final_neh_dpp_grant_submission2019_maraffi

• Project Title: Exploring the Roots of Freedom: Augmented Reality Tour for Mitchelville South Carolina Gullah-Geechee Heritage Site • Institution: Florida Atlantic University, College

• Project Title: Exploring the Roots of Freedom: Augmented Reality Tour for

Mitchelville South Carolina Gullah-Geechee Heritage Site

• Institution: Florida Atlantic University, College of Arts & Letters, School of

Communication & Multimedia Studies

• Project Director: Christopher Maraffi, cmaraffi@fau.edu

• Grant Program: Digital Projects for the Public: Discovery Grants

Application Narrative

A) Nature of the request

Florida Atlantic University (FAU) requests an NEH Digital Projects for the Public

Discovery grant in the amount of $30,000 to develop design documents for Exploring the Roots of Freedom: Augmented Reality Tour for Mitchelville South Carolina Gullah- Geechee Heritage Site, a transmedia project consisting of a site-specific augmented

reality tour application, a portable augmented reality museum installation, and a degree interactive web site Augmented reality technology overlays interactive media on

360-a live c360-amer360-a feed from 360-a mobile device or 360-a he360-adset like the M360-agic Le360-ap One or

Microsoft HoloLens, so that virtual structures and figures appear to inhabit the

surrounding environment We have assembled an interdisciplinary team of digital media and humanities faculty from four universities, preservation institutions, and industry leaders in emerging technologies, to develop an engaging experiential learning

application for visitors to an important site related to Reconstruction-era history and African American culture

Mitchelville was the first Freedman’s town in the United States during the Civil War, a central feature of the Port Royal Experiment in African American self-governance, and now a Gullah-Geechee heritage site on Hilton Head Island South Carolina Our project

is to create an augmented reality tour application that will immerse site visitors in

Mitchelville’s rich history and culture Tourists will be able to literally follow in the

footsteps of figures from history, picking up virtual 3D artifacts to examine, and interact with historical personalities like Harriet Tubman, General Mitchel, and Robert Smalls The augmented reality tour will feature Gullah-Geechee storytelling and dance

performances to make the experience more culturally diverse and authentic for round visitors to the park Our goal is to present Reconstruction history as both

year-educational and entertaining for visitors to a heritage site, while digitally preserving its cultural assets for future generations, and improving attendance so the tours become self-sustaining We are collaborating with History and African American Studies faculty from University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB) and Coastal Carolina University (CCU), the Mitchelville Preservation Project, and Reconstruction National Monumentsites in Beaufort County South Carolina like the Penn Center to develop the humanities content of this project

We plan to produce a basic self-guided augmented reality tour for mobile phones that will be freely downloadable on app stores, and a deluxe guided tour for small groups that will utilize Magic Leap headsets for a rental price of about $15 per visitor Magic Leap headsets have the capabilities to spatially map the environment in ways that can’t

be done by standard mobile devices, allowing us to augment the site with 3D content in

a more believable way, while using the tour proceeds to update and maintain the site technology The Mitchelville tour is a flagship project in a new educational partnership between FAU and Magic Leap, one of the world leaders in spatial computing

technology, and who has offered to provide technical support for developing the paid tour app We are also working with computer science faculty who specialize in

interactive media research from North Carolina State University and University of South Carolina Beaufort, and who are also partnering with Magic Leap Our Media,

Technology, and Entertainment MFA faculty and graduate students will be using their multimedia production expertise to design the augmented reality experience, starting with preproduction concept art and storyboards, and a proof-of-concept for the technical approach Although this project is on the cutting edge of emerging technologies, we have the interdisciplinary team of digital artists and technologists to successfully create

a new way of experiencing and learning history in Mitchelville

To reach a wider audience and encourage people to visit the physical site, we will also explore creating a portable Mitchelville exhibit-installation that will demo some of the augmented reality tour scenes in a museum or gallery space Since FAU multimedia and computer science faculty already partner with the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Discovery and Science (MODS), Daruma Tech, and Magic Leap to teach augmented reality to high school students in the MODS App-titude Internship program, we plan to have MODS summer school students contribute to the Mitchelville augmented reality museum exhibit Ideally, we would like such an exhibit to travel widely to campuses, libraries, and museums around the country, such as the International African American Museum in Charleston To distribute the content even further to the public, we plan to design a web site that will feature 360-degree video of the site, with some of the

augmented reality tour content embedded in the media, with point-and-click

documentary supplements and interactive timelines We will be working with South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV) and USCB broadcasting faculty and students

to produce educational video in the Beaufort SCETV production facility

B) Humanities content

Historic Mitchelville was the first Freedman’s town in the US, even before the

Emancipation Proclamation (Jan 1st 1863) during the Civil War, in Union occupied Hilton Head Island South Carolina Founded by General Ormsby Mitchel in late 1862, the town was occupied and run by former coastal slaves collectively known today as Gullah-Geechee Mitchelville, as a central feature of the Port Royal Experiment (1862-65) in self-governance, was a significant milestone in African-American history The Gullah-Geechee inhabitants of the town had unique styles of rhythmic dance, music, and storytelling, such as the Ring Shout, that became central to the Southern roots of African-American culture Harriet Tubman, famed Underground Railroad freedom

fighter, was assigned to the Port Royal area to serve as a nurse, and while on Hilton Head Island visited Mitchelville After Reconstruction during the Jim Crow years in South Carolina at the end of the nineteenth century, Mitchelville became abandoned and forgotten as inhabitants migrated North to Charleston and beyond, but a century later renewed local research and archaeology are restoring its important legacy

Today, Mitchelville Freedom Park is a Gullah-Geechee heritage site being revived by the Mitchelville Preservation Project and Hilton Head Chamber of Commerce The original site structures have long since vanished, but information outposts inform visitors

of the park’s rich history, and annual Gullah-Geechee special events feature physical tours and storytelling performances To develop the content of the tour, we will be

meeting with humanities and digital media faculty from four universities, the Mitchelville Preservation Project, and preservationists from related Reconstruction National

Monument sites In this first exploratory phase, our objective is to develop a narrative for the Mitchelville tour that furthers the discussion started by recent critical documentaries like Reconstruction: America After the Civil War by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr on PBS, and Reconstruction 360 on South Carolina Educational Television web site These new documentaries tell African-American stories that were actively suppressed in the South through Jim Crow-era revisionist history, and forgotten by much of the rest of the nation

Mitchelville and the Port Royal Experiment was one of those forgotten stories of African American self-governance that wasn’t fully covered in these other documentaries

because it occurred before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation This project is unique

in several ways compared to other educational media on Reconstruction We will look more closely at Coastal Carolina history from the years 1861-1865, especially related to Mitchelville, the Port Royal Experiment, and the story of Robert Smalls, a Gullah-

Geechee born into slavery in Beaufort, who emancipated himself and family members when he commandeered a Confederate war ship to escape to Union occupied Hilton Head Island in early 1862, and who later became a war hero and US congressman We will also take an aesthetic approach that puts a spotlight on Gullah-Geechee culture, the language, craft, music, and dance practices of the Freedman who inhabited Mitchelville, and whose coastal descendants still struggle for recognition of their impact on African American history Also, where other educational media on the African American

experience during Reconstruction was done through documentary video and interactive web sites, we will use spatial computing to design an augmented reality tour experience that is intended to create a theatrical liveness that surrounds and engages the visitor in ways not possible with video

