Anne Balsamo

Ph.D. - Mass Communications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work  2011 - Book

Anne Balsamo Appointed Inaugural Dean of ATEC School

Dr. Anne Balsamo has been named as the inaugural dean of the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at UT Dallas.  
Balsamo is a scholar, educator, entrepreneur and designer of new media whose research and interactive projects explore the cultural possibilities of emergent media technologies. Her recent book, Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work, offers a manifesto for rethinking the role of culture in the process of technological innovation in the 21st century.  

School of ATEC Adds Experts on Media Distribution, Game Studies

The School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication welcomed two new tenure-track faculty members this fall.

Assistant professors Dr. Juan Llamas-Rodriguez and Dr. Hong-An (Ann) Wu add their expertise to the areas of critical media studies and game studies. Llamas-Rodriguez studied film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Wu studied art education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Both Dr. Llamas-Rodriguez and Dr. Wu are assets to our school,” said Dr. Anne Balsamo, dean of the school. “ATEC is a destination for artists, designers, scholars, researchers and reflective practitioners who seek to collaborate on intentional future-making through the creation of new cultural forms, the design of new technological experiences, the production of new knowledge, and the transformation of cultural industries. Their work aligns perfectly with the ATEC philosophy to inspire students, faculty, staff, colleagues and the public to think critically about the entanglement of technology and culture.”

ATEC School Builds on Strategy with Addition of Game Studies Expert

The School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication has welcomed a new tenure-track faculty member to its staff this fall.

Dr. Josef Nguyen, an expert in play and game studies, comes to UT Dallas from the University of California, Davis, where he was affiliated with the ModLab, an experimental lab for media research and digital humanities. Embodying ATEC’s interdisciplinary nature, Nguyen’s research interests lie at the intersection of technology, literature and digital media.

Emerging Media Expert to Discuss Interactive Projects on Feb. 18

A leading expert in the field of media studies will present a talk on public interactives — an emergent media form that serves to drive social engagement in communal spaces such as urban streets, museums and transportation hubs.

Dr. Anne Balsamo, dean of the School of Media Studies at The New School in New York City, will give a lecture at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, in the Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building’s lecture hall. Her talk, “Designing Culture: Reading Walls, World Expos, and Digital Memorials,” is free and open to the public.

ATEC Leaders’ AIDS Quilt Touch Stitches Together Tapestry for Digital Age

The AIDS Memorial Quilt began in 1985 with a few people who wanted to ensure that their loved ones who had died from AIDS would be remembered. Thirty-five years later, a technology project spearheaded by leaders of the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication (ATEC) at The University of Texas at Dallas enables people all over the world to view the panels of those who are memorialized in the quilt.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt, now part of the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco, is a 54-ton tapestry that includes more than 48,000 panels dedicated to more than 100,000 individuals. It remains a symbol of the AIDS pandemic — a memorial to those who died from AIDS — and an HIV-prevention education tool. The quilt is considered the largest community arts project in history.

Because of its size — it would take more than 50 miles to display — the quilt no longer can be shown in one location. However, an interactive application called AIDS Quilt Touch offers users the ability to digitally search and view the quilt.  Before they joined UT Dallas, Dr. Anne Balsamo, ATEC dean, and Dale MacDonald, ATEC associate dean of research and creative technologies, received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2011 to create the beta version of the application.