Interactive Design and Game Development students are familiar with the business of making games, but often don’t have the time to branch into the complex field of animation in order to spice up the movement elements. To promote industry-style collaborations, ITGM Professors Chris Dodson and David Spencer have reached out to Animation students in order to get them involved with senior studio game projects. In our first such effort, ITGM student Nate Lemieux and ANIM student Chad Cox (shown below) have begun collaboration on the game project Luminosity.

Interactive and Animation students working on Luminosity

Sculpture Professors Steve Jarvis and Susan Krause collaborated to create a scale model of “Humethane”, a Human Waste Composting System that captures methane gas which in turn can then be used as a fuel source. The project was included in Constructed Interference, an exhibition at the Rollins School of Public and Environmental Health at Emory University in Atlanta from March 26 through May 17, 2012. Focusing on the environmental implications of sanitation in contemporary society, Jarvis and Krause were invited to participate in a panel discussion about the work in the exhibition during the show opening.

This Spring, for the fourth year running, the Art History Department organized the Lost Art Contest and Symposium. Throughout the year, students submitted their own reconstructions of lost works of art or processes based on written descriptions and art historical research. Thirteen finalists were selected from those projects that best reflected their respective cultures through both the artistic visual representation and an accompanying written statement. The work was exhibited at the symposium on April 13 and the students presented their projects to an audience of peers and an interdisciplinary panel of judges, representing both the Fine and Liberal Arts. Winners included senior Illustration major Leslie Wright (Best in Show) for her Cubist painting after Picasso, junior Animation major Melissa Cordova (Best Artwork) for her Sophie Taeuber-Arp marionette, and senior Sculpture major Danny Ashby (Best Written Work) for his recreation of Salvador Dali’s paranoiac critical method.

Lost Art Exhibition, April 13, 2012, Event Space 4C

Lost Art Finalists 2012 (from left to right): Susan Kang, Sequential Art; Danny Ashby, Sculpture; Amie Brink, Photography; Brian Hathaway, Animation; Kali LaGue, Fashion; Cody Hard, Interactive Design and Game Development; Leslie Wright, Illustration; Kathy Ryan, Animation; Catlin Scroggie, Animation; Melissa Cordova, Animation; Andra Hiles, Fashion Marketing and Management; and Jordan Ling, Animation

Lost Art Winners 2012 (left to right): Danny Ashby, Sculpture, Best Written Work; Leslie Wright, Illustration, Best in Show; Melissa Cordova, Animation, Best Artwork

Best in Show Winner Leslie Wright and her Cubist painting after Picasso

Now accepting submissions for 2013! Contact Professor Emily Webb (ewebb@scad.edu) for further information.

After  discussions in Collaborative Learning Council meetings about how we can make SCAD Counseling and Student Support Services (CS3) more visible in the classroom, Prof. Ann-Marie Manker and Taffey Cunnien created House Calls. Faculty can now contact atlcounseling@scad.edu to request a counselor for a 10-minute wellness workshop during class on any of the following topics:

• Healthy Stress Management
• Managing Depression and Anxiety
• Substance Abuse Prevention
• Developing Healthy Sleep Habits
• Managing Time Effectively
• Study Skills
• Managing Test Anxiety

 SCAD Atlanta students from Animation, Motion Media, and Interactive Design / Game Development teamed up in Professor Becky Wible Searles’ ANIM 426 / 764 Experimental Animation classes to create short LEGO brick films, mentored by Keith Malone, Creative Director from LEGO Systems. Instead of using pre-made kits, students were challenged to create custom stop motion animation models from six giant boxes of mixed individual LEGO elements provided by Malone.

Three of the the films were selected for the 2012 SCAD Atantamation screening at the Landmark Midtown Arts Center: “Mix and Match” by John-Michael Kirkconnell (ANIM MFA) and Kaona McGowman (ITGM MFA), mixing chalk drawings with LEGO sculptures; “Your Brain on LEGO” by John McLaughlin (MOME BFA) and Kyle Parker (ANIM MFA) combining pixilation of a live action boy with “conjumble-mation” unattached LEGO constructions; and “Synthesis” by Erin Burke (ANIM MFA) and Jessi Esparza (MOME BFA) featuring continuously morphing scenes of “natural” LEGO elements. For more information, contact Becky at rwiblese@scad.edu

Kaona McGowan created LEGO typography for her collaboration on the stop motion and chalk drawing film, "Mix and Match" with John-Michael Kirkconnell (ANIM)

John McLaughlin (MOME) and Kyle Parker (ANIM) built and animated models in a loose LEGO style they called "conjumblemation" for their stop motion / pixilation film, "Your Brain on LEGO"

Jessi Esparza (MOME) positions LEGO pieces while her partner, Erin Burke (ANIM) gets ready to shoot frames for their stop motion film, "Synthesis"

John Michael Kirkconnel (ANIM) and John McLaughlin (MOME) create stop motion models from loose LEGO bricks

Students from Professor Manker’s Drawing 207 course are part of a larger group of SCAD Atlanta students who are collaborating with Sidewalk Radio’s “The Voice of the Arts” program on AM1690.  Students pick from 16 previously aired episodes of Sidewalk Radio, listen to the show, research the topic and create a work of art that will be featured in a gallery exhibition titled “The Cultural Retrospective – the Art of Atlanta’s History”.  Draw 207 students selected such topics as the Atlanta Skyline, Airport, Sustainability, Sweet Auburn and the Clermont Hotel and Lounge.  They are proudly wearing their free T-shirts as a gift from the host of Sidewalk Radio, Gene Kansas.

Draw 207 Students - Nicole Rager: Visual Effects, Raven White: Animation, Meredith Baker: Printmaking, Evelyn Rowell: Photography, Kellie Clark: Illustration, Ashley Sanchez: Illustration. What a bunch of cuties!