View analytic
Beats & Star Wars Demo
Talent
Pierce Freelon is an Afro-futurist, professor, musician, and organizer. He is the creator of Blackspace—a digital makerspace based in Durham, North Carolina; and the co-founder/host of the PBS web-series Beat Making Lab. He teaches in the Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, and is the front-man of the jazz/hip hop quartet The Beast.
Program Themes
Do androids dream of analog synths? Combining elements of science fiction, astral jazz, historical fiction, psychedelic hip hop, fantasy, and magic realism with non-Occidental cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of the other, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past. From the vibrant, frenetic canvases of Jean-Michel Basquiat to the extraterrestrial mythos of...
Read More →
21st-century workers require skills that many of today’s graduates don’t have. Enter the STEM Education Plan: a strategy to strengthen Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math curricula across America. While industry remains tightly coupled with the STEM subjects, creative and applied arts are not always recognized for their role in catalyzing innovation. Today there is a movement to transform research policy to place Art + Design...
Read More →