Category: Uncategorized

No. 9 • 2020-07-01

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Hamilton! (what else?)

If you’ve been following this newsletter for any length of time, you know that I’m a fan of Hamilton. This is a big week for all fans, with the filmed performance of the Original Broadway Cast premiering on the Disney+ streaming service this Friday. Just you wait… just you wait!

Why has this show been able to transcend musical theater, attaining cultural prominence even beyond past Broadway megahits (Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, etc.)? Maybe it’s the mashup of styles (hip hop, Brit pop, classic theater torch songs)? Or perhaps the unique reframing of the American Revolution as it relates to our current struggles of immigration, racism, bigotry, and equality? The inspired casting of people of color in the leading roles of our country’s founding fathers and mothers? Or just the story of the ultimate innovation-powered startup: the United States of America? Of course, it’s all of these elements and more.

An additional component relatively new to the arts world is the creative team’s avid use of Twitter (in particular, composer, librettist, and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda) to engage with the show’s ever-growing legion of fans. Not only does this open a window into the creative process and humanize the creators, it’s another avenue to connect the show to the current world and raise awareness and advocate on behalf of issues. It’s hard to imagine Stephen Sondheim or Andrew Lloyd Webber engaging with the public in such a manner, to explain a lyric or the research behind an historical moment!

Another unique innovation is the Hamilton Education Program(EduHam), an opportunity for students from Title I high schools to see the show (for just $10, “a Hamilton”) andcreate their own raps and performances that they share onstage (!) before they watch the musical. It’s an incredible way of broadening students’ exploration and understanding of American history and its relevance to our very modern challenges. With performances on hold for the COVID-19 outbreak, they recently launched EduHam at Home, a virtual version of the program.

The original plan was to release the film in theaters in 2021, but since live productions aren’t currently running, they made a bold (I think) decision to release the film early on the new Disney+ streaming platform. Cynics will say it’s just a way to make money during the shutdown, but it would have been much easier to wait and release the film in movie theaters to maximize profits (the traditional route of theater > pay per view > streaming). I credit Disney for trying something different to meet this moment.

On top of all this, the original cast just put out a new socially-distanced collaboration with The Roots, playing household instruments. It’s not only a fantastic performance of the show’s hit song “Helpless”, but pushes beyond the standard Zoom grid-style performances that we’ve become accustomed to. Even in isolation, Hamilton continues to innovate.

This is what we should aspire to: a synthesis of creativity, technology, inclusivity, virtuosity, emotion, and profound storytelling that integrates authentic learning. And despite this darkest of years, it helps me remain hopeful and excited for this Independence Day.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Thoughts on Racial Injustice Part III [via LinkedIn Live] A lunch conversation (today at 12pm!) with renowned designers John Maeda and Raja Schaar (Drexel Product Design Program Director and IDSA board member).
  • CO VID-88 [Ted Arthur and friends, via Facebook] A beautiful collaborative composition with 20 pianists, with each composing a short segment to add to the end of the video.
  • Lawrence Brownlee discusses race and opera [ABC News] The renowned operatic tenor (and artistic advisor to Opera Philadelphia) highlights the lack of diversity among artistic administrators. Also don’t miss The Sitdown with LB, his show on Facebook Live.
  • Code Blue [Wilma Theater] A new 13-minute digital work shot with the actors’ iPhones. According to director Blanka Ziska, the Wilma’s Artistic Director, the piece is “looking at our current moment of crisis that has been exacerbated by two kinds of viruses: COVID-19 and racism.”
  • C-U Sings Vol. 1: Let It Be [via YouTube] More than 50 musicians in my hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois came together to produce this collaborative version of this Beatles’ classic as a fundraiser for local healthcare services.
  • MKBHD interviews Apple’s Craig Federighi [via YouTube] Preeminent YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee remotely interviews Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering about the company’s recent announcements at this year’s (virtual) Worldwide Developers Conference.

What I’m creating

Wait For It… here’s a work (very much) in progress that I’ll post without further comment.

No. 8 • 2020-06-24

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Connections

I started this newsletter just 2 months ago (that time feels like 2 years ago!) to highlight the creative work being produced despite social distancing constraints. This theme aligns with a cornerstone of the ExCITe Center: technology & creative expression. The last few weeks, I’ve been emphasizing racial injustice and anti-racism resources, sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and too many others. Equity and justice are also the core foundation of our Center.

