Art, Design, and Architecture News

Physical distancing and the inability to perform in front of a live audience during the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t stopped the cast and director of SOMNIUM, which premieres online Friday. SOMNIUM features actors and a green screen, which provides a virtual reality space allowing the audience to participate.

The Democrat and Chronicle features Ward Hartenstein ’83 MFA (ceramics), who is repurposing a homemade musical instrument shaped like a dragon to dispense candy from his porch on Halloween.

Women in the United States and in the United Kingdom fought for voting rights on either side of the Atlantic Ocean in the early 20th century, protesting for suffrage by picketing, going on hunger strikes, and using a savvy poster campaign. RIT students this semester dug into the suffrage movement’s use of graphic arts to design and create a digital exhibit of historical posters from Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library.

An HBO film about Alice Paul and the suffrage movement, Iron Jawed Angels, will be the focus of a campus discussion and part of RIT's centennial celebration of the 19th amendment and women’s voting rights, Moving Forward: Suffrage Past, Present and Future on Oct. 30.

David Borkholder, Linwei Wang, Caroline Easton, and Adam Smith, part of RIT's Personalized Healthcare Technology signature research initiative, recently won a Catalyst Award from the National Academy of Medicine for their project, “Improving Health for the Aging through Daily Vital Signs Monitoring.”

Mindy Magyar, associate professor of industrial design, has been appointed Faculty Associate for AALANA Faculty. In the position, she aims to create an environment where RIT AALANA faculty can thrive.

Madeline Rile Smith '20 MFA (Glass) engaged in a creative partnership with TikTok to produce dozens of videos that educate users about the science and art of different methods of glassworking. Some of the posts have gone viral.

The Vignelli Center for Design Studies joined Google Arts & Culture as a partner, making hundreds of high-resolution artifacts from its archives available to an online audience.

While all educators are contending with new challenges of teaching in the middle of a pandemic, teaching in the arts—a traditionally hands-on process—represents unique challenges.

While many college athletics are on a timeout during the pandemic, esports at RIT are plugged in and fully operational. This semester, RIT Esports has student groups playing 15 different competitive games, along with four teams to support esports operations. As teams begin their fall leagues, students are finding different ways to practice and scrimmage in a socially distanced manner.

Through a partnership with the popular online magazine, Vignelli Center lectures are being rebroadcast by Design Milk. The semester's first event featured an inspiring talk by creativity strategist Natalie Nixon.

WYPR.org features scientist Jenn Kotler ’14 (medical illustration), who is leading a team that is making music from space telescope data.