PAMELA L. JENNINGS, PHD
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PAMELA L. JENNINGS Ph.D., MBA
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Banff New Media Insitute, Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity
Advanced Technology Research Lab
Executive Director, Banff New Media Institute Advanced Research Technology Lab (ARTLab).
Research Fellow, Alberta Informatics Circle of Research Excellence (ICORE) Fellow.
Visiting Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary.
Advanced Technology Research Lab
Executive Director, Banff New Media Institute Advanced Research Technology Lab (ARTLab).
Research Fellow, Alberta Informatics Circle of Research Excellence (ICORE) Fellow.
Visiting Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary.
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The Banff New Media Art Institute (BNMI) had a rich history in art and technology research dating to the late 1980’s. Due to a prolonged time in-between leadership transition, the BNMI research activities were on hold for two years prior to my arrival. This included the lab that was filled with thousands of dollars’ worth of high-capacity network servers, teleconferencing equipment, and a 3D immersive CAVE room.
The Banff New Media Institute (BNMI), located in the Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, was a member of the Compute Canada network, a $60 million project to operate high performance computing (HPC), teleconferencing and visualization infrastructure across western Canada. |
From the 1990’s to mid-2000’s the BNMI held great international convening power for futurist thinkers, researchers, and practitioners across the arts, technology, humanities, information sciences, social sciences, and yes, rocket scientists.
Revitalizing the lab required funds that the Banff New Media Institute was not prepared to provide. Prior to arriving in Canada, I applied for and received a fellowship and $250K grant from the Alberta Informatics Circle of Research Excellence (ICORE) program to seed the ARTLab revitalization. I implemented an accelerated revitalization plan to refocus the lab and transform it from its dormant spaces into a creative innovation incubator. My goal was to develop an open, creative environment for exploration in technology, scholarship, and creativity that would attract the best and brightest research associates and visiting scholars from around the world. The strategy included acquiring new technologies that could support research trends of that time such as tabletop displays, display walls, 3D printers, and physical computing kits. My strategy included dusting off technologies found in the lab that in the past were cutting edge including a six-wall CAVE, and technologies from the pivotal 1992 Canadian government funded Art & Virtual Reality workshop.
Under my leadership a global research environment was created. The ARTLab maintained research affiliations with the higher education institutions where our bright team of international research associates studied and/or graduated. The universities included University of Calgary, University of Alberta, University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, University of Art & Design, Linz, Austria, and City University of Hong Kong. The research associates reignited the ARTLab into a place for creative inquiry at the intersecting borders of our academic disciplines, technology research, and creative practices. We worked individually and collaboratively on projects in software engineering; computational drawing tools; visualization of complex systems in software and 3D prototypes; mixed reality and tangible interfaces; CAVE visualizations; physical computing; and augmented reality.
Revitalizing the lab required funds that the Banff New Media Institute was not prepared to provide. Prior to arriving in Canada, I applied for and received a fellowship and $250K grant from the Alberta Informatics Circle of Research Excellence (ICORE) program to seed the ARTLab revitalization. I implemented an accelerated revitalization plan to refocus the lab and transform it from its dormant spaces into a creative innovation incubator. My goal was to develop an open, creative environment for exploration in technology, scholarship, and creativity that would attract the best and brightest research associates and visiting scholars from around the world. The strategy included acquiring new technologies that could support research trends of that time such as tabletop displays, display walls, 3D printers, and physical computing kits. My strategy included dusting off technologies found in the lab that in the past were cutting edge including a six-wall CAVE, and technologies from the pivotal 1992 Canadian government funded Art & Virtual Reality workshop.
Under my leadership a global research environment was created. The ARTLab maintained research affiliations with the higher education institutions where our bright team of international research associates studied and/or graduated. The universities included University of Calgary, University of Alberta, University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, University of Art & Design, Linz, Austria, and City University of Hong Kong. The research associates reignited the ARTLab into a place for creative inquiry at the intersecting borders of our academic disciplines, technology research, and creative practices. We worked individually and collaboratively on projects in software engineering; computational drawing tools; visualization of complex systems in software and 3D prototypes; mixed reality and tangible interfaces; CAVE visualizations; physical computing; and augmented reality.
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