So, is ExCITe a research lab? A makerspace? An advocacy center? A game design studio? A training program for students? A home for innovative K-12 activities? A music performance space? Yes. All of those things and more. A few highlights from the ExCITe team this year:

What links these seemingly disparate elements?  Well, Steve Jobs (way back in 1996, before his return to lead Apple) provided an incredibly insightful answer in an interview:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things… A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

Steve Jobs, Interview with Gary Wolf in Wired Magazine (February 1, 1996)

It’s so simple and yet profound, and it’s a concept I firmly believe in. As a transdisciplinary center, the purpose of ExCITe is to “connect more things” to create a better future, whether that’s through technology, gaming, anti-racism advocacy, performing arts, learning science, student training, etc. And in doing so, our Center will continue to defy any simplistic description.  

I hope you’ll consider supporting the ExCITe Center’s efforts today(June 24) through Drexel’s 24 Hours of Impact. (This is particularly for the Drexel community, but all are welcome to participate.) All gifts will directly support students whose work serves our community and neighborhood partnerships in the West Philadelphia Promise Zone.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Lift Every Voice and Sing[Nicole Heaston, viaYouTube] A beautiful and moving collaborative choral performance, featuring prominent Black opera singers of today and years past.
  • HearNOW At-Home Gala[The Philadelphia Orchestra] A special event, featuring composer Valerie Coleman’s “Seven O’Clock Shout”, commissioned for musicians performing & recording during social distancing, and honoring frontline workers. Stream available only through June 25!
  • Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over[The Verge] An iPhone shortcut to quickly begin recording an interaction with police.
  • Ten Thousand Screens[Alarm Will Sound, via YouTube] An extraordinarily clever adaptation of “Ten Thousand Birds” (by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams) for 26 screens, shot in a single take.
  • Evolution of Star Trek Theme Music[VioDance, via YouTube] A beautifully-done arrangement and video of Star Trek TV series themes by violin-DJ duo, Rebeca Sanchez and Davor Jelacic.

What I’m creating

This spring term, for the first time I taught a class completely online. The process included a number of new experiments, both failed and successful, and I’ve highlighted some of the projects in past newsletters. While I’m still reflecting and assessing how I can teach better online, I’ve released my class lectures as a YouTube playlist.

No. 7 • 2020-06-17

Boathouse Row in Blue and Gold

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Virtual Commencement

I am close with quite a few members of this special class, graduating from high school, college, and from graduate programs. Even though we all had the rug pulled from under us this spring when the very nature of schooling changed, it’s been extra challenging for those completing their diplomas and degrees, given the uncertainty of next steps for many.

One of the small positive outcomes from the cancellation of traditional graduation ceremonies and gatherings is that amazing speakers and performers created special events to celebrate this year’s graduates. The Class of 2020 can say that Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill Gates, and Beyonce addressed their class, along with performances by Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and BTS [YouTube’s Dear Class of 2020]. Or that Oprah Winfrey, Simone Biles, and Selena Gomez, and others were their graduation speakers [Facebook’s #Graduation2020].

We’re all sad that the traditional commencements haven’t been possible, but many institutions (and their graduates) have shown enormous creativity in finding ways to celebrate. As pictured, Drexel’s virtual commencement included a physical element of lighting up Philadelphia’s landmarks in our University’s blue & gold colors. UC Berkley held a special ceremony within a campus reconstruction in Minecraft, inviting students to reconnect with their memories of spaces on campus. The School District of Philadelphia held a special city-wide virtual commencement for its graduates, with a keynote address by our friend Malcolm Jenkins, co-founder of the NFL Players’ Coalition.

This spring, the creative work of students everywhere, through virtual collaborative performances, videos, songs, games, and more, inspired me to start this newsletter. I salute all of this year’s graduates. And now, we need you to apply that amazing creativity right away to spark the changes our world so desperately needs.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Celebrate Juneteenth in Philly, From Home [Philadelphia Family] Juneteenth celebrates the ending of slavery (June 19, 1865) as well as Black history and heritage. The African American Museum, the Museum of the American Revolution, the Johnson House Historic Site, and more are organizing virtual celebrations. 
  • $550K committed to fund underrepresented founders [Technical.ly Philly] How a tweet by Kiera Smalls, Executive Director of Philly Startup Leaders, initiated a fund to support underrepresented entrepreneurs.
  • It’s Time We Dealt With White Supremacy in Tech [Medium] Essay examining the terrible inequities in the tech sector.
  • ColorStack [article in Protocol] A new organization for Increasing the entrance, retention, and success of Black and Latinx students pursuing technical careers. There’s already a U. Penn chapter… here’s an opportunity for someone at Drexel to step up.
  • I Can’t Breathe [Yves Dharamraj] A five-cello arrangement of “When I am laid in earth” (from Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas) as a tribute to George Floyd.

