Festival Overview

The CHAT festival will take place February 16-20, 2010, on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus. The festival comprises five major elements (click the heading of each title for more information):

Faculty Projects

At the heart of the festival are our faculty working groups, which are creating multidisciplinary and collaborative arts and humanities projects using technology as a medium. Many involve inter-university teams with UNC faculty and staff collaborating with peers at RENCI, Duke and North Carolina State universities. We will showcase the projects of these working groups, formed in fall 2008 and spring 2009, throughout the festival week.

These cornerstone projects highlight creative work with technology already taking place among academics in this region. Visit our Projects page for information about our exciting working groups.

Student Projects

The Institute views student involvement in the festival as a powerful tool in recruiting future faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students to UNC. Demonstrating a commitment to fostering student innovation in digital arts and humanities will help recruit top students interested in pursuing this field who might otherwise consider other programs.

To that end, Joyce Rudinsky, domain scientist for the arts and humanities at RENCI, and Victoria Szabo, program director of Information Science + Information Studies at Duke, will work with faculty at UNC, Duke and N.C. State to coordinate undergraduate and graduate projects for the festival that feature digital media in the arts and humanities. Plans to announce a contest to solicit student projects are in the works.

Performances

CHAT will feature a number of performances. Two key events are: 

• Festival on the Hill: The Art and Culture of the DJ - The biennial Festival on the Hill, sponsored by UNC’s music department, will run Feb. 18-19 on The Art and Culture of the DJ. It will consist of performances, scholarly presentations and discussions, and a DJ/VJ Dance Party geared toward students.
• Carolina Performing Arts: STREB:Brave Collaborative Performance - The STREB:Brave dance performers will incorporate experimental technologies including "smart" prostheses, a human-sized yo-yo and personal robots.The performances are scheduled Feb. 19-20.

Discussions

The Institute for the Arts and Humanities is collaborating with units across the UNC campus and plans to work with corporate sponsors to identify nationally recognized experts to invite as keynote speakers and panelists during the CHAT festival. Following each keynote lecture, the keynote speaker will moderate a panel with a mixture of local faculty and industry experts.

Workshops

The CHAT festival will offer the opportunity for participants to explore technology and educational topics through a series of workshops on campus.  Details will be posted soon.

In addition, the Institute will give North Carolina public school teachers the opportunity to fulfill some of their Continuing Education credits on technology topics through teaching clinics. Cheryl Mason Bolick and Suzanne Gulledge from the School of Education will lead the effort to bring K-12 teachers to Carolina to earn CE credits in classroom technology during the CHAT Festival.