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DANM open house to be held Jan. 17 To RSVP or for more information about the open house, please contact Felicia Rice, program manager, at 831-459-1554 or by email at fsrice@ucsc.edu.
DANM MFA program applications due Feb. 15 This two-year MFA program brings together faculty and students from across the academic spectrum to pursue interdisciplinary artistic and scholarly research and practice. The program includes core courses, collaborative research project groups and an individual thesis project culminating in publication of artistic and theoretical research and the opportunity to exhibit in the program's annual MFA Exhibition. Project groups are small clusters of students collaborating with professors and engaging in artistic, technical and theoretical research in one of three focused areas: Participatory Culture, Performative Technologies, and Mechatronics. For more information on the program and application process, visit http://digitalarts.ucsc.edu or contact Felicia Rice, program manager, fsrice@ucsc.edu.
Burke wins Steck Prize for best senior thesis Burke said he pursued his project because nobody is his film classes had heard of Feynman—a Nobel prize-winning scientist, renowned for his maverick lifestyle and popular books on mathematics and physics. Feynman assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a prominent member of the panel that investigated the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. “The film is about Feynman's view of science and his relation to the atomic bomb,” said Burke. “I thought it was interesting that after the atomic bomb was created, Feynman thought the world was going to end in the near future. Going into the project I wanted to know why he thought that way.” Burke’s 10-minute film weaves several of Feynman’s short stories and anecdotes together as it portrays the physicist’s time at Los Alamos National Laboratory. To view the film online go to: For more information about the Film and Digital Media department, please contact film@ucsc.edu.
Renowned Moroccan filmmaker visits UCSC Smihi’s career as a director spans more than 30 years, making him one of the most eminent figures in Moroccan cinema. Educated in Morocco and France, Smihi studied cinema at the influential IDHEC (Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques) in Paris, and took seminars with Roland Barthes. In his highly influential films, beginning in the 1970s, Smihi was instrumental in creating a new cinema in Northern Africa in the wake of decolonization. His film A Muslim Childhood is a nostalgic vision of Tangiers in the 1950s, and follows a young Arab boy’s formative years in the multicultural milieu of French, Spanish, and North African peoples. Smihi introduced his film by talking about directors and writers who had inspired him, growing up in Tangiers. Among the major influences he cited was the work of Alfred Hitchcock, and particularly his film Vertigo (1958), which was shot in San Francisco and in the Santa Cruz mountains. He was thrilled to discover the “Hitchcockian” redwoods on campus. Film and digital media professor Peter Limbrick, who hosted Smihi on campus, said he was the ideal guest for Film 20A, because of his strong knowledge of film history and forms and his pivotal role in Arab and North African film. He added that Smihi was delighted to discover so many students passionate to learn about film. The Film and Digital Media department hosted another international visitor the week following Smihi’s visit. Mark Williams, New Zealand Film Archive curator, presented a collection of works by influential New Zealand filmmaker Len Lye at the department’s colloquium. Please contact Peter Limbrick at limbrick@ucsc.edu for more information about his work with Moumen Smihi.
Lynn to attend 2008 Beijing International Congress on Women in Music Recent performances of works by Monica Lynn include premieres by the New York Miniaturist Ensemble at the Brooklyn Center for Contemporary Music in New York, the Monterey County Composers Forum in Salinas, Calif., and the Composers Performance Ensemble of the National Association of Composers USA at the Palo Alto Arts Center in Palo Alto, Calif. For information about how you can support students like Monica Lynn within the Music department, please contact Matt Henry at mfhenry@ucsc.edu.
Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery Sesnon featured Guantanamo exhibit A professional photographer, installation artist and graduate of the School of Visual Art in New York, Herster created the presentation of images, text, video and audio that “offers a visual history of an unseen place.” Herster’s show chronicled the journey that Guantanomo Bay detainees’ lawyers went on in order to gain the trust of their clients. These lawyers traveled throughout the Middle East, photographing detainees’ families, as well as bringing notes and photographs of the detainees to their families. In addition to the show, Herster presented and lectured to Kresge’s core class of 390 students in October. The exhibition and lecture were sponsored by Kresge College, Porter College, the Charles Griffin Farr Fund, and the UCSC Alumni Association Distinguished Visiting Professor Program. The Distinguished Visiting Professor program is designed to enrich undergraduate education at UCSC by providing financial support to enable the campus to bring a person of academic distinction for a quarter in each academic year. For more information about the Sesnon Gallery, please contact Shelby Graham at sgraham@ucsc.edu.
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