Humanities Themes:

Some themes we will explore in this discovery phase will be:

• Theme1: As part of the Port Royal Experiment, Mitchelville and other Freedman

institutions in the Sea Islands of Beaufort County South Carolina were ground zero for the first federal movement to give African Americans equal rights in the South, and are therefore an important chapter for Civil Rights in America As Reconstruction historian Eric Foner said in a recent interview, “Beaufort is like a microcosm of so many of the issues that are central to understanding

Reconstruction… if you were going to look for one place where you could talk about all the issues of Reconstruction, on both the local and national levels, Beaufort is really the best spot for that.” From early in the Civil War, Beaufort

County was the center of the Union Army’s efforts to end slavery in the South, and with the Port Royal Experiment of 1862 establishing the first Freedmen’s towns and schools, became a model for the Freedmen’s Bureau Reconstruction efforts in 1865 We will use local resources like the Beaufort District Collection to explore how Mitchelville and other locations around Beaufort County tie into the larger narrative of Reconstruction and Civil Rights, and work closely with our advisers to understand how Reconstruction policies “thoroughly remade and modernized America and laid the foundation for the "Second Reconstruction"—the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s and 60s Thus the post-Civil War end of slavery not only brought freedom to African Americans but also inaugurated a comprehensive and protracted reshaping of fundamental American institutions and the very definition of American citizenship itself.” (USCB’s Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era)

• Theme2: Narratives on African American self-governance like Mitchelville were

actively suppressed in the South after Reconstruction, along with the stories of African American heroes and statesman like Robert Smalls, and these forgotten stories of early Reconstruction are important for understanding contemporary race relations in America While stories of African American accomplishments during Reconstruction will be central to the narrative of our AR tour, we will also explore the context of how those accomplishments were taken away in the South after the Compromise of 1877, when Union troops were withdrawn and the

Freedmen’s Bureau was shut down This is a dark chapter in American history, and we will confront the subject of race and white supremacy in looking at post-Reconstruction South Carolina, when Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and Klan violence systematically erased much of the freedoms won for African Americans during Reconstruction We will work closely with our advisers to educate the public on a period in American history that still suffers from confusion, as “few other periods in American history where such a wide gap exists between

scholarly understanding and public consciousness.” (USCB ISRA), so that

visitors understand what was gained and lost for African Americans, and how disinformation in the early historical narrative still misleads people today

Renewed interest by contemporary scholars like Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates has shown how relevant the “splendid tragedy” (Du Bois) of the

Reconstruction-era is to contemporary race relations in America, as seen in Gates’ 2019 PBS documentary that connected current events like Charleston’s

2015 Emanuel AME church massacre and the 2017 Charlottesville Virginia white supremacist violence to Lost Cause narratives started in the 1870s and still propagated today

• Theme 3: Gullah-Geechee cultural practices that incorporated storytelling,

music, and dance, were how an oppressed people expressed their freedom in towns like Mitchelville during Reconstruction One of the oldest surviving

practices, the Ring Shout, was a circular dance with a caller or “shouter” who tapped out the rhythm with a stick because drums were banned in South

Carolina after the 1739 Stono Rebellion, where enslaved groups used drum

signals between plantations to coordinate their uprising In the dance, a Shouter calls out instructions to the dancers, who then do a “call and response” by

singing hymns and performing dance steps in a counterclockwise circle

Rhythmic forms of expression like the Ring Shout showed resilience to

oppression during slavery and after Reconstruction when Civil Rights were

suppressed in the Jim Crow South Oral storytelling was a way that an enslaved people who were forbidden to read and write could transmit their genealogy and customs, while singing and dancing gave those who were allowed few

possessions a way to come together and express their heritage These rhythmic practices from the African diaspora were copied by white entertainers who wore blackface in popular minstrel shows as early as the 1830s, such as the Jump Jim Crow shows of T.D Rice, which by the 1870s became synonymous with racial oppression in the post-Reconstruction South But emancipation allowed black entertainers to form their own minstrel troupes, and ultimately reclaim the form from racial stereotypes that were prevalent throughout the South As Gates showed in the fourth episode of his PBS Reconstruction series, the explosion of authentic African American pop culture during the Harlem Renaissance was directly related to Southern black minstrels migrating Northward as

Reconstruction gave way to Jim Crow laws Minstrel groups like the Jenkins Orphanage Band, sometimes billed as “The Famous Pickanninny Band” from Charleston, actually subverted racial stereotypes by popularizing authentic

African American forms of expression at the turn of the century This was a complicated time in American history that should be better understood by the public, and we will explore how Gullah-Geechee cultural practices spread from the Coastal Carolinas to New York City to become subversive dance fads like

“The Charleston”, that crossed racial lines in ways not seen in segregated

American society at that time Original Ring Shout performances can still be experienced in Beaufort County at annual festivals like the Decoration Day

Gullah Festival in downtown Beaufort on Memorial Day weekend Yale historian David Blight contends that Freedman founded Decoration Day, now Memorial Day, at the Charleston graveyard of 257 Union soldiers labeled “Martyrs of the Race Course” in May 1865 A procession of formerly enslaved black Union

soldiers re-buried the dead from a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp, with women and children singing hymns, dancing, and marching to honor the dead while dropping flowers on the new graves The graves were then moved to the National Cemetery in Beaufort, and the decorating custom continues there every Memorial Day Mitchelville Freedom Park also hosts a Gullah-Geechee Juneteenth celebration which commemorates when Union Maj General Gordon Granger emancipated the last of the enslaved African Americans in Galveston Texas, on June 19th 1865, where he said that “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” This special event includes a variety of traditional Gullah-Geechee practices, including Ring Shout dancing We will use these

contemporary performances as reference for creating a virtual version of the dance for our Mitchelville augmented reality tour

Using these themes as a guide, we plan to develop a site narrative that can be

organized into a tapestry of related historical scenes that will be performed as stops on the augmented reality tour In the tour, life-sized figures will appear like ghosts from the environment to tell their story, with old structures transforming to new before visitor’s eyes We plan to add seek-and-find game elements to the interactive experience, so that visitors will follow virtual clues in the environment, such as artifacts, that will lead them to the next scene Like Disney’s Hall of Presidents come to life with realistic and accurate details, Abraham Lincoln may read the Emancipation Proclamation, and Civil War battles may surround visitors as they journey through some parts of the park Some

of the historical personalities and events we will be examining as potential stops in a tour of Mitchelville are:

• Port Royal Experiment, Penn School, and the Founding of Mitchelville: The

Port Royal Experiment was the first attempt at Reconstruction by giving formerly enslaved African Americans the resources and autonomy to govern themselves About two hundred abandoned Confederate plantations in Union occupied Port Royal were repurposed as settlements by the Union army, while abolitionists and missionaries from the North, such as Edward L Pierce, were sent to help

establish schools and towns With the largest populations migrating to St Helena and Hilton Head Islands, where they could be protected by Union troops, the first Freedman’s town and school were founded as Mitchelville and the Penn School

in late 1862 Starting earlier in April 1862, during the Battle of Fort Pulaski on Tybee Island, General David Hunter, in command of the Union X Corps of the South, began recruiting and arming ex-slaves, even declaring all slaves

emancipated in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida by General Order # 7 and

