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@usccinema‘s Division of Media Arts + Practice
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SCA's Signal + Noise Gallery currently features the work of media artist Maddy Minnis (@cararonadormida), who works across photography, motion graphics, and AI.

Maddy studied broadcast design and motion graphics at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and after graduation began traveling and taking photographs, often focusing on landscapes and nature. Her bio notes, “I thrive among the contradictions that shape my life,” and it’s these contradictions that make her work with GenAI so compelling.

Her surreal, spinning imagery starts with her own photographs, which she reimagines through motion graphics. Using various AI tools, she then layers and transforms the imagery, crafting dizzying, surreal visual worlds that capture some of the uncanniness of GenAI.

“I had thought that using GenAI was about just typing in a prompt,” she says. “But it’s a lot more than that. It’s a fascinating tool, and you can either make trash, or you can do something with your own work that’s interesting.”

In her freelance work, Maddy said that clients were increasingly reaching out to her because of her unique and evolving aesthetic.

“You need to find your own voice as an artist,” Maddy said. “Maybe GenAI is a medium for you, and maybe not. Using it for photorealism? That’s not interesting to me. But using it to make something new, and finding your own voice in it? That is interesting.”

Images:
Still from Heavy Petting; Brugmansia; Train (cropped). by @usc_map

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2 days ago

PhD alum Nonny de la Peña, who is now the director of ASU’s Narrative and Emerging Media program in downtown LA, recently won a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Immersive Festival for the VR documentary about the devastating 2025 LA fires in a critically acclaimed project titled “Out of the Ashes.”

Co-directed with Rory Mitchell, the project uses the personal photographs and videos of many LA residents, as well as spatial video and Gaussian Splats (a technique that transforms 2D images into three-dimensional spaces) to create an immersive VR experience that places users in the devastated landscapes after the fires.

In their project description, Nonny and Rory write, "As immersive artists who grew up in Los Angeles, we are unified in our commitment to share the stories of our friends, neighbors, and community who have been devastated by one of the greatest disasters to ever befall our city."

You can find out more about the project by watching Nonny's recent TedX talk.

Congratulations, Nonny! by @usc_map

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4 days ago

Congratulations to MA+P professor @ashleyyorkhere on the world premiere of her new short film, "Black By God," at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.

"Black By God" follows Crystal Good—a sixth generation West Virginian—on a cinematic journey across the mountains, hollows, and communities of Appalachia. Her newspaper, Black By God, is dedicated to the 65,000 Black citizens of West Virginia. Crystal recruits a troop of folk reporters in her effort to build an impactful, lasting multi-platform publication designed to deepen political and media literacy in a region whose stories are too often told by outsiders.

While in Hot Springs, Ashley will also host a work-in-progress screening of her feature documentary "Jackie & Shadow: A Love Story" about the beloved globally famous bald eagle couple in Big Bear. by @usc_map

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6 days ago

TOMORROW at 5pm! USC @ethnographicmediaarts welcomes Sebastian Brameshuber for a screening of his new film, LONDON.

LONDON (2026)
Bobby drives back and forth between Vienna and Salzburg, picking up strangers along the way and sharing conversations that drift from the everyday to the deeply personal. In this tender portrait of today’s Europe, anonymity and warmth still go hand in hand.

Sebastian Brameshuber in-person with a discussion to follow the film.

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP to CEMA@usc.edu. by @usc_map

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10 days ago

This Friday! Together with colleagues in the USC departments of English, Communication and Cinema Studies, we welcome University College Dublin Professor Diane Negra in conversation with USC professor Tara McPherson about her new book, "I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The New Cultures of Customer Service."

It's sure to be an intriguing conversation! by @usc_map

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11 days ago

What an inspiring view! MA+P professors Evan Hughes and Michael Bodie brought student on a field trip to the @academymuseum this past week to visit the museum's recent exhibitions. by @usc_map

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16 days ago

ECO MEDIA FESTIVAL SUBMISSIONS DUE ON OCTOBER 1ST! Submit your climate
justice-centered and environmentally focused films + media art at the links in our bio!
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Individuals with disabilities who need accommodations to attend this event may contact
artscc@usc.edu. It is requested that individuals requiring accommodations or auxiliary aids such
as sign language interpreters and alternative format materials notify us at least 7 days prior to
the event. Every reasonable effort will be made to provide reasonable accommodations in an
effective and timely manner. Note that accommodation requests received after the designated
deadline may not be accommodated.
This program is open to all eligible individuals. USC operates all of its programs and activities
consistent with the university’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based
on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other prohibited factor.

