Digital Humanities and Media

by Nathan Halverson | Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of English and Newcomb Department of Art
I work in digital media to study the personal and cultural associations that shape our perceptions of media and technology, and the assumptions about referentiality, artificiality, and authenticity we impose on them. Much of my recent work relates to political and physical environments, the digital representation of places, and their convergence in contemporary life.

Students in Digital Art I and II use a variety of software to create digital projects while also researching and discussing issues and concepts in contemporary art. Students in the 3000-level English Special Topics course in Digital Humanities are introduced to concepts in digital media history and production. They research and produce multimedia works beginning with combining sound and images with text.

In 2016 some of these students participated in the Confluences Expanded Media Symposium at Southern Illinois University where their work was exhibited alongside student work from other schools including The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The College of New Jersey, and SIU-Carbondale. The semester’s work included taking part in a multi-campus conversation to develop a thematic focus for the symposium and contributing research and content about New Orleans in the form of writing, images, sound recordings, and digital maps. The work was exhibited as part of a multi-media digital art exhibit on the Southern Illinois University campus. Some of this work can be see on the Confluences Expanded Media website which students also helped to create.