#11, which was immediately rescinded by Lincoln for political reasons The

command of the South was then given to General Ormsby Mitchel in September

1862, who died of yellow fever only a month after arriving on Hilton Head Island, but not before giving the order to create a self-sustaining town where Freedman could build houses, have elections, and govern themselves Mitchelville was established on the Drayton plantation in Nov-Dec 1862, and grew to have 3,000 residents by the late 1860s “Individuals and families were given a quarter acre lot and material to build a home The freedmen elected their own officials,

created their own system of law, built three churches, four stores and established the first compulsory school system in the state of South Carolina Education was required for every child from age 6 to 15 and when the school district was

created in 1866, there were 238 students in the town.” (Mitchelville Preservation Project) Not far from Mitchelville at Camp Sexton, the first reading of the

Emancipation Proclamation was done in a live-oak grove on Jan 1st, 1863 to Freedman troops and refugees We will use period photos, maps, and historical accounts to create 3D models of structures and figures who populated these scenes We may also incorporate other stories related to the Port Royal

Experiment, such as the Penn School and some of the other significant

landmarks of the Reconstruction National Monument in Beaufort County Not only was the Penn School the center of African American civil rights in nineteenth

century, but the Penn Center became a retreat for Dr Martin Luthor King Jr and others to plan their civil rights campaigns in the twentieth century

• Robert Smalls Escape from Charleston: There is a viewing platform

overlooking the inlet in Mitchelville Park that could be used as the backdrop for a scene showing a virtual Robert Smalls sail up in a digital replica of the CSS Planter, the Confederate ship he used to escape from Charleston in early 1862, and then have him step off and tell his narrative Smalls, an enslaved man who worked on the military transport vessel at the start of the Civil War, made a

daring escape with his family after Confederate officers retired for the evening at port We plan to use period photos of Smalls to model a realistic digital likeness for when he was a young Union war hero doing runs on Charleston out of Port Royal Sound, and was then sent by General Hunter to Washington to convince Lincoln to allow black troops in the military, which Lincoln did soon after Smalls sailed the Planter to Savannah to support Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864, and returned his ship to Charleston harbor when the US flag was raised back over Fort Sumter in 1865 We will also model Smalls as an older South Carolina Republican Congressman, “the party of Lincoln which unshackled the necks of four million human beings", and who introduced the Homestead Act and the first Civil Rights Acts As a virtual character, we will be able to show him age over the course of his story from young to old We will also use accounts of him to guide actors in recording his dialogue and movements using motion capture suits

• Harriet Tubman’s Assignment to Port Royal: Harriet Tubman, nicknamed

“Moses”, was the most famous Underground Railroad agent before the Civil War She helped the abolitionist John Brown, who called her “General Tubman”, to plan his raid on Harpers Ferry in 1858 After the Civil War began, in May 1862 she was sent to Port Royal area to serve as a nurse before Mitchelville was founded on Hilton Head Island, and later was the first woman to lead a raid in the war after Lincoln allowed African Americans to join the Union Army She helped Union troops to scout the area around Port Royal, where they conducted the Combahee River Raid, liberating over 750 former slaves to Hilton Head and other islands in Beaufort County Frederick Douglas said of Tubman in 1868,

“Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way You,

on the other hand, have labored in a private way I have wrought in the day—you

in the night The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism Excepting John Brown—of sacred memory—I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and

hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.” We will work with our advisors to find out what interaction Tubman had with Mitchelville while she was

on Hilton Head Island, and we will create 3D models to show Tubman over the years, and may model others in her story like Frederick Douglass and John Brown, using motion capture animation to show scenes from her dramatic story

• Gullah-Geechee Storytelling and Ring Shout Performance: Mitchelville was

inhabited by formerly enslaved West Africans, or Freedman, whose melting-pot

of African and Coastal Carolina culture became known as Gullah or Geechee The Gullah-Geechee coastal corridor runs from North Carolina to Northern

Florida, where enslaved people worked rice fields on the Sea Islands, especially

in Beaufort County Rhythmic music and dance practices like the Ring Shout were common on the secluded islands, and after emancipation, became a strong religious and secular influence of Southern African American culture University

of South Carolina music history professor Julie Hubbert contends that Geechee influenced ragtime music and dance practices travelled to New York City by way of the Charleston-based Jenkins Orphanage Band starting in the 1890s, and eventually spawned “The Charleston” jazz music and dance craze that exploded out of Harlem in the 1920s The band was founded by the

Gullah-Reverend Daniel Jenkins to take in Gullah-Geechee children abandoned to the streets of Charleston in the 1890s To fund the orphanage, he formed the

children into a street band wearing donated Union uniforms and marching band instruments They initially played marching band tunes with a Gullah-Geechee influenced rhythm, and had a mock child “conductor” that danced Gullah-

Geechee steps to the music The band became so popular that it toured

England, played at the World’s Fair, and regularly toured Harlem Many of the Jenkins kids grew up to become respected musicians in the New York jazz and swing clubs Famed jazz pianist Willie “The Lion” Smith remembered in his

autobiography that people in Harlem yelled “Hey Charleston, do your Geechee dance!” to dancers in the clubs where the Jenkins musicians played And in those same clubs James P Johnson claimed to have wrote his famous tune “The Charleston” while watching the rhythm of Gullah dancers, and incorporated the song and dance into the hit black Broadway show Runnin’ Wild in 1923

Charleston dancing world champion Bee Jackson stated in a 1927 Colliers

Magazine interview that the dance originated in Beaufort County SC

C) Project format

There are two main augmented reality (AR) tour applications that we are planning for this project: 1) a freely downloadable mobile app to take a self-guided AR tour of the park any time of the year; 2) a paid and guided AR tour where participants will rent ($15 per person) a Magic Leap One headset to be surrounded by historical scenes and interact with both live and virtual performers This project is unique in employing new spatial computing technology and a performative design approach to transform the Mitchelville site into a culturally rich history experience for visitors to the park While our immediate goal is to make the story of Mitchelville more accessible and appealing for visitors, our long-term goal is to develop a performative AR tour design framework that uses digital humanities and game studies to better engage visitors at any historical site Our research for this project will explore the following digital humanities topics:

• Making the history of a heritage site more engaging for the public through a performative, interactive, and immersive media experience

• Designing an interactive AR tour that is true to the aesthetic culture of the people and place, such as performing stories in the Gullah-Geechee tradition, while delivering documentary film quality educational content related to the rich history

of the site (such as Civil War and Reconstruction)

• Presenting history as both educational and entertaining for visitors to the site, while digitally preserving its cultural assets for future generations, and improving attendance so the tours are self-sustaining and reach a wider public audience

• Applying a performative design approach to an AR tour app, using motion

capture, spatial computing, and 3D game studies, to bring historical figures and scenes to life around visitors at key site locations, creating an AR experience that feels like a live theatrical play

Even though our main humanities content for this project is Reconstruction history and Gullah-Geechee culture, our digital media team will be doing digital humanities research related to media studies to design a more engaging learning experience for the public The Performatology games-VR-AR research in our MFA lab draws from intercultural performing arts studies, Edward Gordon Craig’s concept of the Uber Marrionette, and the history of animation, in order to design virtual scenes and characters that are more expressive For this project we will also draw from games studies related to the

aesthetics of player experience, especially ones that reference the psychology concept

of Flow and the philosophy concept of Somaesthetics Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

conducted interdisciplinary flow studies since the 1970s, but most recently the concept has been used in video game studies to explain a pleasurable gaming experience, and design interaction that encourages a state of flow in the player Where flow studies focus on engaging a player’s mind, human computer interaction studies for games have started applying somaesthetics to better engage a player’s body Interdisciplinary

studies on somaesthetics has been done by FAU philosophy professor Richard

Shusterman since the 1990s, and will be explored in regards to how to better design an embodied performative experience in an augmented environment when wearing the Magic Leap headset