What I’m creating

My TEDxDrexelU talk included an interactive performance (the video will be up in a few weeks). For this performance, I wrote a web app(in p5.js) to generate the visual cues used for the audience to play along with their phones. The cues are generated using a text-based markup format, LyriChord, for lyrics+chords that is machine-readable while also remaining easy to read/edit by humans. It’s all pretty nerdy, and much of it is still work in progress, but perhaps these will be useful to someone.

LyriChord visual cues generator
Visual cues generated from LyriChord text input using p5.js web app.

No. 6 • 2020-06-10

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Watch Reflections on the Color of My Skin, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, renowned Astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium, or read his essay.

#ShutDownSTEM / #ShutDownAcademia and #TheShowMustBePaused (Blackout Tuesday)

I have built my professional career on the many positive connections between the Arts and STEM (science, tech, engineering, math). But another link between the two is a blindness to systemic inequities and exclusionary practices. Ironically, both areas also proclaim (embarrassingly loudly, at times) to be about progress and the future. But any tradition built almost entirely on white privilege will, by default, propagate its founding structures. In order to change, we must actively pursue a different course and resist defaulting to the cultural norms of each discipline, tacitly approving institutionalized racism.

The tech industry is rightly receiving enormous criticism right now because of the gross underrepresentation of Black and Latinx people among employees and leadership and the incredible hypocrisy of idolizing a “meritocratic” culture while accumulating enormous financial gains for an increasingly smaller and less diverse group of people. I’m fairly certain no tech founder goes into entrepreneurship with the goal of promoting discrimination… They want to solve problems and build successful businesses, and week to hire the “best” people to achieve those goals. But let’s stop kidding ourselves: It’s not a meritocracy. The tech centers and the college campuses that business and hiring networks draw from are themselves highly exclusionary.

Ah, college campuses. Having been part of higher education nearly all my adult life, I will say that we get an ‘F’ in advancing equity and inclusion. Academics, particularly in STEM, love to use the “rationality” of science and engineering to blind us to the actual discrimination that we are complicit in. Representation, particularly in the high growth fields, like computing, is no better (in some ways, ven worse) than 15-20 years ago.

Again, I don’t believe that’s intentional, but an outcome of an academic culture that is slow to change and where so many perversely believe themselves to be adhering to purely “meritocratic” ideals. Academic rigor, peer review, mountains of prerequisite knowledge, and accreditation “requirements”, are just forms of hazing that disproportionately exclude those from non-white, non-male backgrounds.

In the arts, recall that symphony orchestras employed very few women until they moved to blind auditions (literally, musicians would audition behind a screen) and still employ very few Black and Latinx musicians. It’s still “news” when a lead instrumentalist, opera singer, or ballet dancer is Black. It reminds me of when there were “serious” discussions of whether a Black quarterback could succeed in the NFL, which now seem ridiculous. There are still many many issues with the NFL (mostly having to do with an incredibly exclusive group of uber-wealthy owners), but as a society we’ve moved passed that one. (Unless you start a serious, thoughtful protest movement, in which case you’ll never work in football again.) Still a long ways to go.

Both the Arts and STEM ought to be better aligned with popular culture. While the music industry is far from equitable, Hip Hop has become the predominant popular genre. The film industry is terrible, but #OscarsSoWhite is having an impact. People, not a self-selected exclusionary group, should be the drivers of knowledge, culture, and expression. The Arts and STEM should skate to where the puck is going, and embrace a much more inclusive future.