#usc #artsandclimatecollective #uscsca #studentfilms #climateart taken in University of Southern California by @usc_map

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17 days ago

The Remixing the Archive class visited the HMH Moving Image Archive - @uscfilmarchive - last week, and toured the incredible treasure trove of old cinema ephemera, technology, and old films that sit below Norris Theater.

Archivist Dino Everett presented a history of the archive, and its growth from being a collection of student films to now including more than 25,000 other kinds of films. Dino also traced his pathway to becoming an archivist, explaining that as a teenager, he was into punk music and zines; he began collecting music cassette tapes, carefully labeling and assembling them. Soon, he had his first archive!

Dino also recognized the incredible contributions of Herb Farmer, who spent 71 years at USC, much of it gathering and collecting materials that created the school's first archive. “There’s a fine line between being a hoarder and protecting what’s interesting,” Dino noted, adding that his own personal obsession is with “weird, old film formats.” This is very clear when you see the shelves of the archive filled with unusual cameras, projectors, and film stocks.

It was an incredible visit – thank you, Dino! by @usc_map

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18 days ago

iMAP PhD student and transdisciplinary artist @isabelbeavers will be featured in a solo exhibition titled "Hex Hera: forget nothing, have no dreams. "

The show opens with a reception on Saturday, September 19, 2026, at the Nichols Gallery in the Broad Center at Pitzer College, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. and will be on view until December 12, 2026.

"Hex Hexa: forget nothing, have no dreams" draws on Greek mythology, prehistoric Cypriot ritual practices, and the legacy of copper mining to question our implicit faith in evolving computational technologies. At a moment when we are at once drawn to AI and unnerved by its reach, "Hex Hexa" examines the social, ecological, and spiritual implications of mega-computing to raise existential questions about who and what we believe in.

The exhibition’s subtitle comes from the final line of Adrienne Rich’s 1961 poem “Artificial Intelligence,” which anticipated computational memory decades before AI entered daily life. “[F]orget nothing, have no dreams” points to the exhibition’s central tension: What does it mean to put your faith in a machine that remembers everything and imagines nothing?

Tracing a line from prehistoric gaming stones to today’s AI agents, "Hex Hexa" transforms the gallery into a bathhouse for Aphrodite, who was once the Cypriot goddess Kypris, worshipped for the protection of animals and copper—the same metal that runs through our devices. She lingers as a ghost with only her memory to offer. by @usc_map

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20 days ago

Alumni Feature! Elyse Wang, MA+P BA '18, is currently a Production Coordinator at Nickelodeon Animation.

What does your job entail?

"I make sure that an episode of animation gets from script to screen by tracking deadlines, designs, and animation. We get to work with every department and move the episode through each phase of pre-production."

What's the most fun part of the job?

"Getting to talk to all of my talented coworkers and be surrounded by art everyday!"

Thanks for sharing, Elyse! by @usc_map

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23 days ago

After being shortlisted, MA+P professor Vicki Callahan and her co-author Sarah Atkinson recently WON the prize for Monograph of the Year from the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association for their book "Mixed Realities: Gender and Emergent Media"!!! Congratulations, Vicki! by @usc_map

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24 days ago

Congratulations to MA+P PhD student @davidderozas on his @usc_artsinaction grant for the 2026-2027 school year!

‘The Infinite City: Skid Row Cinema Commons’ is a participant-driven arts initiative that partners Skid Row residents with USC students to imagine alternatives to Downtown Los Angeles's past-present structural realities. Rooted in reciprocal mentorship and horizontal ways of making, the project positions all participants as co-producers and treats the process itself as the experimental ground from which to conjure situated counter-narratives. In partnership with the Skid Row Arts Alliance (Los Angeles Poverty Department, The Sidewalk Project, Piece by Piece, and Urban Voices Project), ‘The Infinite City’ spans eight months of hands-on workshops and production labs hosted at the Skid Row History Museum & Archive, culminating in a series of free public screenings in June 2027. by @usc_map

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25 days ago