The digital media team’s task will be to interpret historical and cultural information from humanities experts into a multi-dimensional AR tour experience that is both educational and entertaining for visitors to Mitchelville Over the full scope of the project, primary and secondary materials will be used to map content onto the real-world site using spatial computing hardware and software, which will augment the park environment with historical 3D models and animated historical personalities In the first Discovery phase,

we will import historical models into game engines like Unity and Unreal to test a of-concept of the proposed technical approach Artifacts will be digitized and new 3D models created from period photos in Autodesk Maya, and historical personalities will

proof-be animated by actors wearing Noitom motion capture suits in a virtual production

studio Assets and tests created at this phase of the production will be used in our

design document for the next “Prototyping” phase of the project

The Mitchelville AR tour is a flagship project in an educational partnership between FAU and Magic Leap, which is located only a few miles from our Davie campus We are also

supported by Computer Science faculty from USCB and NC State University who

specialize in games and interactive media research, and Multimedia and Animation faculty from FAU and Columbus State University, who specialize in preproduction

design, 3D modeling, motion capture animation, VR-AR interface development, and sound design This project is also supported by South Carolina Educational Television, who produced the Reconstruction 360 web site SCETV has a fully functional production facility in Beaufort where USCB faculty teach broadcasting courses, and that we can utilize for video production such as documentary interviews of humanities advisers In addition, funding from this grant will be used to employ an MFA student in the Media, Technology, and Entertainment program to help develop the design document We will also be working with FAU Theater and Dance faculty to theatrically represent scenes that involve movement and dance, such as the Gullah-Geechee Ring Shout and Civil War battles Our goal is to use performing arts principles to present authentic history as dramatic scenes that will engage a visitor like they are standing in the middle of a

theatrical play

D) User-generated content

There will not be any user-generated content at this stage of design

E) Audience and distribution

Mitchelville Freedom Park is free to the public, and with special events, can have up to 10,000 visitors per year, though we hope the tour would increase those numbers The Fort Lauderdale Museum of Discovery and Science has 450,000 visitors per year, so a Mitchelville augmented reality museum exhibit at MODS would have significant impact with kids K-12, and the 360-degree educational web site will have the widest reach

F) Rights, permissions, and licensing

For this design phase of the project, all concept art, storyboards, proof-of-concept

research and development designs will be done by FAU faculty and students using open source software and freely available assets and source material, so no

permissions or licensing are anticipated If we use need to use primary source material

to visualize a concept, we will consult available collections from our supporting

institutions like the Mitchelville Preservation Project and the Penn Center

G) Humanities advisers

• Stephen Engle, PhD., Florida Atlantic University Professor of History and

Director of History Symposium Series, who specializes on the study of the

American Civil War and Reconstruction Era, and his books examine the ethnic dimensions of the period We will consult Dr Engle on Reconstruction history related to Harriet Tubman’s visit to Mitchelville, and other Civil War and

Reconstruction-era research related to the South Carolina Sea Islands

• Brent Morris, PhD., University of South Carolina Beaufort Associate Professor

of History and Chair of Humanities department, and Director of the USCB

Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era, who specializes in South

Carolina history and Reconstruction We will consult Dr Morris on Civil War and Reconstruction-era research related to Mitchelville and Beaufort County

• Victoria Smalls, Penn Center Director of History and Culture and Reconstruction

Campaign Organizer, former Program Manager at the International African

American Museum, and member of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage

Corridor Commission, who specializes in Gullah-Geechee cultural preservation

We will consult Director Smalls on the history and social influences of Geechee culture in Beaufort County

Gullah-• Najmah Thomas, PhD., University of South Carolina Beaufort Assistant

Professor of African American Studies, who specializes in social and economic equity with a focus on program evaluation practices and public policies impacting underrepresented populations, including the Gullah/Geechee community A Fellow in the Institute for African American Research at the University of South Carolina, we will consult Dr Thomas on Gullah-Geechee contemporary culture and social justice issues

• Eric Crawford, PhD., Coastal Carolina University Associate Professor of Music

and Director of the Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies, specializing on Gullah-Geechee music, specifically the retentions and alterations that have occurred since the antebellum period We will consult Dr Crawford on research related to rhythms of Gullah-Geechee music, and how it influenced culture

• Anita Singleton-Prather, Director Gullah Kinfolk Performers, who specializes in

traditional Gullah-Geechee storytelling and spirituals, and whose characterization

of “Aunt Pearlie Sue” is well known at numerous Gullah festivals throughout Beaufort County, including at Mitchelville, Penn Heritage Days, and The Original Gullah Festival We will consult Director Singleton-Prather on Gullah-Geechee culture related to performance, storytelling, and language

• Mitchelville Preservation Project, Executive Director, Ahmad Ward and Project

Manager, Joyce Wright, fully support this project, and will be consulted on

Mitchelville history, archives, and collections The mission of the Mitchelville Preservation Project is to replicate, preserve and sustain an historically

significant site and to educate the public about the sacrifice, resilience and

perseverence of the freedmen of Mitchelville, which in 1862 was the first governed town of freed slaves in America http://exploremitchelville.org/

self-• The Second Founding of America, Reconstruction Beaufort, Director Billy

Keyserling, Mayor of Beaufort, supports this project With many years’

experience working with regional groups and the National Park Service to

develop a Reconstruction National Monument in Beaufort, Mayor Keyserling will

be consulted on Reconstruction resources related to Beaufort County

https://www.reconstructionbeaufort.org/

• FAU Center for Body, Mind, and Culture, Richard Shusterman, PhD., Dorothy

F Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture, supports this project, and will

be consulted on Somaesthetics research related to body perception and

performativity with virtual characters in augmented reality environment

https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/humanitieschair/

H) Digital media team

• Christopher Maraffi, MFA., MSc., Florida Atlantic University Assistant Professor

of Multimedia Production in the Media, Technology, and Entertainment MFA program, author of three popular technical books on 3D animation, who

specializes in preproduction visual design, motion capture animation, game design, VR-AR interface development, and Performatology research Professor Maraffi will serve as Project Director, and will manage all FAU graduate and undergraduate students working on the project, as well as consult with all

advisers to develop a site narrative into a design document for an AR tour

experience

• Brian Canada, PhD., University of South Carolina Beaufort Associate Professor

in Computational Science, who specializes in research related to cultural heritage

in the Digital Humanities and tangential learning in video games Dr Canada has

produced the award winning indie game Bugs N’ Boo Hags, with Gullah and

Beaufort County themes, and will be consulted on developing an AR tour app that represents Gullah-Geechee cultural heritage

• Arnav Jhala, PhD., North Carolina State University Associate Professor of

Computer Science and Co-Director of the Digital Games Research Initiative, who specializes in AI for visual narrative and cinematic games tool development, will

be consulted on AR app development for the Magic Leap One headset in Unity and Unreal game engines

• Ricardo Tobon, MFA., Animation Director at Vital Games, and author of The

Mocap Book, has professionally pushed the boundaries of performance and storytelling in visual effects, games, and animation at studios that include Sony Interactive Entertainment, Digital Domain, Weta Digital, and DreamWorks