As with last week’s #TheShowMustBePaused (Black Tuesday), I fully support #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia, and this will be my only post today. This is a day for all institutions to take an honest look at themselves and their practices. A day for each of us to look in the mirror to ask “Have I done all that I can”? A day for us to commit to being on right side of history. I’ll see you tomorrow.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Reflecting on the Color of My Skin[MKBHD] Superstar tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s essay, shares his thoughts on being a black man in technology (and ultimate frisbee). Also check out his many links to black creators in the video notes.
  • #BlackInTheIvory[Twitter] A hashtag where Black colleagues share their experiences in academia’s “Ivory Tower”. See also a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
  • Kill Move Paradise[Wilma Theater] Stream local playwright James Ijames’ 2018 work from June 8 to 21. The play is Inspired by the ever growing list of slain unarmed Black people by police in America. Viewers are asked to donate any amount of money they can to Black Lives Matter Philly.
  • A thread on why change is hard in academia[Daniela Witten] Twitter thread about the difficulties of moving beyond racist figures and traditions in higher education by Daniela Witten, Dorothy Gilford Endowed Chair & Professor of Statistics and Biostatistics.
  • BTS Fans Say They’ve Raised $1 Million for Black Lives Matter Groups[NYTimes] Fans of mega-popular K-Pop group BTS have directed tremendous support and attention towards #BlackLivesMatter.
  • “Share Love, Strength & One Core”[World Cafe Live and Mighty Writers] A new songs collaboration between Mighty Writers youth poets and World Cafe Live teaching artist Ami Yares, inspired by this unprecedented spring of 2020 and the theme of “Community.”

What I’m creating

In support of #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia, I’m not posting any new creations today. I’ll be back with lots of new stuff next week!

No. 5 • 2020-06-03

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“I Still Can’t Breathe” (from 2016, in response to the killing of Eric Garner) is performed by The Chester Children’s Chorus, written and directed by CCC founder (and my inspirational Swarthmore College Chorus director), John Alston.

#BlackLivesMatter

In a “normal” week, this newsletter is about optimism, highlighting new creations that point towards a better future. But this is not a normal week… Not when black people are murdered by those sworn to protect. Not when our city and many others are burning. Not when more than 100,000 people in our country (largely people of color) have lost their lives to a pandemic, the spread of which was highly preventable.

Standing with those protesting the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Tayler, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others, this issue is devoted to justice and equity for black Americans. To those who’ve sent in items, new works and initiatives for the newsletter, thank you, and I’ll return to those in due course. But in this moment, I feel we must focus on the state of our nation.

It is abundantly clear how the media we’re exposed to shapes our perceptions. Everyone was horrified by the video of George Floyd’s murder, and so many have rightly risen up to demand justice for him and so many other lives casually snuffed out by those with privilege and “authority”. We are united in our empathy and outrage.

Now, while broadcast media fixates on looting and property destruction, countless disturbing videos of rampant and unchecked police brutality and vigilantism disseminate mostly through social media:

Widespread recording and livestreaming is having an impact. But it also places greater responsibility on individuals to be our own curators of information, not just passive observers relying on others to make sense of it. My wish is for social media platforms to embrace this challenge, providing better tools for individual curation and organization, though I’m not feeling particularly optimistic about that.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • #BLACKLIVESMATTER [ELLECT] Philadelphia musician and activist ELLECT, aka Stephen Tyson (also adjunct professor and doctoral student at Arcadia University), recorded this song in 2016. 
  • Dear CEOs of Philly Tech [Technical.ly Philly] Advice from Kiera Smalls, Executive Director of Philly Startup Leaders, to the tech community.
  • A history lesson [Erica Buddington] An epic Twitter thread of the history of racial protest and oppression in the United States. Incredibly detailed with so many incidents I was unaware of.
  • Research-based solutions to stop police violence [Samuel Sinyangwe, co-founder of Campaign Zero] A Twitter thread from 2019 summarizing solutions to stopping police violence backed with evidence.
  • Anti-racism resources for white people [Compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein] A starting point for becoming better allies in combating racism.
  • “I can’t breathe… again!” [Nick Cannon] A powerful spoken word video from the well known actor, producer, and rapper in reaction to George Floyd’s murder.
  • 7-day online protest [The King Center] A daily livestream from The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (through June 8).

What I’m creating

Racial inequity not only exists, but self-replicates in all fields, particularly in the STEM disciplines of higher education and the tech industry. Here’s my TEDxPhiladelphia talk from last year on how the digital divide is wider than ever.

Photo by Grace Shallow, via Technical.ly Philly

No. 4 • 2020-05-27

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Virtual TEDx

Like everything else, conferences have been dramatically reshaped by COVID-19. Some have been cancelled or postponed and others restructured as virtual events. These are interesting experiments and likely to have a lasting impact, since conference travel (and housing) is expensive, tiring, and presents a high barrier to access. Ultimately, it depends a great deal on the particular conference whether it makes sense as a virtual event. One of the biggest experiments will be Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), normally an extremely hot (and expensive) ticket, which is going completely virtual (and free) this summer.

