OCAD University signs agreement with Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem

Monte Kwinter, Reza Moridi, Kathleen Wynne, Dr. Eric Hoskins
Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - 4:00am

OCAD University announced a research and educational partnership with the Jerusalem-based Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. The agreement will promote student, faculty, research and innovation linkages between the two institutions as well as enrich understanding between Israel and Canada. It will also serve to increase the impact of the creative industries in each country and globally.

“OCAD University is pleased to contribute to Ontario’s global success through this partnership that will also expand our global impact,” said Carole Beaulieu, OCAD University’s Associate Vice-President of University Relations. Beaulieu is part of the Premier’s Mission to Israel and the West Bank and signed the agreement on behalf of the university.

The agreement will create a research and educational partnership between Canada and Israel through the countries’ two leading art and design institutions: OCAD University and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Specifically, the relationship will:

  • Create student and faculty exchanges;
  • Link OCAD University’s networking of research and innovation laboratories, the Digital Media + Research Innovation Institute, to Bezalel Research Authority and Bezalel Labs Ltd., which will leverage talent in both countries to find solutions to pressing problems such as designing for environmental sustainability and co-creating products for market; and
  • Leverage the talent and expertise in Ontario’s specialized art and design incubator (OCAD University’s Campus-Linked Accelerator, Imagination Catalyst) and share its brand of creative entrepreneurship, particularly its inclusive design and strategic foresight expertise, with Bezalel Research Authority and Bezalel Labs, linking to Middle Eastern partnerships through the collaboration.

"I look forward to seeing the creative minds at OCAD University and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design collaborating on arts-based research projects," said Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. "This partnership will lead to more opportunities to learn about Ontario’s and Israel’s cultures through art and design, and it will also open up new business markets for the creative industries in both regions."

“Bezalel Academy's newly expanded partnership with OCAD University reflects our outreach for excellence through international research and innovation, in the fields of art, design and architecture,” said Liv Sperber, Vice President for International Affairs, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Israel’s oldest institute of higher education, was established 110 years ago by Prof. Boris Schatz and is currently Israel’s leading academy of art, design and architecture and one of the most prestigious of its kind in the world. Bezalel and its many generations of graduates are at the forefront of the local and global artistic scene and are instrumental in shaping and enriching Israel's cultural identity as well as contributing greatly to the national achievements in the hi-tech industry and society as a whole. 

As Ontario’s only and Canada’s leading art, design and digital media university, OCAD University brings specialized capacity to the workforce, creating jobs, stimulating innovation and research, and contributing to economic development in Canada. Through the delivery of experiential, hands-on learning and through specialized programs — such as those offered by the Imagination Catalyst — the university supports individuals and teams in the development of startups and the building of cross-sector partnerships. The contexts for such work are remarkably varied: information and communication technologies (ICT), digital, mobile, the health sciences, gallery and exhibition venues, design studios, government and the cultural industries.

5 questions for digital trailblazer Ana Serrano

Ana Serrano, adjunct professor in OCAD U’s Digital Futures graduate program, has won the Digital Media Trailblazing Award at the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards. She is also the Chief Digital Officer of the Canadian Film Centre and Founder of CFC Media Lab, the world-renowned and award-winning institute for interactive storytelling created in 1997.

 

Congratulations on your Digital Media Trailblazing Award at the Canadian Screen Awards! How does it feel to be recognized like this?

It feels great and a little bit overwhelming. I feel quite honoured.

 

As Chief Digital Officer of the Canadian Film Centre and founder of the CFC Media Lab, what are the biggest changes you’ve witnessed in the past almost-20 years in the Canadian digital media scene?

The biggest change has to do with the adaptability, nimbleness and quick uptake of audiences. I didn’t expect the changes we’ve seen to be so constant.

I’ve also noticed the slowness of the rest of the industry to keep pace in relation to how quickly audiences have adopted to new digital media. 

The third thing that I’m just starting to notice with each new tech platform and perceived tech leapfrog is that there’s an initial stage when we think we’ve created something new, such as virtual reality.  We think we don’t have to look back. It’s true to a certain extent but there’s so much that’s happened in the past that informed it and we forget.

 

Photo of Ana Serrano

 

The CFC Media Lab is a partner with OCAD U’s Digital Futures program — why do you think this is an important partnership?