Animation Studio With over twenty game and film credits, including Planet of the Apes, Men In Black, God of War, and Uncharted, he will be consulted on

animation and mocap production for the AR characters

• Francis McAfee, MFA., Florida Atlantic University Associate Professor of

Multimedia Production and Director of the Media, Technology, and Entertainment MFA Program, who specializes in advanced 3D modeling, animation, and AR mobile app development Professor McAfee will be consulted on creating 3D representations of historical artifacts and structures, as well as developing the

AR tour for mobile devices

• Joey Bargsten, PhD., Florida Atlantic University Professor of Multimedia

Production, specializes in research related to intermedia performance, sound design, and VR-AR experience design, and will be consulted on creating

performative and immersive multimedia for an AR performance

• Lee Soroko, MFA., Florida Atlantic University Assistant Professor of Movement

and Stage Combat, will be consulted on interpreting historical accounts of Civil War battles in the SC Sea Islands into a dramatic performance by actors in motion capture suits to create an immersive 360-degree AR performance

• Demetrius Dukes, MFA., Columbus State University Assistant Professor of Art

in Animation and Coordinator of the Animation Concentration in the department

of Art, will be consulted on modeling and animating historical figures from the Reconstruction-era

• Caroline Sawyer, PhD., University of South Carolina Beaufort Assistant

Professor of Communication Studies, will be consulted about transmedia

storytelling, documentary video, and broadcast production Dr Sawyer teaches USCB broadcasting courses out of the Beaufort SCETV facility, and we will consult her on student involvement in producing documentary video for the project

• Clarence Brooks, MFA., Florida Atlantic University Associate Professor of

Dance, Director of Dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance, and

President of the Florida Dance Education Organization, will be consulted on interpreting traditional Gullah-Geechee dancing into contemporary choreography for dancers, who we record using motion capture technology, and will help

facilitate a dramatic 3D animated representation of authentic Gullah-Geechee culture

• Magic Leap, Director of Educational Partnerships, Alex Haber, is negotiating an

educational partnership with FAU, and has offered the technical support of their engineers on this project to be consulted on issues that arise in the development

of the AR tour application Magic Leap is a $4.5BIL company headquartered in Plantation FL that produces the new Magic Leap One AR headset

https://www.magicleap.com/

• Fort Lauderdale Museum of Discovery & Science, Vice President of

Programs, Life Sciences, and Exhibits, Joe Cytacki, has offered support on developing this project, with potential participation of high school students in their summer Aptitude program on designing AR museum exhibit apps

https://mods.org/

• Daruma Tech, Director of Finance and Business Operations, Rick Griswold, has

offered support for this project Daruma Tech partners with FAU Research Park and MODS summer Aptitude program, and is a company that specializes in museum software, kiosks, and exhibits Daruma Tech will be consulted on

developing the AR tour application and related museum installation

https://www.darumatech.com/

• South Carolina Educational Television, Senior Director of Content, Don

Godish, has offered SCETVs support for this project The producers of

Reconstruction 360, SCETV will be consulted on 360 video and documentary content for the AR tour, museum exhibit, and related 360 web site

https://www.scetv.org/

I) State of the project

The Project Director started work as a consultant on the Mitchelville AR Tour project in

2016 when professor Maraffi was a Media Arts faculty at the University of South

Carolina Beaufort, working with the Hilton Head Chamber of Commerce, and in

collaboration with USCB faculty in History and Computational Science departments Since then the project was put on hold and changed hands from the Chamber to the Mitchelville Preservation Project, and professor Maraffi relocated to Florida Atlantic University, where he teaches BA and MFA multimedia production courses in the School

of Communication and Multimedia Studies Also since that time, emerging technologies like spatial computing headsets became available, which allow for a much more robust augmented reality experience by mapping the physical environment We are now able

to design multimedia experiences for a historical site that were not possible even a few years ago, and so we have partnered with a local leader in this field, Magic Leap, to develop this project on their platform At this discovery stage, we will explore what game engine will be best for this application, and how to present the tour narrative as a series

of interactive scenes and transitions with seek-and-find game dynamics

Spring 2020: The Project Director will travel to the project site on Hilton Head South

Carolina in early April, to capture 360 degree photographic and AV resources on site, and then meet with regional Humanities Advisers at University of South Carolina

Beaufort We will also have MFA students testing the Magic Leap platform in our

Interactive Interface Design course, and have one funded MFA student producing

concept art

Summer 2020: The Project Director will meet with members of the Digital Media team

and MFA students at Florida Atlantic University in early June to plan a proof-of-concept test for the platform The Project Director will travel to South Carolina to meet

Humanities Advisers to develop the narrative for the tour scenes, and gather resources from regional collections for modeling historical artifacts, structures, and figures Tests will be done by MFA grad students to use motion capture to animate 3D models of historical personalities for use in the tour Some meetings will be done through Skype

Fall 2020: Concept art and storyboards for the AR tour scenes will be developed by

grad and undergrad students in our Preproduction, Prototyping, and Previsualizing MFA course and our Visual Design for Film, Video, and Games BA course, which run in the fall semester In October, the Project Director will meet with the Digital Media team to develop the proof-of-concept for the AR platform, and will work with a funded MFA student to finish and document the results

Spring 2021: The Project Director will compile all preproduction artwork and

proof-of-concept documentation into a design document to submit to the Digital Project for the Public Grant call in June 2021

K) Organization profile

The Dorothy F Schmidt College of Arts and Letters is the third largest college at FAU representing departments, programs and a dedicated faculty of distinguished scholars, researchers and artists within the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences The College is recognized regionally, nationally and internationally for the outstanding educational experience it offers, the creativity showcased by its performing and visual arts, and the energizing role it plays in the community Located within the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, the Master of Fine Arts program in Media, Technology, and Entertainment is an interdisciplinary degree offered in collaboration with the Department

of Computer & Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The degree combines film, interactive media, and computer animation faculty with computer science faculty to provide graduate students innovative approaches to digital entertainment that stretch creative and scientific boundaries Students are challenged to think in artistic, scientific and industrial terms about:

• Innovative forms of digital media practice within film and video production, virtual and augmented reality, and web-based interactive media and mobile media;

• New pipeline models for media production, such as 3D processing for film and game development;

• Practical applications, such as interface design for mobile devices and spatial computing headsets

L) Fundraising plan

The Project Director has submitted this project to an NEH Fellowship Grant for Hispanic Serving Institutions (application number: HB-267589) to provide a year of half-time funding in the form of a course release to work on this project starting spring semester

2020 This NEH Digital Projects for the Public Grant request of $30K will be used for travel expenses, MFA student funding to work on the preproduction designs, equipment expenses, and possibly some consultant fees In June 2019 we received an FAU donor

seed grant of $8,400.00 for this project from the Walter and Lalita Janke Emerging

Technologies Fund to pay for a summer 2019 trip to the site, some start-up equipment,

and a graduate student stipend for fall 2019 to begin working on the design document

Bibliography - Selected Collections, Foundations, and Archives:

• Beaufort District Collection, Beaufort SC.; Chicora Foundation, Columbia SC.; Penn Center, St Helena Island SC Heritage Library Foundation, Hilton Head Island SC.; South Carolina

Department of Archives and History, Columbia SC.; South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston SC; International African American Museum, Charleston SC

• Bonner, Michael, B., and Fritz Hamer, Eds (2016) South Carolina in the Civil War and

Reconstruction Eras: Essays from the Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, University of South Carolina Press