The canonical TED/TEDx Talk is already well established as a video-based medium, so a virtual conference with streaming video presentations makes a lot of sense to me. This Sunday (May 31 at 2pm) is TEDxDrexelU 2020, a free event featuring speakers representing our University and the Philadelphia region:

  • Nancy Volpe-Beringer, Fashion Designer and Project Runway contestant
  • Christopher J. Ferguson, Boeing Test Pilot and former NASA Astronaut
  • Dr. Eric A. Zillmer, Director of Athletics (Go Dragons!) & Professor of Neuropsychology
  • Jane Golden, Executive Director and Founder Mural Arts Philadelphia
  • Nadia Malik, Director of the Porch Light Program, Mural Arts Philadelphia
  • And yours truly.

I’m honored to be presenting alongside such prominent speakers, and I’m excited to hear from all of them. I can’t tell you anything about my presentation, except that it will be a different topic from my TEDxPhiladelphia talk last year. I’ll just say that I’ve thought a lot about how best to utilize the medium of a virtual presentation.

There will be a chance to interact online after each presentation.  I hope to “see” you there!

Register Here

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • The Virtual Philadelphia Orchestra is a fantastic series of recorded performances and education programs from one of the best orchestras in the world. A recent offering is the April 2018 premiere performance of Philadelphia Voices, a “crowdsourced city symphony” by composer Tod Machover, which the ExCITe Center had a small role in developing.
  • Fill the Walls with Hope, Rage, Resources, and Dreams [The Philadelphia Citizen] An inspiring project, displaying the work of local artists and poets around the city to uplift, educate and provoke. Click here to view some of the exhibitions.
  • Virtual Tours and Town Halls [National Constitution Center] While the Center is closed, they’ve posted 360° virtual tours of four of their exhibits, and the Virtual Town Halls welcome guest speakers on topics related to our nation and its history.
  • Knight Rider for 8 Cellos [YouTube] – London-based cellist/arranger Samara Ginsberg has been posting some awesome 8-part cello videos, including this one released last week. As a child of the ’80s, and a big fan of K.I.T.T., I felt an obligation to share this. Her performance of The Imperial March is also great.
  • 2020 CX Report [formerly Design In Tech] This week, friend of ExCITe John Maeda posted his annual review of computational and consumer experience trends (he usually presents this at SXSW). As always, it’s stuffed full of great insights, and he’s also posted a 13 minute highlight version.

What I’m creating

We have an ExCITe tradition of occasional Friday musical jam sessions at the Center. Truly live collaboration isn’t really possible over the Internet (there’s too much delay to stay in sync), so my Music & Entertainment Technology Lab students and I have been experimenting with “pass the baton” sessions where we add instrument tracks to quickly hear and build upon each other’s work. It’s not ideal, but you can judge for yourself if it worked well enough for this week’s video.

  Johnny B. Goode  

No. 3 • 2020-05-20

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#OperaOnTheCouch

Despite the current crisis, there’s never been more cultural content available online. We are fortunate to have in our city one of the most innovative opera companies in the world, who have added a unique offering this month.

In 2017, Opera Philadelphia launched the O Festival, exploring the present & future of opera with a focus on producing and premiering new works relevant for our times. The festival has explored a range of venues throughout the city, from the traditional opera house (Academy of Music) to in-place performances at the Philadelphia Museum of Art & the Barnes Foundation. Now the list includes your home.

Digital Festival O offers free streams of five productions, including four world premieres:

  • The groundbreaking Denis & Katya, a “social media opera” and one of the most innovative and thought-provoking works I’ve seen in recent years.
  • We Shall Not Be Moved, a profound work examining Philadelphia’s troubled history of community relations and education.
  • Sky on Swings, by composer (and friend of ExCITe) Lembit Beecher, premieres this week. It’s a poignant and moving view of those afflicted with Alzheimer’s, featuring the legendary Frederica von Stade.
  • The award-winning and highly provocative Breaking the Waves by composer Missy Mazzoli (based on the Lars von Trier film) premieres on May 29.

Most will remain available for streaming through August. I encourage you to experience these productions, while you can!

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Virtual Showcase [Springside Chestnut Hill Academy] Check out more than 40 amazing proto ventures by high school students (seriously, it will make you feel better about our future). Then vote for your favorite by Fri at 5pm!
  • Bridging the Distance [World Cafe Live] Online music education resources, particularly for young people, from their Bridge Sessions program. Also check out the online Free at 1pm weekly live streams from guitarist and vocalist David Falcone every Friday!
  • Julius [Princeton Footnotes] Just an awesome a cappella rendition of this song, originally by Phish, put together by some college students up the road.
  • Artists Didn’t Wait… [Knight Foundation] A nice collection of digital projects and initiatives from arts and culture organizations around the country.
  • Remote recording music for Star Trek [TrekMovie.com] A story and interview about how post-production of Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 is being done remotely, including recording the musical score.

