This year marked a transitional stage for the Experimental and Media Arts department. Together with my colleagues Lynn Lukkas and Diane Willow, we accomplished the following:

-Official name change from Time and Interactivity to Experimental and Media Arts
-Creation of the EMA area blog with a centralized calendar and online resources for our graduate and undergraduate students
-Conceptualization and initial deployment of a comprehensive space reconfiguration: new sound studio (Regis W131), new advanced video lab (W121, the old space was given to the Regis tech staff to meet their needs), new mixed analog-digital studio shared with painting and drawing (W248)
-Preparation and submission of three major CLA-OIT Tech Fees grants (requesting a total of $150,000) for necessary upgrades of hardware and software in Regis

Fall 2009

I will be representing the Experimental and Media Arts area of the department of art in the GARC committee for the next two academic years.

Primary agenda items to which I will be contributing are:
-space reconfiguration in Regis: working with Marc Knierim and area representatives to identify and reconfigure under-used spaces in Regis. the focus is to create spaces for cross-area collaboration for the graduate students
-coordination of materials for the new art department web-site.
-coordination of EMA incoming graduate student applications

Fall 2009: Development of the new Art Department website is underway. As chair of this departmental committee, I am acting as the main organizer and communications agent between the department, CLA-OIT and the CLA Web Team. All coordination of the department's efforts are organized through this website. First draft of text revisions will be gathered by 12/9/09; in the mean-time, I will be working with area heads and staff members to get all necessary content components in place for the CLA Web Team. For more information about tasks and time-line refer to the above website.

Fall 2009:

I am the EMA area representative for the visiting artist committee, chaired by Jenny Schmid and Chris Larson. In addition to recommending and reviewing recommendations for visiting artists, my primary goal is to create an online presence for the visiting artist program to 1) coordinate organizational efforts and 2) to make the programs activities more publicly visible.

The visiting artist committee's new website is here. Committee members are charged with gathering and submitting appropriate content for this site. The new Art Department website will be able to receive feeds from this site in order to make our activities visible on the primary art department website as well.

Research

Sample Works by Ali Momeni

• Smoke and Hot Air (2008)
  in collaboration with Robin Mandel
  Installation for smoke-ring quartet, synthesized voice, electronics and microcontroller
• Table Settings (2008)
  in collaboration with David Bithell
  Live table-top musical theater performance
• For Air, For Water (2008)
  in collaboration with Da Wei Xu
  Live Cinema
• Animal Warmth (#28, Now is the Time) (2008)
  Installation for carbon filament light bulbs, electronics and real-time software
• Minneapolis Art on Wheels (2008)
  Public Arts Collective formed and led by Ali Momeni
  See this page for the "About Us" information, or explore the MAW site.
• Wall Whisperer (2008)
  Live Cinema
• Eyes and Ears and the Truth it self (No People Allowed) (2008)
  In collaboration with Jenny Schmid
  Live Cinema
• What Paint Doesn't (2007-8)
  Live Cinema

Teaching

Sample Course Syllabi and Student work by Ali Momeni

I am committed to using technology in my teaching. With the help of the pedagogic tools available at the University of Minnesota, I have conducted all of my courses thus-far in a mostly paper-free manner. All course syllabi, reading assignments, references and student works are on-line. Below you will find directed links to my course materials; please use the digital copy of this document with a computer connected to the internet.

2008-2009

• ART 8400: Theoretical Constructions in Contemporary Art (Fall 2008)
  Class Blog and Course Information/Syllabus
  Assigned Readings and students' responses

• COLA 1521/3521/4521 Collaboratory I: Collaborative Research Laboratory (Fall 2008)
  Class Blog
• COLA 1001: The Art of Collaboration (Fall 2008)
  Class Blog and Course Information/Syllabus

2007-2008

• ARTS 5670: Interdisciplinary New Media Collaborations: Teating Time (Spring 2008)
  Class Blog and Course Information/Syllabus
• COLA 3950/5950: Art for the People, Art on Wheels (Spring 2008)
  Class Blog and Course Information/Syllabus
  Some Sample Student Works
• ARTS 3603/5630: Experimental Video (Fall 2007)
  Class Blog and Course Information/Syllabus
  Some Sample Student Works

Service

• Art Department
• Collaborative Arts
• College of Liberal Arts/Univsersity

Other

• Grants
• Lectures
• Press

Spring 2008, Fall 2008
Together with the two other core faculty of COLA, Michael Sommers and Guerino Mazzola, and our director Michael Cherlin, we finalized and submitted the following:

1) Requirements for a COLA major in the CLA
2) Description of the COLA Fundamentals course (i.e. COLA 1001, The Art of Collaboration). The course is approved, and will be co-taught by all COLA core faculty.

Fall 2008: After a convincing argument to the department, delivered by myself and Jenski at the faculty retreat in Feb. 2007, I was appointed chair of the Public Image/Web Presence committee.

The College of liberal arts has approved (and funded) a major update of the West Bank Arts Quarter (including Arts, Music, Theater and Dance, and Collaborative Arts). The college has hired the services of bswing to evaluate the usage and needs of the arts departments websites.

Update (11/20/08)
I met with bswing on a number of occasions for interviews and discussions. They seem to be asking the right questions, though their focus seems to be the West Bank Arts Quarter, as opposed to the departments that make up the WBAQ.

Update (12/04/08)
According to the presentation on bswing on Dec. 4, 2008, the WBAQ remains only a geographical indication, while the needs of the websites for independent departments remain many, diverse and sometimes overlapping. The next stage will be a graphical presentation of a web-site by bswing to the WBAQ-wide committee to which I am the Art Department representative.

Fall 2008: I served on the Curriculum Committee in the department of art. Our main considerations were:

1) re-evaluation of major project for the BFA track; after consideration of all feedback from students and instructors, we decided to recommend to the department to break the class into a number of options: 1st, an "Art and Life" course, much in the style of the present "Art in the Twin Cities" course; as many of the BFAs do not go on to pursue careers in the arts, a fitting cap-stone course would be to assure that the know their local art world well and have experienced it aesthetically and critically. Another option would be an advanced studio; most BFAs do not get a lot of studio experience in our department (more than %50 are transfer students). An additional upper level studio would allow them valuable time to develop their voice

2) re-consideration of the Public Spaces position for grads: the last three graduate students have quit this position due to its unrealistic demands. A potential solution can be to make the BFA show juried, and therefore smaller.

3) re-consideration of the 2-year language requirement for BFAs. This question is to be investigated further

Spring 2008:
I was recommended by UMN Vice President Steven Rosenstone to Weismann Art Museum Director Lyndel King to serve on the advisory committee for the museums expansion project.

The project involves the construction of several new gallery spaces, as well as a "Target Collaborative Studio", on the front side of the museum.

The project should be completed by 2010.

Spring 2008:

I was invited by Vice President for Scholarly and Cultural Affairs, Steven Rosenstone, to be a part of the 6-member technology advisory committee for the ambitious re-design of Northrop Hall, one of the oldest buildings on the UMN Twin Cities Campus.

We collectively came up with a list of wants, needs and ideas; they include: the maximization of public spaces, the allocation of the best spaces in the building to those public spaces, the need for a highly wired building, the possibility to use the outside of the building (e.g. projections) as well as the inside, the possibilities of visualizing the activity inside the space on the outside architecture.

Fall 2008:

Benjamin M. Johnson has been appointed to the position of Concerts and Lectures at the University of Minnesota, here's the announcement.