UMBC Visual Arts Department
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/47
Mission
The Department of Visual Arts carries out UMBC’s mission as a dynamic public research university. Our diverse, internationally acclaimed faculty are committed to guiding future artists and design professionals to think independently, work imaginatively, and implement creative solutions to real world problems. By providing an environment of collaborative research and interdisciplinary learning, we enable experimentation across media. Our BA, BFA and MFA curricula equip students to push beyond disciplinary parameters as they move skillfully between technologies, processes, and modes of thinking.
Vision
The department seeks to become an international model for art and design programs within a public research university that stresses cross-disciplinary activities. We envision students as agile, flexible thinkers and civically engaged leaders in a rapidly changing world.
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Infinite Transformations in a Suitcase: Encountering Human-DNA Interaction through Poetry-infused Wine(ACM, 2025-03-04) Hamidi, Foad; Dusman, Linda Dusman; Boot, LeeInteracting with materials, including biological and living materials, that embody computation and information has increasingly been of interest to the TEI community. In recent years, increased access to low-cost synthetic biology tools and techniques has made it easier for non-experts to experiment with modifying living organisms for creative and artistic purposes, including at the molecular DNA level. A challenge has been to create engaging and culturally-mediated experiences to make these human-DNA interactions accessible to diverse audiences. Infinite Transformations in a Suitcase is a multimedia installation that creates a mediative space inviting reflection on the resilience of culture. At its center is a glass of poetry-infused wine created using genetically modified yeast cells whose DNA contains an encoding of a 14th-century Sufi poem by Hafiz of Shiraz, surrounded by video of it being written in Farsi calligraphy. By combining multiple embodied and abstract poetic elements, the installation invites the audience to reflect on the materiality and movement of culture.Item Tout est interrelié : Perspectives nouvelles sur l'histoire des ordinateurs et les communautés des usagers(UMBC, 2011-12-15) Moren, LisaItem Mirror mirer, 1999(Lisa Moren, 2010-05-29) Moren, LisaLike the xerox of a xerox, I reread the output of speech recognition software, until I got these results. I started with 4 anecdotal narratives about mirrors and surveillance. © Lisa Moren, 1999.Item 10 TRIES, 100 POEMS (TAKE 1) :: KYLE BOOTEN :: FIELD NOTES :: PSYCHOTECHNOLOGIES OF CARE, ALGORITHMS OF ATTENTION(Medium, 2018-09-20) Booten, KyleThis Field Notes entry by poet and researcher Kyle Booten marks the first installment of ‘10 Tries, 100 Poems,’ a Field Notes mini-series wherein poets document their participation in experimental workshops that use poetry as a means of resistance to contemporary forms of distraction, deception, and distortion. The workshops, conducted by digital media literacy advocate Alexandra Juhasz, are part of a larger project, #100hardtruths-fakenews, which attempts, in Juhasz’ words, to “understand, combat, or teach about the crisis of fake news.” Read more about the idea behind the workshops in the Series Introduction. [2018 series editor: Adrian Silbernagel]Item Nonument Group in njihova prva umetniška akcija(RTV 365, 2018-02-20) Jerman, Nina; Tomsic, Neja; Moren, LisaPredvajaj RTV vsebine, vsak dan!Item With augmented-reality app, artists (virtually) revive the demolished McKeldin Fountain(Baltimore Fishbowl, 2018-05-17) McLeod, EthanEighteen months ago, construction crews reduced the Brutalist concrete fountain at the heart the Inner Harbor's McKeldin Square plaza to rubble, making way for green space and some additional seating at the corner of Pratt and Light streets. But it lives again—if you have a screen handy.Item This augmented reality app creates a virtual monument to McKeldin Fountain(Technically Media, 2018-05-17) Babcock, StephenNONUMENT 01::McKeldin Fountain, which launches at event on May 19, recreates the fountain and its role as a public space.Item Mutek Forum 2020(Lisa Moren, 2020-09-11) Grenier, Emilie F.; Moren, Lisa; Barr, ChrisItem Baltimore’s McKeldin Fountain returns as an