What I’m creating

Can’t let another Hamilton reference pass… especially this week, when it was announced that the 2016 performance of the OG Broadway cast will be available for streaming on Disney+ in July!

So, here’s a couple of Hamilton-themed videos I made in the early days of social distancing to share with friends. Mark your calendars for an online watch party on July 3!

  You’ll Be Back       Dear Theodosia  

No. 2 • 2020-05-13

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Rebuilding together in Minecraft

With schools, colleges, and universities closed around the world, enterprising students are re-creating their physical institutions and campuses in the virtual environment of Minecraft with astonishing detail.

For those unfamiliar with Minecraft, it is much more than a game… you can build entire worlds with a variety of materials (brick, stone, wood, etc.). The low-resolution “blockiness” is intentional, designed for rapid building and flexibility. Construction is performed meticulously block-by-block, with little or no automation (hence the “craft”). As you can see in the linked video, some are extraordinarily creative in their use of materials to evoke structures in the real world.

Locally, students at U. Penn started PennCraft, which quickly became the most detailed and extensive build of any campus. They also invited Drexel students, who have built a large percentage of our adjacent campus in Minecraft. Those familiar with Drexel will recognize some of the iconic structures on our campus, including the Dragon statue and even the Wawa!

One of the most noteworthy aspects is that these collaborations formed virtually. The students only know others by username in Minecraft and Discord (a chat platform)… they don’t know each other’s real names (which made it interesting for me in reaching out to them). It’s a highly detailed recreation built and organized entirely online by individuals who don’t know one another in the “real” world. Very interesting implications for our current time of isolation and perhaps our long-term future.

My son (12) made the Drexel flyover video.

(Socially) Distant Creations

  • BlockByBlockwest [more Minecraft… :-] A music festival & fundraiser in Minecraft, organized by local band Courier Club. Their first attempt was overloaded by demand within 30 minutes and rescheduled for Sat. May 16 at 3pm.
  • Philadelphia Heroes and New Normal Forum [virtual conference, May 13-14] A forum to share stories, forge connections, and envision the post-crisis reality for our city. I’m particularly interested in the sessions on creative placemaking and equity.
  • #MemorialForUsAll [Jazz at Lincoln Center] A moving New Orleans style tribute, honoring those we’ve lost, led by Wynton Marsalis.
  • Into the House [musical parody… for Broadway nerds like me] I was the Baker in a production of Sondheim’s Into the Woods in 1998. The Narrator & Baker’s Wife from that show, my friends Jake & Cara Yara, created this brilliant reflection on COVID isolation with their enormously talented family. Miss you guys!

What I’m creating

For my spring class, Intro to Entertainment Engineering, I assigned a project to create a photomosaic, a photo composed of a mosaic of photos. I’ve published a demonstration and tutorial with my code online for all to try (no coding experience required). With a little effort, you upload photos and create your own photomosaic.

Try the demo

No. 1 • 2020-05-06

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Conversations with civic innovators in Philadelphia

Parallax is a podcast dedicated to understanding and growing a culture of civic innovation in Philly. They speak with leaders across various sectors, disciplines, and communities in Philadelphia, taking on some of the city’s most pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges. These conversations seek to increase knowledge exchange & empower residents to become actively involved in a community-driven approach to innovation.

Hosted by the incomparable Liz Brown, they continue to drop new episodes, including topics addressing the COVID-19 crisis. Recent guests:

  • Brian Murray, Principal of SHIFT Capital
  • Marri Porter, Mayor’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy & Strategic Initiatives
  • Bruce Katz, Author of The New Localism and The Metropolitan Revolution.

Click the button below or search for “Parallax Collab” in your podcast player.

Listen and Subscribe Here

* Parallax is supported in part by an ExCITe 2019 Seed Award for Civic Engagement.

(Socially) Distant Creations

What I’m creating

Donald Kennedy, eighth President of Stanford, recently passed away from COVID-19. In remembrance of him and his support of Stanford and Fleet Street (the a cappella group I sang with), I created this tribute performance of the Stanford Hymn (with virtual contributions from 60+ former and current members).