MIT Graduate Program in Comparative Media Studies

Studying Media and Making Media

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Interview with Fox Harrell: “How An Artist-Scientist Conjurer Thinks, Works and Lives”

International Review of African American Art cover

International Review of African American Art coverOur thanks to Anne Khaminwa for conducting this great interview with Fox Harrell for the International Review of African American Art:

He occupies a charmed space in the academy, holding a joint appointment in the Comparative Media Studies Program, the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, and in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

One question underlies and unifies these pursuits. “How,” Harrell wonders, “can I take advantage of what computers do well—such as representing and transforming information—to help us to better understand, and improve, the human condition?”

[…]

Harrell is interested in how computation can create powerful new forms of phantasmal media—interactive narratives, computer games, social media, AI-based art, and “new forms unanticipated by any of those.” He believes that digital media can transform users’ ideas, improvise new aesthetic meanings, and critique society and culture.

Read more:
“How An Artist-Scientist Conjurer Thinks, Works and Lives” (PDF)—Article from the Spring 2011 issue of the IRAAA, posted with permission.

About Andrew Whitacre

Andrew directs the communications efforts for CMS/W and its research groups. A native of Washington, D.C., he holds a degree in communication from Wake Forest University, with a minor in humanities, as well as an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College.

His work includes drawing up and executing strategic communications plans, with projects including website design, social media management and training, press outreach, product launches, fundraising campaign support, and event promotions.