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Gregory Scott Bringman - brin0126 at umn dot edu

Summary

Software developer and scholar with a strong background in visual art. Emphasis on the French 18th Century, Denis Diderot, and translation. Interest in natural language, information design, ontologies, and document definition. Additional production with 3D modeling and animation, hypermedia and visual design crafted at the level of conceptual design. Two years of teaching experience in digital art and design.

Education

  • M.F.A. 2002 Experimental Media (Time and Interactivity), University of Minnesota.
  • B.F.A. 1998 New Media, Kansas City Art Institute.

Professional Experience

  • April 2009 - Present. Senior Software Developer, Converdia, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
    • I'm a senior software developer at Converdia, a company offering web services for mobile device markets. I've done a variety of work here, from SMS text applications in enterprise Java and Groovy Grails to applications with mild social networking themes, to current work engaging in and applying computer vision research.
  • July 2006 - October 2008. Java Developer, epShops.com, Bizbar.com, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
    • I was the principal developer on the Bizbar.com Firefox toolbar code, refactoring the XUL infrastructure, XPI delivery, and Ajax interface. I then led the epShops.com migration from a proprietary, consumer, ecommerce platform, to an open source solution based upon Apache OFBiz and Opentaps.
  • October 2004 - July 2006. Web Developer/Administrator for Kemteck.com, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
    • I maintained many existing websites for Kemteck's small business clients, as well as added new functionality to real estate lead-generation sites. In addition to database design and scripting, I produced still and animated graphics for numerous website front-ends.
  • 2003, Fall Semester. Adjunct Instructor of Interactive Media at the College of Visual Arts in St Paul, Minnesota.
    • Having worked with an educational psychologist in the summer of 2003, I used my adjunct position at CVA as a testing ground for new teaching methodologies. In addition to presenting a course made of lectures as well as student-focused activities, I tried to show students many possibilities of new media art through spotlighting emerging practices and methodologies.
  • 2003, Spring Semester. Adjunct Instructor of Digital Media at Anoka-Ramsey Community College in Coon Rapids, Minnesota.
    • At Anoka-Ramsey, I introduced students to cultural and critical dimensions of web design, graphic design, and digital imaging through a combination of technical demos complemented by lectures on the role of technology in visual art and design.
  • 2000, 2001, Summer Sessions. Instructor of Electronic Art (Graduate Instructor of Record), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
  • 1999-2002, Teaching Assistant, Electronic Art, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Fellowships / Grants

  • 1999-2002 Graduate Tuition Fellowship, University of Minnesota.
  • 2002 Society for Literature and Science Travel Award.

Exhibitions and Visual Production

  • 1998-9 Mighty Morphin' Historical Objects: Historical Figures with Minds in Exile, Opie Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri.
  • 1999-2000 Group Show. Y2K: Writing the Millennium, Image and Text, The Writer's Place, Kansas City, Missouri.
  • Graduate student exhibitions, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
    • 2000 From Charcot to Mitterand: Social Critique of Fin de Siècle Taste. Web pages.
    • 2001 Against the Grammarians, after the text by Sextus Empiricus. Software prototype.
    • 2002 Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century: A Digital Uchronia. MFA thesis film.
  • 2003 Soft/Hard: Versions of the Pseudomorph. Display of digital series. Banfil Locke Exhibition Center, Fridley, Minnesota. Anoka-Ramsey Community College Faculty Show.
  • 2003 From Vernadsky to De Landa. Print of a 3d-generated timeline of matter/organisms in "Of the Earth: An Exhibition" . Anoka Ramsey Community College, Coon Rapids, Minnesota.
  • 2003 Overview Image from Soft/Hard: Versions of the Pseudomorph. Blaine City Hall. Blaine, Minnesota. Anoka Ramsey Faculty Group Show.
  • 2003 Illustrations for What Do Planners Do? a systems elementary mathematics curriculum by James Baker (Minneapolis, MN).
  • 2003 An extension of the design of the Artist Thomas Rose's web site.
  • 2004 Film, L'Entretien Revisited included in the Independent Press Archive at The Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York.
  • 2004 Web designer for Thomas Rose's "Hispanic Narratives" from The School Stories Project.
  • 2004 The Expert Mathematician Website for James Baker's constructivist, middleschool mathematics curriculum.
  • 2004 - 2005 Selon l'Historie du Salon, software artifacts for a simulation of the spaces of the French 18th Century Salon Carré. http://www.gregorybringman.net/SelonSalon/index.html
  • 2005 Designer and webmaster for educatingmavericks.org, an online scholarly education journal.
  • 2005 Designer and webmaster for a web archive/site for the visual artist Gary Hallman.
  • 2005 Designer and webmaster for "1018 W. Scott Street", at ThomasRose.net.
  • 2005 Wrote compiler generation test grammars for Wescorp Inc.
  • 2006 Specification and DTD ontology for the work of the visual artist and writer, Christopher Burnett.
  • 2007 gregorybringman.net revised, Research Layers: Past, Current, and Ongoing.
  • 2008 Worked as a programmer-liaison between epshops.com and Open Source Strategies, on Opentaps ecommerce customization for epshops.com.
  • 2008-Present Developer on The CORM project, an open source collection of business data archetypes.

