Media School launches new projection mapping course with trip to Digital Graffiti art festival
Eight Indiana University students will have the chance to see buildings turned into canvases this summer. The Media School’s new course, Digital Graffiti: Projection Mapping Experience, will take students to Alys Beach, Florida, to attend the Digital Graffiti festival May 13-17 before continuing with an asynchronous learning experience through early June.
Katina Bitsicas, a new media artist and first-year associate professor at IU, will teach and lead the university’s first iteration of the course. She said she has worked with the Digital Graffiti festival since 2016, attending it with several groups of students throughout the duration of her 10 years teaching at the University of Missouri.
“Students don’t have to have video experience or anything,” Bitsicas said. “It’s more, they have an interest in contemporary art and video art, that’s really who we’re looking for to participate, because it’s more writing-based assignments.”
Bitsicas explained that projection mapping is a digital art form that involves taking any sort of visual content and projecting it onto a specific structure so that the video takes on the form of whatever it is being projected onto. While the technique is relatively broad, Bitsicas said there are specific types of projection mapping such as architectural mapping, which involves creating a rendering of a building whose features are then morphed via digital imagery.
Bitsicas said Digital Graffiti is unlike any other American art festival she has attended, describing it as “literally an entire city with white walls that is filled with projections.” For the duration of their time at the festival, students will attend several social and educational events surrounding the art of projection mapping. Students will attend four panels during the daytime as well as an awards night and a welcome party.
Bitsicas said she was able to secure partial funding from the university for the trip, bringing the cost of the program down to no more than $1,000, which will cover students’ transportation and lodging. Students must book their own flights and share an Airbnb in Alys Beach.
The first day of the course will be held synchronously online. When students return from the trip, they will complete the course completely online. Bitsicas said the remaining coursework will revolve around students’ experience attending the festival. They will complete journal assignments, a projection mapping project, and an interview with artists they meet at Digital Graffiti.
Bitsicas said the festival offers a chance for artists from around the world to showcase their work, and for students to meet artists from all around the country. She said she hopes students who take the course and attend the festival will feel inspired to continue learning about projection mapping.
“It’s something that’s a very magical, really cool event. So I think, I hope, students attend and they’ll understand more about projection mapping and want to take a projection mapping course with me next spring,” she said.
The course is open to undergraduate and graduate students of any year and major. Although there are no prerequisites or major requirements to apply, preference will be given to students of The Media School and Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design. Course applications must be submitted by March 7.