FAU Professor Wins Knight Arts Challenge

Joey Bargsten, Ph.D., associate professor in Florida Atlantic University's School of Communication and Multimedia Studies within the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, was one of 49 winners of the 2013 Miami Knight Arts Challenge. The winners, who were chosen out of more than 1,400 applicants, recently were presented with the awards at a ceremony at the New World Symphony Center in Miami Beach.

 The Knight Arts Challenge, which was established in 2008, is a community-wide contest for ideas from local artists. Projects must be about the arts, take place in or benefit South Florida, and the presenter must match the Knight Challenge's funding. Knight has received more than 7,500 ideas from the South Florida community since launching the challenge in 2008. In total, 193 projects have received almost $22.1 million in funding.

"The Knight Arts Challenge has helped blossom a culture of creativity across South Florida, inspiring and challenging those of us who live here," said Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibarguen.

Bargsten's proposal was for a multimedia opera titled MELANCHOLALALAND(TM), which integrates traditional elements of opera with past works into a futuristic spectacle that showcases the fusion of live performance, interactive video and animation. He will receive $2,500 for his project, which will be produced at a Miami venue during the 2014-15 academic year.  Bargsten teaches interactive multimedia courses on FAU's Davie campus, and in FAU's M.F.A. program in Media, Technology, and Entertainment (MTEn). He has created live multimedia performances with his media experimental ensemble(TM), meme(TM), throughout South Florida since 2009.

For more information about FAU's School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, visit www.fau.edu/artsandletters/scms.