The CFC Media Lab always started with a mandate about talent — how do we help support and incubate the next generation of storytellers using whatever platform of the future. So, it seemed totally a no-brainer that as universities kept pace with changes in digital media that we’d partner with a university that can grant degrees.

 

Tell us about your IDEABOOST accelerator.

IDEABOOST is a digital entertainment accelerator. As talent, industry and audiences grow, the next phase is working with companies. IDEABOOST is focused on investment seeding and support for tech-based entertainment companies that are changing the face of entertainment in Canada.

 

What led you to working in digital media and why do you still love it?

I’ve always been interested in humanities and focused on storytelling. My first digital touchpoint was running a fiction and poetry magazine at McGill University. I started publishing the magazine digitally and I started to love the digital medium. I was later hired by Don Tapscott, with whomI learned a lot about the impact of the new medium.

I love digital media because it’s always new. I’m enamoured with taking risks, being first, doing something no one else has done, supporting underdogs and seeing difficult ideas come to life. Digital media is always changing and reinventing itself and I enjoy the complexity of it.

 

 

 

 

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Digital Futures Initiative lauded for TVO training program

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - 4:30pm

The Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) honoured OCAD U for outstanding training programs and products at the 2014 CSTD Conference and Trade Show in Toronto on November 14.

The award was given to the Digital Futures Initiative for its partnership with TVO to offer a training and certification package to TVO’s digital media content creators. This training builds on TVO’s success and impact as a digital media organization through its apps, podcasts, and video streams on YouTube and TVO’s websites.

“The 2014 winners each presented a unique and revolutionary approach to adult learning. By combining the technological innovations of the future with the latest in workplace learning and solutions, these organizations have set a new and exciting standard,” said Rob Pearson, Ph.D., President of CSTD.

Established in 1946, The Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) is Canada’s professional association focused on learning in the workplace.

The Digital Futures Initiative is a collection of research laboratories, graduate and undergraduate programs that sit at the cutting edge of creative digital technology and industries.

 

 

 

 

OCAD University presents two-day digital media symposium, Euphoria & Dystopia

Monday, January 14, 2013 - 5:00am

(Toronto—January 14, 2013) OCAD University presents Euphoria & Dystopia, a two-day digital media symposium and graduate student research workshop on January 31 and February 1, 2013.

The period of the early 1990s through to 2005 saw intensive technological change; the massive adoption of digital media, the rise, fall, and re-emergence of an information, technology, and communication boom economy. Euphoria and Dystopia invites reflection on the digital concerns of the 1990s and early 21st century, weighing these preoccupations against contemporary research, industrial, social and cultural trends.

Sponsored by national research network and commercialization engine GRAND NCE, Euphoria & Dystopia takes its inspiration from the book Euphoria and Dystopia: The Banff New Media Institute Dialogues, edited by Dr. Sarah E. Cook and OCAD University President, Dr. Sara Diamond. The publication is a compendium of some of the most important thinking about art, design technology and the new media industries to have taken place in the last few decades at the international level.

Euphoria & Dystopia will feature dialogues among current digital media researchers, designers, artists and scientists; a master’s and doctoral student research workshop and an authors’ keynote and book launch. Moderated panel discussions will investigate themes coinciding with the chapters of Euphoria & Dystopia: the Banff New Media Institute Dialogues:

  • new media economies, copyright and open source models; the growing importance of data, its analysis and visualization, memory and documentation;
  • the underlying scientific grounding for new media in physics and graphics computing;
  • changes in how we understand humanity: artificial life, artificial intelligence, robotics;
  • new media art: curatorial practice, digital art’s exhibition and historicisation;
  • Online social and individual identity gender, cultural difference, health and wellness; and
  • Production and Distribution: models of production and collaboration in new media.

Sara Diamond, co-author and Founding Director of the BNMI invites audiences to experience exciting foresights about our digital world. “As we did at The Banff Centre, these events gather together many forms of intelligence, knowing that unpredictable and exciting networks, projects and ideas will arise.”

