Posts by Robert D.
Stanford Engineering and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism announce Magic Grants to transform the world of media
Grants will fund eight groups of students, faculty and post-docs to develop media technologies that could transform how stories are discovered and told.The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation has awarded its 2014-2015 Magic Grants to eight teams of students, faculty, alumni and post-doctoral researchers from Columbia and Stanford universities to develop new technologies that could transform the way media content is produced, delivered and consumed. Offered annually, Magic Grants are made possible by…
Read MoreStanford students showcase creative learning tools at Aug. 1 LDT Expo
The innovative projects vary widely – from an art app to a trauma therapy kit - yet each provides a research-based solution to a learning problem.For Rhoda Wang’s “Kibuni,” it was memories of building forts as a child. For Farah Weheba’s “Beity,” it was Syrian children refugees at risk of suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. For Kay Christensen’s “Make Me,” it was her music background along with people’s apparent lack of time to do creative things. Their inspirations came from different…
Read MoreInspiring Stanford humanities majors to consider business careers
Eight undergraduates received funding to attend the Summer Institute for General Management at the Graduate School of Business. The group included students majoring in history, music, art history, French, film and media studies, theater and performance studies, and English literature.On a recent summer morning, a lecture hall at Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) was filled with students from around the world who were ready to analyze the fall – and subsequent resurrection – of an American kidney dialysis company. To prepare for the lecture, titled “A Deep Dive into Company Culture,” the students…
Read MoreComing up Next
Summer at Stanford is a time for rest, relaxation – and feverish planning for the year ahead. Next year brings some amazing new developments in the arts on campus. Here's a peek:Stanford Live is excited to hold its inaugural summer season. The program kicked off with the St. Lawrence String Quartet on June 23. For the first time, the Stanford and Bay Area community will be able to enjoy Stanford Live’s varied and exciting performances during the summer months. Stanford Live has also announced its full…
Read MoreStanford students learn to build their own bikes
One of the most popular courses run by the Product Realization Lab, ME 204 teaches students how to build bicycles, but also patience and project management.In the summer of 2001, Ryan Connolly wanted to build a bicycle from scratch. Connolly, a master’s student majoring in manufacturing systems engineering, had met a master frame builder in Palo Alto and convinced him to come to the Product Realization Lab (PRL) and share his knowledge. That fall quarter, Connolly learned to design and…
Read MoreStanford’s McMurtry Building is the third new arts building in as many years
Stanford's arts district continues to develop on pace with the completion of the Anderson Collection building and progress on McMurtry. The idea is to build a Stanford arts district that taps into innovative artistic traditions on campus and beyond.Since hatching the idea of a university arts district in 2007, Stanford has delivered two of three new buildings to join Cantor Arts Center and Frost Amphitheater in a concentration of arts spaces on either side of the Palm Drive entrance to campus. The Bing Concert Hall has already hosted more than 150 performances since…
Read MoreStanford art historian uncovers commodity culture in Mondrian’s legacy
Through a study of the interplay between consumerism and the work of acclaimed artist Piet Mondrian, Stanford art historian Nancy J. Troy uncovers how social forces shaped his legacy.From Yves St. Laurent’s famed shift dresses to hotel décor, furniture and even jigsaw puzzles, among other “Mondriana,” Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s imagery has become ubiquitous in consumer culture. Best known for geometric abstract paintings with asymmetrical arrangements of rectangles in primary colors (red, yellow and blue) as well as black, white and gray, Mondrian…
Read MoreSummer Swing at the Bing on 7-26
Swing dancing and summertime seem to go together, with breezes, if the crowd is lucky, carrying the music on the evening air. Dancers—casual or dressy, adept or striving or slightly abashed—jump to the beat, maybe pausing for a sip of something cool. It’s a popular pastime all over but nowhere more so than in the Bay Area, and now it’s part of the offerings of Stanford Live.In a turn—or maybe a twirl—away from Bing Concert Hall’s usual programs, Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, a local institution, are playing not the auditorium but the lobby. The band’s sizzling jazz will come complete with swing dance instruction from two Stanford grads, Paul Csonka and Rachel Liaw. Smith, a one-of-a-kind diva…
