Digital Diaspora Events

Digital Diaspora Events
Monday, April 20

The Digital Diaspora project, supported by the Arts Collaborative Mini Grant program, explores the intersection of AI and live performance through a new piece for the UGA Wind Symphony in collaboration with composer Dr. Marie A. Douglas.

Project participants

Jack Eaddy, Music
Alvin Crews, Enterprise Information Technology Services
Marie Douglas, composer

Dr. Marie A. Douglas discussion and Q&A
5:30 PM
Music room 412

Dr. Douglas will speak about her new composition and provide perspectives on music education and performance of new band music.

UGA Wind Symphony
7:30 PM
UGA Performing Arts Center

Free with no tickets required.

Marie A. Douglas is an Atlanta-bred composer known for mixing genres and textures in her concert stage pieces. Her music reflects her inner-city upbringing and experiences. Notable for memorable melodies, rhythms, and surprising textures, her compositions are influenced by the African Diaspora and often fuse Hip-Hop with western art music idioms. Marie’s works have been performed throughout the US and Canada. She also collaborates with various ensembles, contributes to film music, and recently earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in composition and conducting at the University of Memphis.

Co-hosted by the UGA Collegiate National Association for Music Education and the Arts Collaborative.

Torrance Festival of Ideas

Torrance Festival of Ideas
April 22-23
Registration: https://tinyurl.com/2026torrancefestival

The Torrance Festival of Ideas is a free online annual event where imaginative thinkers and professionals across fields of human endeavor present their visionary projects and innovative ideas to the global general public. This year’s festival theme is CREATIVITY & AI. Thought-provoking perspectives from world-renowned experts who work on this exciting topic will be showcased over this two-day festival.

Listen Athens

Listen Athens
Monday, May 4 at 1 PM
Lamar Dodd Building Room N140

What would Athens tell you if you truly listened?

Listen Athens is a project developed through recording, mapping, and archiving the soundscapes of Athens-Clarke County. The project takes shape as an interactive website that invites visitors to explore Athens through sound. Join us to meet the team behind the project and listen in.

Project participants

Jared Holton, Music
Peter Van Zandt Lane, Music
James A. Owen, Institute of Native American Studies
Allison Injaian, Ecology

Supported in part by an Arts Collaborative Mini Grant.

Conversation: Art-Science Integration

Arts Collaborative Conversation: Art-Science Integration
Friday, April 17 at noon
Lamar Dodd Building Room S360

How are university research programs supporting the integration of art and science?

Mary Beth Leigh, Lissy Goralnik, and Megan Halpern will virtually join the Arts Collaborative for an informal conversation about convergent research and collaboration.

Leigh (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and Goralnik (Michigan State University) direct the In a Time of Change (ITOC) project, an incubator for advancing environmentally focused art-science integration in Alaska. ITOC is supported by the National Science Foundation, USDA Forest Service, and the Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research Program in Alaska.

Halpern and Goralnik are leaders of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Collaboration, Learning, and Engagement (CIRCLE) program at Michigan State University. CIRCLE launched in the fall of 2023 to build community, provide training and support for interdisciplinary activities, and conduct research on interdisciplinarity.

For more information, visit:

http://inatimeofchange.org

https://research.msu.edu/circle

Hosted by the Arts Collaborative student organization.

Live Insect Zoo Reopening

UGA Entomology Live Insect Zoo
Grand Reopening Reception
Wednesday, April 15 from 3:30-5 PM
Cedar St. Building B, Room 453
https://www.instagram.com/uga.ento.dept/

Meet our amazing critters in their habitats! Ask the experts all about terrestrial arthropods!

The UGA Insect Zoo houses a variety of arthropods from around the world. The UGA Entomology department teamed up with students from the Scientific Illustrationprogram in the School of Art to create installations as part of the newly renovated Insect Zoo. The dynamic space helps to educate and inspire visitors from as diverse of backgrounds as the bugs that are modeled.

Supported in part by the UGA Arts Collaborative.

Being Human in the Age of AI

Being Human in the Age of AI Workshops
Tuesday, April 14
https://www.canva.com/design/DAHEbfAFIOk/tH4_SU-l1ZCoyl5jq7xw_Q/view

Registration:
https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=HmwhqGNNUkOMO1D6HxR1saWLiC9Avx1CinrIx08qecpUQVdGM09VUEhNMVo2ME5FUkhGWFFRODVONi4u

Session 1: Authentic Interaction (the original AI!)
9:30-11:00, 411 Aderhold Hall

Session 2: Creative Problem solving–Exercising and Motivating Creativity
2:45-4:15, 501 Journalism Building

Session 3: Improv is the Gym–Exercising your Leadership, Communication, Creativity, and Collaboration
7:00-8:30pm, 607 Aderhold Hall

With the rise of AI, what do humans still have to offer — in the classroom, the office, in general? Connection, collaboration, communication and creativity. Human-human interactions are still important and will become more so as some tasks get offloaded to AI. This three-session event is aimed at capturing the value of being human despite increasing AI adoption and the threat of being replaced by AI.

Facilitator Kat Koppett is the eponymous founder of Koppett, a global consultancy that blends organizational development with improvisation and storytelling to help leaders and teams perform at their best. She is the author of Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership, and Learning, considered a seminal work in applied improvisation (now in its 3rd edition!).

Major corporations, foundations and organizations looking to improve workplace culture and collaboration have embraced the tools she has developed, and Koppett clients that have benefitted from her methods include Meta, Apple, NASA, PwC and the Clinton Global Initiative.

Kat holds a B.F.A. in Drama from NYU and an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. She is co‑director of the Mopco Improv Theatre, and in 2024 served as vice president of the Applied Improvisation Network, In 2019 she received a Women of Excellence award as well as NASAGA’s Ifill-Raynolds Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to the field of experiential learning. Additionally, TheatreWeek Magazine recognized her as one of its “Unsung Heroes” for creating Spontaneous Broadway, the world’s first fully-improvised musical format.