• Botume, Elizabeth H (1968) First Days Amongst the Contrabands Arno Press, New York

• Cowley, B., Charles, D., Black, M., & Hickey, R (2008) Toward an understanding of flow in video games, Computers in Entertainment (CIE), 6(2), 20

• Craig, Edward Gordon (1907) On the Actor and The Uber Marionette, The Mask (Self Published Periodical, Florence)

• Crawford, Eric (2012) “The Negro Spiritual of Saint Helena Island: An Analysis of Its Repertoire During the Periods 1860-1920, 1921-1939, and 1972-Present.” PhD diss., Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America

• Csikszentmihalyi, M and Csikszentmihalyi, I (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Harper and Row, New York

• Dougherty, Kevin (2014) The Port Royal Experiment: A Case Study in Development, Univ Press

• Fitzgerald, Michael W (2008) Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South, Ivan R Dee Publishing

• Foner, Eric (2006) Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, Vintage Books

• Foner, Eric (2014) Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, Harper

Perennial Modern Classics, Updated Edition

• French, Austa M (1969) Slavery in South Carolina and the Ex-slaves; or, The Port Royal Mission Negro Universities Press, New York (reprint of 1862 edition)

• Gates, Henry Louis Jr., (2019) Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, Penguin Press

• Larson, Kate Clifford (2004) Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero New York: Ballantine Books

• Laurel, Brenda (1991) Computers as Theatre New York, NY: Addison-Weseley

• Litwack, Leon F (1980) Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, Vintage Books

• Manning, Chandra (2016) Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War, Knopf Publishing

• Maraffi, Christopher (2011) Roots of Performatology: From Craig’s Uber-Marionette to

Performative Embodied Agents, In Proceedings of Digital Humanities (DH’11), Stanford, CA

• McCray, Jack (2007) Charleston Jazz, Arcadia Publishing

• Morris, J Brent, editor (2017) Yes, Lord, I Know the Road: A Documentary History of African Americans in South Carolina, 1526-2008, USC Press

• Parrish, Lydia (1942) Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands New York: Creative Age Press, Inc

• Rose, Willie L., (1964) Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment Oxford

University Press, London

• Rosenbaum, Art (2013) Shout Because You're Free: The African American Ring Shout Tradition

in Coastal Georgia University of Georgia Press; Reprint edition

• Schwalm, Leslie A (1997) A Hard Fight for We: Women's Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina (Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History), University of Illinois Press

• Shusterman, Richard (2009): Body Consciousness and Performance: Somaesthetics East and West In The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 67 (2) pp 133-145

• Shusterman, R., et al (2018) Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2 nd Ed., Chapter 21: Somaesthetics, www.interaction-design.org

• Taylor, Amy Murrell (2018) Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps, University of North Carolina Press

• Tetzlaff, Monica M (1993) Mitchelville: An Early Experiment in Self Governance In The

Forgotten History: Hilton Head During the Civil War Charles C McCracken and Faith M

McCracken eds Time Again Publication Hilton Head Island, SC

• Turner, L., (with introduction by) Mille, K and Montgomery, M (2002) Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect Chicago Press

• Varon, Elizabeth R (2019) Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War, Oxford

University Press

• White, Richard (2017) The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during

Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press

• Wise, Stephen R., et al (2015) Rebellion, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 1861–1893, The History of Beaufort County South Carolina, Vol.2, University of South Carolina Press

• Zuczek, Richard (2009) State of Rebellion : people's war in reconstruction South Carolina,

1865-1877, University of South Carolina Press

Mitchelville Project Résumés and Letters of Commitment

• Christopher Maraffi, FAU Multimedia (Project Director, Résumé/CV)

Participating Organizations Letters of Commitment

• Mitchelville Preservation Project

• South Carolina Educational Television

• Second Founding of America: Reconstruction Beaufort

• Magic Leap

• Fort Lauderdale Museum of Discovery & Science

• Daruma Tech

Digital Media Team

• Richard Shusterman, FAU Center for Body, Mind, & Culture (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Brian Canada, USCB Computational Science (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Arnav Jhala, NCSU Computer Science (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Ricardo Tobon, Vital Games (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Francis McAfee, FAU Multimedia (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Joey Bargsten, FAU Multimedia (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Lee Soroko, FAU Performance (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Demetrius Dukes, CSU Animation (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Caroline Sawyer, USCB Broadcast Video (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Clarence Brooks, FAU Dance (not able to submit due to summer tour)

Humanities Advisers

• Stephen Engle, FAU History (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Brent Morris, USCB History (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Victoria Smalls, Penn Center (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Najmah Thomas, USCB African American Studies (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Anita Singleton-Prather, Gullah Storytelling (Résumé/CV and Letter)

• Eric Crawford, CCU Gullah Music (Résumé/CV and Letter)

CV Chris ‘Topher’ Maraffi

Site: https://tophermaraffi.com/

Email: cmaraffi@fau.edu Cell: 831-588-5163

Education:

 2010-2014 – Masters of Computer Science, Games & Playable Media, University of California, Santa Cruz: Performatology thesis modeled the quality of figure poses in motion capture data using

algorithms based on animation and performing arts principles to enhance game characters Lab:

Computational Cinematics Studio Advisor: Arnav Jhala

 2008-2010 – Masters of Fine Arts, Digital Arts & New Media, University of California, Santa Cruz:

Mimesis & Mocap thesis used motion capture to bring principles of performance and animation together

in a live stage show Advisors: Kathy Foley, Chair (Theater), Michael Mateas (Computer Science), and Ted Warburton (Theater)

 1989-1993 – Bachelors of Creative Arts, Fine Arts Painting, University of North Carolina,

Charlotte: Concentration in figurative painting and drawing Advisor: Eric Anderson

Teaching:

 2018-Present – Assistant Professor of Multimedia Production, Florida Atlantic University, Davie:

Tenure-track faculty in the School of Communication & Multimedia Studies (SCMS), teaching courses

in the Film, Video, and New Media (FVNM) bachelors program, and teaching-advising in the Media,

Technology, and Entertainment (MTEn) MFA graduate program

FAU Courses: Visual Design for Film, Animation and Games; Preproduction, Prototyping, and

Previsualizing; 3D Video Game Design; 3D Animation for Interactivity; Advanced 3D Computer

Animation; and Interactive Interface Design

 2014-2018 – Assistant Professor of Media Arts, University of South Carolina, Beaufort:

Tenure-track faculty in the Visual Art & Design department advising and teaching students in the Studio Arts

(ARTS) bachelor’s degree program Developed the Media Arts (MART) concentration

USCB Courses: Media Design; Digital Imaging; History of Animation in the US; Digital Animation 1-3;

Broadcast Design 1-2; Video Game Design 1-2; Studio Arts for Non-Majors; and Graphic Design 1-2

 Summer 2013-2014 - COSMOS Game Design Instructor, University of California, Santa Cruz:

Taught summer school classes in game design to gifted high school students Designed curriculum, lectured, and managed one teaching assistant

 2008-2014 – Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Cruz: Graduate Teaching

Assistant (TA) for classes in the Art, Film, and Computer Science departments

UCSC TA Courses: 3D Modeling with Blender (CS), Games as Visual Culture (Art), Intro to Game

Design (CS), Walt Disney (Theater), Muppet Magic (Theater), Intro to Digital Media (Art & Film), Writing for the Arts (Writing), and Methods in Theatre (Theater)