Read MoreTime Out
This is a busy time of year. There’s too much to be done in the few remaining weeks of the quarter, and everyone feels a bit rushed. So this month we’re highlighting some recent initiatives that encourage us to take time out—to engage in a focused way with the arts, and to use that experience to reconnect, refresh, and invigorate.The third annual Frost Music and Arts Festival took place on Saturday, May 17. On stage, campus-based mash-up Paper Void joined psychedelic pop band Yeasayer as opening acts for the indie group Dispatch. The festival took place in mid-quarter 2014—right in the middle of exams and papers. But the experience was an afternoon out of…
Read MoreStanford Dance Division breaks new ground with ‘Construction Site’
Guides calling themselves the "construction crew" lead a traveling audience to site-specific dances built around five campus locations.Wear sturdy shoes, bring a flashlight, prepare to step lively, bikes and skateboards optional. Not the usual set of instructions for attending a dance production, but the arts at Stanford aren’t always predictable. In a year that saw choreographer Jérôme Bel enlist untrained members of the Stanford community to perform in The Show Must Go…
Read MoreStanford Live and Stanford Repertory Theater ramp up for summer
Stanford Rep gets things started early with a collaborative production of "An Inspector Calls," opening this week, followed by a program dedicated to Orson Welles.This spring, Stanford Repertory Theater collaborated with Stanford Theater and Performance Studies and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society to produce J.B. Priestley’s classic British thriller, An Inspector Calls. The play serves as both the closing production to the TAPS 2014 season and the capstone event for the Ethics in Society Ethics Of…
Read MoreStanford showcases Carleton Watkins’ landscape photographs of the American West
A new Cantor Arts Center exhibition of 19th-century landscape photographs is an innovative collaboration reflecting an interdisciplinary approach. The "Carleton Watkins: Stanford Albums" display includes visualizations that provide dynamic context for the geography and natural history behind the photos.For the fantasy dinner party that one would plan in celebration of Carleton Watkins’ exhibition at Cantor Arts Center, you would start with Watkins at the head of the table. Add special guests President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Yosemite Valley Grant Act in 1864 based on Watkins’ photographs; Leland Stanford, who was governor of…
Read MoreContemporary artwork in spotlight at Stanford’s engineering, science buildings
Stanford Arts Spaces presents three San Francisco Bay Area artists: Steve Goldband, Ellen Konar and Henry Bowles.DeWitt Cheng, a 1971 Stanford alumnus, recently took over the Stanford Art Spaces program, which has been in existence nearly 30 years. He sat down with Stanford Report to talk about the history and future of the program and how he thinks about artwork in non-traditional exhibition spaces. How did Stanford Art Spaces come to…
Read MoreHaydn, Burney, England, and The Creation
Mining the Memorial Library of Music turns up a letter from Haydn and an early scoreOn May 24, Dr. Robert Huw Morgan will conduct the University Singers and the Memorial Church Choir in a performance of Haydn’s Creation in Bing Concert Hall. This post highlights two important items in the Memorial Library of Music related to the work: a letter written by Haydn to his English friend Dr. Charles Burney…
Read MoreConstruction Site locations and approximate schedule for May 27
7 p.m. Breathe Life in the Telling Site: Bing Concert Hall patio and atrium Choreography: Manuelito Biag Music: Said and Done by Nils Frahm Musician: Nils Frahm Dancers: Amy Chen, Sonya Erlandson, Rosemary Le, Tyler Rivlin, Abby Thien-Ly, Nicola Ulibarri 7:25 p.m. Daughter Gone Site: Harmony House interior and exterior Choreography: Robert Moses and the…
Read MorePaper Void, Yeasayer open for veteran indie band Dispatch at Stanford’s Frost Amphitheater
Art installations and some of the best Bay Area food trucks round out the music and arts festival on May 17.The third annual Frost Music and Arts Festival this Saturday, May 17, features three bands, a fleet of food trucks and several art installations created in Michael Sturtz’s d.school class specifically for the festival. The musical lineup at Frost Amphitheater starts with campus-local Paper Void, followed by Yeasayer and finally Dispatch. Tickets are on sale…
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