Confirmed speakers include:

  • Dr. Lyn Bartram, Assistant Professor , School of Interactive Arts & Technology, Simon Fraser University, creator of human centred systems 
  • Philip Beesley, Professor, School of Architecture, University of Waterloo, Winner of Prix de Rome in Architecture, VIDA 11.0, FEIDAD, two Governor General’s Awards
  • Dr. Joanna Berzowska, Assistant Professor of Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University, Founder and Director of XS Labs, wearable technologies
  • Mark Bishop, Co-CEO & Executive Producer, Marble Media
  • Dr. Kellogg Booth, Scientific Director, GRAND National Centre of Excellence
  • Dr. Sheelagh Carpendale, Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada Research Chair and researcher information visualization and user centred design
  • Dr. Sarah Cook, Reader & Director of MA in Curating Module, University of Sunderland
  • Dr. Sara Diamond, President and Vice-Chancellor, OCAD University, O. of Ont., RCA
  • Steve Dietz, Independent Curator, President and Artistic Director Northern Lights
  • Dr. Sidney Fels, Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Director of Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC)
  • Dr. Eugene Fiume, Professor and past Chair of the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
  • Dr. Abby Goodrum, VP Research, Wilfrid Laurier University, Director for Social Science and Humanities Research, GRAND
  • Susan Kennard, Manager of Heritage Programs, Banff Field Unit, Parks Canada, former Director BNMI
  • Keith Kocho, Entrepreneur of the Year, Founder & President, ExtendMedia Inc.
  • Dr. Maria Lantin, Director of the Intersections Digital Studios, Emily Carr University of Art + Design
  • Cheryl l'Hirondelle, Indigenous Media Artist and Musician
  • James (Jamie) Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International, U.S. co-chair of the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) Intellectual Property Policy Committee
  • Dr. Celia Pearce, Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Georgia Tech, games analyst and interactive designer
  • Ellie Rubin, Founder of Bulldog, creator of Technorati web series and television personality
  • Dr. Kim Sawchuk, Department of Communication Studies & Mobile Media Lab, Concordia University, editor Canadian Journal of Communication
  • Stephen Selznick, Partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, Digital and Entertainment law expert
  • Jutta Treviranus, Director and Professor at Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University

Guests are invited to register (free) for the keynote talk and book launch on January 31 at http://edlaunch-es2001.eventbrite.ca.

All symposium and workshop events are free, no registration required. For a complete schedule, visit http://euphoriadystopia.ca/.
 

 

 

Background:

About the book:
Based on the research of the Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) from 1995 to 2005, Euphoria and Dystopia: The Banff New Media Institute Dialogues celebrates the belief that the creative sector, artists and cultural industries, in collaboration with scientists, social scientists and humanists, have a critical role to play in developing technologies that work for human and environmental betterment and allow for a more participatory culture. The book/archive examines the major trends in digital media practice, research and economies during the period of 1995 to 2005, with consideration of earlier roots and later history. The book is organized by key themes that have underscored the dialogues of the BNMI and within each are carefully edited transcriptions drawn from thousands of hours of audio material documenting BNMI events such as the annual Interactive Screen and the numerous summits and workshops. Each chapter is introduced by an essay from the book editors that discusses the dialogues, research and creative co-production at Banff from 1990 to 2005 and a commissioned essay from a leading new media thinker. The book includes the catalogue for The Art Formerly Known As New Media exhibition, Walter Phillips Gallery, 2005 and a DVD based on the electronic journal and online gallery produced at Banff, HorizonZero.ca in collaboration with Heritage Canada..

More on the Banff New Media Institute (BNMI):
The Banff New Media Institute (1995-2010) in the awe-inspiring Rocky Mountains was a dynamic international centre that addressed dramatically changing times — the heady rise of the digital age, its tumultuous descent, and its reformulation. BNMI hosted leading artists, designers, computer scientists and engineers, mathematicians, physicists, biologists, chemists, humanists, social scientists, and medical researchers. Its cutting edge summits (think tanks) foretold that future. These occurred at The Banff Centre, side by side with international artists’ residencies, co-productions, transdisciplinary research, new media exhibitions and the incubation of commercial products and companies. The BNMI predicted and shaped trends in digital media.

OCAD University (OCAD U):
OCAD University (www.ocadu.ca) is Canada’s “university of imagination.” The university, founded in 1876, is dedicated to art and design education, practice and research and to knowledge and invention across a wide range of disciplines. OCAD University is building on its traditional, studio-based strengths, adding new approaches to learning that champion cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and the integration of emerging technologies. In the Age of Imagination, OCAD University community members will be uniquely qualified to act as catalysts for the next advances in culture, technology and quality of life for all Canadians.