app(BaltimoreBrew, 2018-05-18) Shen, FernA virtual monument celebrates the civic gathering place that city leaders demolished in 2016.Item a conversation, Hansel + Gretel, 1994(Lisa Moren, 2010-05-21) Moren, LisaThis is an early interactive CD Rom. Click on him or her to reveal what happened in the forest. Voices by Carol Hobson and Louis Hock. © Lisa Moren, 1994.Item Lisa Moren(Printemps numérique, 2020-10-03) Moren, Lisa; Bachvaroff, TsvetanItem Family Tree, an HTML painting(Lisa Moren, 2011-06-15) Moren, LisaThis was an attempt to make a time-based experience using early web browser flaws. Many of these were produced and lost into the Internet ether from 1995-1998. This one happened to be documented to VHS. Lisa Moren, 1998.Item Lisa Moren's "Deep Star" for ISEA2024 Brisbane(Lisa Moren, 2024-06-04) Moren, LisaA narrated PowerPoint presentation.Item la_alma, 9min., 1999(Lisa Moren, 2010-12-22) Moren, LisaViewers are invited into a dialog with the interactive book " la_ alma." Montage imagery of ticking machines, microfiche, obsolete handwriting, and the palimpsestual nature of former East Berlin, all reveal a lost time in the life of a woman who has nearly forgotten language. The viewer is invited to touch the book where they may begin the process of retrieving a random narrative. The linear narration describes that speaking with Alma was like "jumping through a word search for remember." Over 100 small movie clips were produced based on 80 found family letters and documents from 1860s-1880s Berlin to Brooklyn. This 8 min. example is a few movies in la_alma's archive. Voice over by Aliyah Baruchin, piano by Carole Swaim and production assistance by Gilles Alliume and Tom DeMeyer who programmed Imag/ine at STEIM, Amsterdam.Item Dedos, Interactive Hand Creme, 2000(Lisa Moren, 2010-05-21) Moren, LisaThe hand creme is made out of beeswax, lemon balm from my garden and almond oil. Anyone was invited to try it with me. © Lisa Moren, 2000Item Récord, recórd, recollection, 2003-2008(Lisa Moren, 2010-12-22) Moren, LisaLike the magnetic head of tape recorder reading a cassette tape, viewers are invited to draw on the portraits to retrieve voices from the portraits they are drawing on. By the end of the exhibit, the portraits will fade leaving a documentation of the viewers listening. These exhibited portraits are of people who have contributed to an audio archive describing their memories of obsolete socialist monuments in central European capitals.The portraits are made from unfixed van dyke prints and are of people who have contributed to an audio archive describing their memories of obsolete socialist monuments in Central Europe. Each portraits has between 6 and 12, 7x7 force sensing resisters (FSRs), or flat track pad-like sensors undernearth them; the sensors are attached to an analogue to digital converter (Gluion), hand-made by Sukandar Kartadinata, that converts the FSR signal to OSC protocol on an Apple G4, with Isadora software programmed by Mark Coniglio, triggering and manipulating the audio files. This project is grateful for the support of J William Fulbright Association, CEC Artslink International, the Imaging Research Center at UMBC and the Department of Visual Arts.The first project was made in Berlin of former East Berliners remembering the Friedrichstrasse, a north/south inner city, mitte, road that divided the city just to the east of the wall. Also, a project by New Yorkers remembering what the WTC looked like prior to 9/11, including folks who worked there. This documentation focus' on the archive built in Prague and Budapest.Variations on the installation have been exhibited in St. Petersburg, Russia; New York, NY; Prague; Australia and the University of Utah.© Lisa Moren, 2003-2008Item bare, stripped bride(Lisa Moren, 2011-01-12) Moren, LisaNo editing was done on this found footage from Poses, 1971. I originally couldn't find a projector that would play, so I began to process the 8mm film strip.Item Cleaning: Kinetic and interactive Objects(UMBC, 2006-05) Moren, LisaItem Lemons Making Their Own Lemon Meringue Pie, CLEAN and Dedos(Lisa Moren, 2011-02-24) Moren, LisaItem Analog Waves, 2009(Lisa Moren, 2010-12-22) Moren, LisaThis is the last hour of analog tv playing with an HD video of the atlantic ocean projected onto a 300lb block of ice. This documentation is day 2 of the installation when half of the ice is partially melted. © Lisa Moren, 2009