CHAT Festival Coming Feb 2010

Next year is going to be a huge year in our area.  There's CHAT:  ADigital Arts and Humanties Festival here in February 2010 and then theW3C is holding its annual international conference in Raleigh inApril.  HASTAC hopes to be part of these major, incredible events inour community.

  A preview:
 

CHAT: A Digital Arts and Humanities Festival in February 2010

Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology

The Institute for the Arts and Humanities is coordinating astate-wide festival to showcaseCollaborations:Humanities, Arts& Technology(CHAT) in February2010. 

CHAT will be a first step toward makingUNC, and the Triangle area, a nationally recognized leader in the useof new technologies for collaborative scholarly research and education.This 10-day festival will be an opportunity for local and nationalcommunities to witness and participate in ongoing projects by artists,performers, scholars and technologists.  We inviteyou to engage in new media and explore collaborative process throughthe use of technology.

UNC is well poised to become a major center for technologicalinnovation in the next five years:

• Our School of Information and Library Science (SILS) is ranked #1 in the nation.  It attracts top researchers with ties to IT industries nationally. SILS recently recruited the world-renowned Data Intensive Cyber Environments (DICE) group (formerly known as Data Intensive Computing Environments group), long of the University of California, San Diego?s Supercomputer Center. The award-winning research group brings expertise in development of digital data technologies, including open source software that enables sharing of data in collaborative research, publication of data in digital libraries and preservation of data in persistent archives for use by future generations, along with a research portfolio exceeding $10 million.
• Our highly rated Department of Computer Science has one of the top programs in the nation for interative computer graphics and has strong ties to local IT companies.
• Within 30 miles of our flagship campus in Chapel Hill are two other leading Research-1 institutions:  Duke and North Carolina State universities. Faculty and students at all three campuses already are beginning to engage informally in inter-institutional experiments that bring together humanities content, artistic vision and new technologies. We recognize these existing ties and hope to provide the fertile ground to grow new ones. Visit our Friends of the Festival page for links to resources at Duke and NC State.
• These three premier campuses surround the Research Triangle Park (RTP).  Currently home to more than 35 IT companies, RTP is one of the most globally prominent high-technology Research & Development centers in the world. It boasts one of the largest concentrations of game development companies in the U.S.:  more than 30 gaming companies employ more than 1,000 people in the Triangle, making this region a center of innovation for the gaming industry in particular. The interest in gaming as an innovative teaching and learning technology is reflected in the Games4Learning initiative on our campus.
• Another important new resource in the Triangle is the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI).  Launched in 2004, RENCI is a major collaborative venture of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University and North Carolina State University. It brings together multidisciplinary experts and advanced technological capabilities to address pressing research issues and to find solutions to complex problems that affect the quality of life in North Carolina, our nation and the world.

Faculty in the arts and humanities are beginning to take advantageof these area resources. CHAT is designed to incite movement intodigital arts and humanities by commissioning work from faculty, staffand graduate students and by showcasing new possibilities forcollaborative practice and innovative artistic and scholarly expressionenhanced by technological innovation.