GRAND NCE:
GRAND (Graphics, Animation and New Media) is a research network and commercialization engine whose goal is to address complex issues in digital media and transform multidisciplinary research into user-centred solutions. GRAND explores the use and application of digital media in a variety of settings including entertainment, health care, education, environmental sustainability and public policy.

GRAND is a federally funded Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE), and supports 37 research projects involving teams of researchers at 26 universities across Canada. Partnering with more than 60 industry, government, and non-profit organizations, GRAND is able to facilitate research across the broad spectrum of digital media by linking computer scientists and engineers with artists, designers and social scientists.

Through technology solutions, training the next generation of talent and encouraging a robust policy environment, GRAND plays a pivotal role in supporting Canada’s National Digital Economy Strategy.

Join the conversation:
Website/blog: http://euphoriadystopia.ca/
Twitter: #EuphDys
Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+

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Download this release as a PDF document.

Sarah Mulholland, Media & Communications Officer
416-977-6000 x327 (mobile x1327)

Dr. Sara Diamond named Digital Media Pioneer

Tuesday, May 14, 2013 - 4:00am

(Toronto—May 14, 2013) OCAD University President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Sara Diamond was awarded the GRAND Network of Centres of Excellence 2013 Digital Media Pioneer at a ceremony this morning as part of GRAND’s annual digital media conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The award celebrates outstanding Canadians whose vision and achievements have made important contributions to the development of digital media.

Dr. Diamond has long championed interdisciplinary collaboration — engaging artists and designers with engineers and scientists in a spirit of diversity and inclusion. From 1992 to 2005 she initiated visionary programs at the Banff Centre, Canada's preeminent arts and creativity incubator. The Banff New Media Institute, created and led by Dr. Diamond during its first decade, provided a national venue and an international forum for exploring many of the ideas and challenges emerging from digital media.

“Canada has long been a leader in digital media, developing new technology, envisioning the social and cultural changes it fosters, and exploring its potential in the artistic, scientific and economic spheres,” said Dr. Kellogg S. Booth, Scientific Director at GRAND NCE. “On behalf of Canadians everywhere, the GRAND Network of Centres of Excellence celebrates the contributions of key individuals who have made played significant roles in the digital media revolution by recognizing them as Canadian Digital Media Pioneers.

“The Banff New Media Institute brought together international thinkers to discuss emerging digital media phenomenon in a quintessentially Canadian environment. Organized by Dr. Sara Diamond, these ‘summits’ helped to guide our understanding of the potential for digital media as participants experimented with it in sometimes playful but always serious ways.”

“Building capacity in digital media research and supporting Canadian industries is dear to my heart,” said Dr. Diamond. “I believe our success as a nation is predicated on a powerful digital economy and society.”

An artist, video curator, cultural critic, television-video producer, and an instructor at art centres and colleges throughout North America, Dr. Diamond is widely published in Canadian and international art and social history journals. Her series of articles in 1985 on cultural politics and feminist ideology investigated the class position of artists and women and links to the production of culture. She later organized several events for Aboriginal artists, producers, directors and critics encouraging dialogue within Canada, and across the United States and the Pacific Rim. These included a series of Aboriginal streaming workshops that examined local radio and television practices of First Nations in Canada and Aboriginal peoples throughout the world, the use of streamed media for creative processes, and technologies such as the World Wide Web as vehicles for producing and disseminating First Nations and Aboriginal art and culture.

With the creation of the Banff New Media Institute (BNMI), Dr. Diamond introduced a uniquely Canadian response to digital media as an emerging cultural force. It succeeded in providing a new convergent space for art, design, science, and technology. Developed as both a physical and virtual centre, the institute created and supported research, social networks, artworks, designs, technologies, theorizations, economies and even companies.

For many, the Institute was a site of first engagement for dialogues, strategies and practices responding to the intensive technological changes underway: the massive adoption of “new media” (and later “digital media”), and the rise, fall and re-emergence of the digital economy. As documented in her book (co-edited by Sarah Cook) Euphoria & Dystopia: The Banff New Media Institute Dialogues, Dr. Diamond hosted important international think tanks and collaborations at the BNMI on information and communications technology, digital media, and scientific research, including a series of influential summits examining the relationship between art and technology.

