the project being continued with emphasis on 4-point integrated belt systems.

Criticizing Photographs, by Terry Barrett (Art Education) has been newly translated into Chinese.

Art . . . al fresco

Photos of the Week

Jess Glenn (above, right) and Elise Bailey, both undergraduate art students, contemplate how to paint "a million things" outside of Hopkins Hall on a warm, spring morning. The two -- along with Joe Peck (left), a 3rd year art education student -- were experimenting with the concept of painting something that is made up of millions of tiny parts, such as tree leaves, and "condense" it so it is paint-able. They are students in Sarah Weinstock's painting class, and were using oils on canvas.

Notable News

Long-time jazz composer, arranger, educator and big band leader Ladd McIntosh – who has orchestrated music for over 90 major motion pictures – will be at the School of Music Thursday, May 31. McIntosh, who is an alumnus of OSU, will guest conduct the OSU Jazz Ensemble in an outdoor concert that evening at 7:30 pm at Browning Amphitheatre near Mirror Lake. The student musicians will play several of his original compositions, according to Ted McDaniel, director of the Jazz Ensemble. The concert is free; rain site is Weigel Auditorium. As a student at Ohio State in the 1960s, McIntosh gained national attention with his composing and arranging skills. Considered a pioneer in jazz education, he currently teaches improvisation at the prestigious Henry Mancini Institute. Since 1992, McIntosh has orchestrated film scores for more than 90 major motion pictures, including Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek 2, Shrek, Shark Tale, Something’s Gotta Give, Pearl Harbor, Speed, The Lion King, Home Alone and Gladiator.

Digescape: Art & Technology Exhibition is the showcase for more than 200 Art & Technology artists working in new media, hybrid forms, video, holography, animations, robotics, digital imaging/photo, 3D modeling, rapid prototypeing and web-based artworks. The exhibition is Thursday, May 31, 5-9 pm in Haskett Hall Sound Stage and Gallery. A video program starts at 7 pm in room 211. The exhibition continues the next day, 11:30 am-4 pm.

Charles Massey Jr (Art) has three of his prints and drawings included in Exhibition 280, a six-state regional juried exhibition, at the Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, WVa. The exhibition continues until July 1.

Music Divided: Bartok's Legacy in Cold War Culture is a new book by Danielle Fosler-Lussier (Music) just published by the University of California Press.

The Music Department at Bowdoin College in Maine presented the American premiere of Margarita Mazo's new edition of Igor Stravinsky's Les Noces for chorus, four soloists, four pianos and percussion on May 7. The solo parts were performed by singers from Russia. Mazo presented a keynote lecture at the forum in conjunction with the performance. The European premiere of Mazo's edition was presented in Berlin in 2006.

Art & Technology grad student Ryan Ross was commissioned to create an electronic light installation called Numeric Identities in association with the Museum of Neon Art and the Bert Green Fine Arts Gallery in Los Angeles. The work can be viewed until Oct. 31.

Helen Chi (Art & Technology) earned an honorable mention in the "Experimental" catagory at the West Virginia Flash Animation Festival for her work Shim Chung.

A unique upcoming performance in Columbus features music by a group called Lacunae -- a group of musicians who have never met but play together via live video and audio feeds -- along with a video art exhibition showcasing OSU faculty Dan Schellenbarger and Scot Kaplan, as well as current and former grad students Sarah Weinstock, Grant Fletcher, Carly Glisson, Erin Vernon, Candie Waterloo and Charlie Roberts. The event takes place Monday, June 4, at 9:30 pm at Skully's Music-Diner, 1151 N. High St. Tickets $5.