Conferences

  • 2001 International Visual Sociology Association Conference, University of Minnesota Minneapolis.
    • Presented two computer animations under the title, "A Digital Bourdieu and Bacon: Is the Habitus Mightier than the Sword?"
  • 2002 Society for Literature and Science Annual Conference in Pasadena, California, October.
    • Presented "Michel Serres' Non-Reductive Reduction in Felix Bodin's Novel: A Reading of the Wave-Particle Function in Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century: A Digital Uchronia".
  • 2003 "Brain Power: Intelligence as Cultural Imaginary", Cultural Studies Symposium, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. March, 2003.
    • Presented "Confluences of 18th Century Evolutionary Theory and Alternate Historical Narrative in Denis Diderot's D'Alembert's Dream."
  • 2005 Symposium on "Place-based Education" University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, October.
    • Posed questions for symposia panel and audience.
  • 2006 Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Annual Conference in New York, New York, November.
    • Chair, "Literature and Evolution" (Shilarna Stokes, Paul Youngman, Marcus Boon, Irving Massey).
  • 2007 Society For Literature, Science and the Arts Annual Conference in Portland, Maine, November.
    • Convener, "What is an operative image?"
    • Presented "What is an operative image?: "The Unconscious Semantics of Letterforms: Language Sign Transformation and its Operative Artifacts"
  • 2008 Society for Literature, Science and the Arts Annual Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, November
    • Presented "Distributed Readings/Writings from CNE: Classical Episteme Not Episteme".
  • 2010 Critical Code Studies Working Group (on a Ning Network) February 2 - March 12.
    • Posted short writings critiquing computer code snippets and contributed to a 6 week online discussion of the various ways in which to apply critical theory to the "text" of computer programs.

Writings (Functioning in Visual Work)

Publications

Courses

  • 2003
    • Art 1150,1151 Photoshop: Disbelieving is Seeing
    • Art 1170,1171 Graphic Design: Needs, Politics, and Digital Flexibility
    • Art 1189 Introduction to Adobe GoLive: Rhetoric of the Networked Image
  • 2003 - Introduction to Interactivity: Users, Services, and Meaning Experiences. http://www.gregorybringman.net/gBringman/CVABringmanSite/index.html
    • While it is true that we can interpret interactivity even in the viewing of paintings or other traditional visual media, as communication mediated or moderated by a visual artifact, not all forms of visual media have been explicitly interactive. With the development of The Internet and also visualization tools, interactive artists have provided services and experiences along with information. In this course, we will consider the practical, hands-on implications of making artworks interactive. These include anticipating viewer/user perception and incorporating this factor into design, and concentrating on the relationship between different meanings generated through the multiple possibilities of interactive works.
  • 2002 History and Science in the Production of Art. (Plan for course).
    • In History and Science in the Production of Art, we will look at the ways in which artists can consider the many relationships between science and history to then use them in their studio production. Students will ask, what is necessary, if not to believe in a given new media work, to convincingly think about the relations of its historical genesis and scientific construction? Upon course completion, students will be able to alternatively reflect upon their production in ways that consider the specific history of science and historical contextualization of their work. Students will begin to see how artworks with an explicit sense of history or scientific systematization are made, as well as how to make them.
  • 2004 Engines, Avatars and Animation: 3D Practice and Theory. (Plan for course). http://www.gregorybringman.net/gBringman/3d-practice-theory-course/index.html
    • Contemporary computer animation in art and science is an experiment with dual semantic notions of "surface" and "depth". Whether through programming or refined visual motion, in scientific visualization and cinema respectively, computer animation demonstrates the congruence between actual and virtual worlds, even if its surfaces or appearances are merely "faking depth". In this course we will learn how to use three dimensional modeling and animation software, Maya, to create "depth" in appearances through the use of "skin deep" 3D models and through dynamic animation, for a complexity of meaning in communication. In asking, "How do virtual appearances signify complexities of life, of artistic and scientific phenomena?", students will identify what makes meaning-rich and compelling as well as complex 3D animation using "a collection of animate surfaces". Through knowledge of the types of production and transformation in 3D, including the qualities of intuitively mathematical form creation, students will become proficient in alternative 3D graphics: modeling, motion, and meaning, in between the filmic and interactive.

Associations

  • International Visual Sociology Association 2001 - 2006
  • Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 2002 - present
  • Critical Code Studies, Blog Writers 2007 - present