Invited artists, designers, critical thinkers and scientists from Latin America, Africa, Asia, Central and Western Europe, the United States and Canada coalesced in cross-disciplinary teams that explored the many perspectives and effects of "going digital."

The summits were forums for “design thinking” about the digital world, and helped researchers and practitioners at the forefront of their fields share ideas and visions. Most importantly, the summits engendered in participants a new appreciation for interdisciplinary collaboration. They also helped provide a basis for new initiatives, including the vision for a pan-Canadian digital media research network that formed the early nucleus for the GRAND Network of Centres of Excellence.

Social issues have been at the core of Dr. Diamond’s work, along with family relationships, labour struggles, and modern-day working conditions — especially for women. Her role in advancing artists’ and designers’ work in new technologies has been widely recognized, and her own practice as a new-media artist is heavily influenced by design. She acknowledges that “I ... position myself between the two fields ... [t]he participatory, iterative process of design — the rigour of the design process — I find that very attractive.” Her ambitious CodeZebra project combines art and science and includes CZOS, an advanced web based visualization tool that enables conversation between different individual and groups on the Internet. CodeZebra won a Canadian Digital Innovation Award in 2003.

As President of OCAD University, Dr. Diamond continues her efforts to promote interdisciplinary research and to build digital media industries in Canada. The Digital Futures Initiative and other new research initiatives are exploring the intersections of design with such areas as health and sustainable technologies. She also played a leading role in establishing OCAD U’s unique Indigenous Visual Culture Program and is a co-principal investigator in the Centre for Information Visualization/Data Driven Design, a cross-disciplinary initiative with York University that brings together artists, designers, engineers and scientists.

For many years, Dr. Diamond has been a catalyst in bringing together the many disciplines within the digital media community in dialogue and collaboration. Her leadership at the Banff New Media Institute helped keep Canada at the forefront of international research and practice, while inspiring many others to follow in her footsteps. For this and many other contributions to Canadian digital culture, Sara Diamond is recognized as a Canadian Digital Media Pioneer.

Biography
Born in 1954, Dr. Sara Diamond received a BA in History and Communications from Simon Fraser University, a Masters in Digital Media Theory from the University of Arts, London, and a PhD in Computing, Information Technology and Engineering from the University of East London. She has taught at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design, the California Institute for the Arts, University of California, LA (where she continues as an Adjunct Professor) and the Technical University of British Columbia. Beginning in 1992 she was the Director of the Television and Video Program at the Banff Centre and later the Artistic Director of Media and Visual Art, Founding Director of the Banff New Media Institute and Director of Research. Since 2005 she has been the President and Vice-Chancellor of the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD University).

Dr. Diamond has published articles and reviews in Canadian and international art, culture and labour publications including FUSE Magazine, Vanguard, C Magazine, Video Guide, Parallelogram, Popular Studies Journal, and B.C. Heritage. Her video art and broadcast works have been exhibited and screened in Europe, England, Mexico, the Pacific Rim, the United States and Canada, and at numerous video and film festivals around the world. Her videos and installations are in many collections such as the National Gallery of Canada where she had a retrospective in 1992, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Canada Council Art Bank and the California Institute of the Arts. She has served on numerous advisory boards and committees including the Executive of the Council of Ontario Universities, the Ontario Ministry of Culture’s Advisory Council on Arts & Culture, the Standing Advisory Committee on University Research and the Standing Advisory Committee on International Relations for the Association of Universities and Colleges, and the expert panel on the State of Science & Technology in Canada for the Council of the Canadian Academies. She is an appointee of the Order of Ontario and of the Royal Canadian Society of Artists and a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.

OCAD University (OCAD U):
OCAD University (www.ocadu.ca) is Canada’s “university of imagination.” The university, founded in 1876, is dedicated to art and design education, practice and research and to knowledge and invention across a wide range of disciplines. OCAD University is building on its traditional, studio-based strengths, adding new approaches to learning that champion cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and the integration of emerging technologies. In the Age of Imagination, OCAD University community members will be uniquely qualified to act as catalysts for the next advances in culture, technology and quality of life for all Canadians.

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Contact:
Sarah Mulholland, Media & Communications Officer
416-977-6000 x327 (mobile x1327)

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