 2001-2008 – Course Director, Full Sail University, Orlando FL: Course Director in charge of the

technical animation courses in the Animation and Video Game Design AA & BA degree programs Responsible for weekly lectures, designing curriculum, and managing two full-time Associate Course Directors with twelve full and part-time lab instructors

Full Sail Courses: 3D Character Design and Modeling, Character Rigging, and MEL Coding in Maya

 1998-2001 –Adjunct Lecturer & Certified Trainer, SF Bay Area Colleges: Taught 3D animation

classes at The Academy of Art (Bachelors Program), Mesmer Animation Labs (Certified 3D Trainer), and Masters Institute (Associates Program)

 1996-1998 – Adjunct Instructor, NYC Area Colleges: Taught 3D animation classes at Parsons-New

School (Professional Program), School of Visual Arts (Bachelors Program), NYU Center for Advanced Digital Applications (Professional Certificate), and NY Institute of Technology (Graduate Program)

Scholarly Activities:

 College Seed Grant: Received an Arts & Letters College Seed Grant for the proposal “Augmented

Reality Game Prototype to Quantify Skilled Driving Principles” awarded $13.3K for MFA student funding and AR hardware for a collaborative project with Computer Science, 04/2019

 Tech Fee Grant: Received an Arts & Letters College Tech Fee Grant for the proposal

“VR-AR-MR-Games Upgrade for Multimedia Studies Labs” awarded $15K for hardware and software to be used in our new media courses, 04/2019

 Presented: Florida Statewide Symposium: Best Practices in Undergraduate Research presentation

“Advantages of Finalizing Undergraduate Creative Projects with a Research Poster”, FAU Boca,

10/2018

 Grant: Received a Sea Island Center grant to do pre-production research for designing a documentary

and site-specific augmented reality app on the SC History of Swing Dancing, 11/2016

 Presented: Arts In Society 2016 conference presentation “Reverse STEAM Ahead:

Empowering Fine Artists with Technology” in The 21 st Century Classroom track, UCLA, 08/2016

 Paper Published: Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) 2016 conference,presented the paper

“Using New Media for Practice-based Fine Arts Research in the Classroom” organized by the London British Computing Society, 07/2016

 Workshop: South Carolina Art Education Association (SCAEA) 2015 conferenceworkshop on

“Teaching New Media in the Classroom”, USCB Mac Lab, 11/2015

 Workshop: Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) 2013 Workshop,

“Inferring Performer Skill from Aesthetic Quality Features in a Dance Game Gesture Corpus”, in the

Games & Aesthetics track, Maraffi and Jhala, Boston, 10/2013

 Technical Report: UCSC-SOE, “Raising the Aesthetic Quality of Character Interaction in Cinematic

Videogames”, Maraffi and Jhala, Santa Cruz, 02/2013

 Poster: International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS) 2011 conference poster

presentation, “Performatology: A Procedural Acting Approach for Interactive Drama in Cinematic

Games”, Maraffi and Jhala, Vancouver, 11/2011

 Presented: Future of Digital Games (FDG) 2011 conference doctoral consortium presentation,

“Performatology: An Arts Approach to Designing PEAs for Procedural Character Animation”, Bordeaux, 06/2011

 Poster: Digital Humanities 2011 conference poster presentation, “Roots of Performatology: From

Craig’s Uber-Marionette to Performative Embodied Agents”, Stanford, 06/2011

 Award: Graduate Dean’s Award for “Mimesis & Mocap”, UCSC 2010 Graduate Research Symposium,

Santa Cruz 05/2010

 Book Published: MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya, Riders, 2008

 Workshop: UNM Arts Lab, "MEL Scripting a Character Rig", University of New Mexico, Albuquerque,

07/2008

 Workshop: Red Stick Animation Festival workshop, "MEL Scripting a Character Rig", Louisiana State

University, Baton Rouge, 04/2008

 Workshop: Animex Animation Festival workshop, "MEL Scripting a Character Rig", University of

Teeside, UK, 02/2008

 Book Published: Maya Character Creation: Modeling & Animation Controls, New Riders, 2003

 Workshop: SIGGRAPH conference workshop, "Tips and Tricks Maya Master Class", Los Angeles,

08/2001

 Book Published: Softimage XSI Character Animation FX & Design, Coriolis, 2000

Professional Background:

 1996-1998 – Freelance Graphic Artist & 3D Animator: Freelance artist for broadcast television,

independent film, and Internet clients in the New York City area, including NBC (3D Trainer), The GT Group (HBO, ESPN, ESPN2, Nickelodeon), Balsmeyer & Everett (Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You, First Wives Club), So! (3D character animation), MediaServ (NBC Intranet design), and Chelsea Post (Maury Povich Show)

 1993-1996- Broadcast Artist & 3D Animator: Staff artist and animator for NBC owned and operated

networks, including NBC Newschannel (Charlotte), CNBC, MSNBC, America’s Talking (Fort Lee NJ), and NBC (New York, NY)

The Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization Your contribution is

tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law

To Whom It May Concern, The Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park (HMFP, formerly titled, the Mitchelville Preservation Project) is pleased to support Christopher Maraffi’s request to the NEH Digital Projects for the Public Discovery Grant to fund the “Exploring the Roots of Freedom: Augmented Reality Tour for Mitchelville, South Carolina Gullah Geechee Heritage Site” project

The Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve, promote and honor Historic Mitchelville, the first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people in the United States HMFP endeavors to educate the public on the compelling story of Mitchelville’s inhabitants and their quest for education, self-reliance and inclusion as members of a free society As we create our Master Plan that will serve as the blueprint for our historic site, we are thriving through feature exhibits, signature events and guided tours of the property Currently, interpretation in the Park area consists of a few facades of building and several didactic panels illustrating aspects of Mitchelville’s history The project proposed by Christopher Maraffi will assist HMFP in expanding its interpretation offerings to the thousands of cultural heritage tourists who visit the Park on a yearly basis

We are constantly looking at creative ways to convey the story of Mitchelville since we are a few years away from recreating the historic structures on the site Topher’s design for virtual tours on site will help interpret the daily lives of Mitchelville residents for a 21 st Century audience In addition, the mobile app will provide opportunities for HMFP to stay connected to visitors who have come to the Park, as well as connecting to individuals outside of the area, so they can understand the importance

of the site Based on our research of augmented reality and the applications in the field, HMFP believes that this project will help to promote the site and lay the groundwork for virtual interpretation This is perfect timing for our organization, as the Park is basically a blank canvas ready for the innovative approach that Topher is presenting with the app and the virtual tour We are committed

to working with Topher over the course of a year to determine the distinct Humanities content for the Mitchelville AR projects

Christopher Maraffi is a motivated individual with a keen insight on how technology can inform, connect and inspire The scope of work that Topher has presented is thoughtful and incorporates the vision we have for the facility The people who lived worked and played on the property we preserve are at the forefront of this project and that is of high importance to our Board and Staff It is with great pleasure that I lend my support to Christopher Maraffi’s application We hope that you will consider funding this important project

Sincerely,

Ahmad Ward Executive Director

DocuSign Envelope ID: 01EC7D13-43A5-4879-82A4-A5D8BDB4E9F1

Hendrik Vlietstra COO, SVP

The Research Park at Florida Atlantic University, 3651 FAU Blvd, Suite 400, Boca Raton, FL 33431 |

www.darumatech.com

April 7, 2019

Christopher Maraffi

Assist Prof of Multimedia Production, MFA, MSc

Media, Technology, and Entertainment MFA Program

School of Communication & Multimedia Studies

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, FL 33432

Dear NEH Grant Committee Members,

I am thrilled to write this letter of support to accompany the application for the NEH Digital Projects for the public grant request being submitted by Florida Atlantic University for “Exploring the Roots of Freedom:

Augmented Reality Tour for Mitchelville South Carolina Gullah-Geechee Heritage Site”

Daruma Tech looks forward to meeting and exploring how we can support, partner and work with FAU on this innovative project that brings new technological ideas to expand and enhance museum programming

“Exploring the Roots of Freedom” presents an exciting opportunity to create a transmedia platform with the potential for wide public distribution, including a site-specific AR tour application, a physical-AR museum exhibit installation, and an educational web site Through technology we can generate lasting impact for this important exhibition

As a tech company who has a wealth of experience working with various museums, we understand that technological integration is a significant aspect of the future of museums Daruma Tech is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Application Development and is amongst the companies on the leading edge of this technological growth and we are committed and excited to be helping you on potentially developing this project as a consultant-collaborator at the prototyping-production stages, or even, perhaps, for the Magic Leap or mobile app development

Daruma Tech highly recommends Christopher Maraffi and the proposed “Exploring the Roots of Freedom: Augmented Reality Tour for Mitchelville South Carolina Gullah-Geechee Heritage Site” for funding

consideration We welcome this new opportunity to partner and support this effort for the benefit and

enrichment of the community

Professor Richard M Shusterman Dorothy F Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy

Dorothy F Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida 33431-099 E-mail: shuster1@fau.edu; richard.shusterman@gmail.com

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION AND DEGREES

B.A in Philosophy and English at Hebrew University of Jerusalem Degree awarded magna cum laude

M.A in Philosophy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem Degree awarded magna cum laude

D Phil in Philosophy at St John’s College, Oxford University

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

1980-82 Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Philosophy and Comparative

Literature 1981-83 Lecturer at Hebrew University of Jerusalem

1983-87 Senior Lecturer with tenure at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Philosophy

and Comparative Literature 1984-85 Visiting Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford University

1985-87 Visiting Associate Professor, Dept of Philosophy, Temple University

1987-92 Associate Professor, Dept of Philosophy, Temple University, tenured in 1988

1990, 1992 Directeur d’Études Associé, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris 1992-2004 Full Professor, Dept of Philosophy, Temple University

1992-95 Correspondent, Collège International de Philosophie

1993-2004 Recurrent Visiting Professor, Dept of Liberal Studies, Graduate Faculty of the

New School for Social Research 1995-96 Fulbright Professor in Philosophy and American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin 1995-2001 Directeur de programme, Collège International de Philosophie, Paris;

Correspondent, Collège International de Philosophie, 2001- 1996-97 Eberhard L Faber Class of 1915 Memorial Lecturer, Dept of Comparative

Literature, Princeton University 1998-2004 Chair of Philosophy Department, Temple University

2002-2003 Visiting Research Professor, Hiroshima University, Japan

2004- Dorothy F Schmidt Eminent Scholar Chair in the Humanities and Professor of

Philosophy, Florida Atlantic University

2006 (Fall) Visiting Professor, Dept of Fine Arts and Aesthetics, University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne University of Paris 1

2009-2010 Visiting Professor, University of Paris 3

2010-2011 Visiting Professor, University of Paris 1 (Fine Arts); University of Lyon|

(Anthropology); University of Rome (Philosophy) Technical University of Vienna

2011-2018 Visiting Professor, University of Lyon, France (Sociology); Academy of Physical

Education in Wroclaw, Poland (Physiotherapy); Renmin University (Beijing, China), Fudan University, Shanghai; Aalborg University, Denmark

Published BOOKS

1 The Object of Literary Criticism Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984

2 T S Eliot and the Philosophy of Criticism London and New York: Duckworth and Columbia

University Press, 1988

3 Shusterman, Richard, ed Analytic Aesthetics Oxford: Blackwell, 1989

4 Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art Oxford: Blackwell, 1992;2 nd ed New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000 (With new introduction and an additional chapter); translated into fourteen languages

7 Sous l’interprétation Paris: Éditions de l’éclat, 1994

8 Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life New York: Routledge, 1997

9 Shusterman, Richard, ed Bourdieu: A Critical Reader Oxford: Blackwell, 1999

10 La fin de l’expérience esthétique Pau: Presse Universitaire de Pau, 1999 (trans Jean-Pierre

Cometti)

11 Surface and Depth: Dialectics of Criticism and Culture Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002

12 Shusterman, Richard, ed The Range of Pragmatism and the Limits of Philosophy Oxford: Blackwell,

2004

13 Shusterman, Richard and Adele Tomlin, eds Aesthetic Experience New York: Routledge: 2008

14 Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; translated into six languages

15 Aesthetic Transactions: Pragmatist Philosophy through Art and Life (Galerie Michel Journiac/L'éclat: Paris, 2012)

16 Thinking through the Body: Essays in Somaesthetics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012,

368 pages

17 Shusterman, Richard, Roberta Dreon, and Daniele Goldoni, eds Stili di vita: Qualche istruzione per

l'uso (Lifestyles: Some instructions for use) Milano Mimesis Edizioni, 2012

18 Chemins de l'art Transfigurations, du pragmatisme au zen, with Afterword by Arthur Danto Raphặl Cuir, trans Paris and Brussels: Al Dante / Aka - Cellule éditoriale de l'Académie royale des

beaux arts de Bruxelles, 2013

19 The Adventures of the Man in Gold : Paths between Art and Life/Les Aventures de l’homme en or :

Passages Entre L’Art et La Vie Paris : Hermann, 2016

Boca Raton • Dania Beach • Davie • Fort Lauderdale • Jupiter • Treasure Coast

An Equal Opportunity/Equal Access Institution

RICHARD M SHUSTERMAN, D.PHIL

Dorothy F Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy

777 Glades Road Boca Raton, FL 33431 USA tel: 561.297.0851 • fax: 561.297.2095

shuster1@fau.edu www.artsandletters.fau/humanitieschair

June 1st, 2019

Christopher Maraffi

Assist Prof of Multimedia Production, MFA, MSc

Media, Technology, and Entertainment MFA Program

School of Communication & Multimedia Studies

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, FL 33432

Dear NEH Grant Committee,

I am very pleased to write to you in of support Professor Maraffi’s NEH Digital Projects for the Public “Discovery”

grant proposal titled Exploring the Roots of Freedom: Augmented Reality Tour for Mitchelville South Carolina

Gullah-Geechee Heritage Site

The Mitchelville augmented reality tour project is an exciting opportunity to bring together humanities scholars and digital media researchers to collaborate on new methodologies for educating the public about an important site related to Reconstruction history and Gullah-Geechee culture Employing Magic Leap headsets and game- engine technology for immersing visitors in a historical scene is an important area of digital humanities research that has great potential for experiential learning of humanities subjects at historical sites and museums This project, by treating cultural history and its expression in physical and psychological struggles to overcome

oppression, concerns all three components that constitute the focus of FAU’s Center for Body, Mind and Culture The Center will therefore be happy to be involved in this project

My extensive research in somaesthetics will enable me to be an adviser on the digital humanities research related

to human computer interface design, such as experiencing the body in an augmented reality application using Magic Leap headsets In recent years I have worked closely with researchers in Human Computer Interaction on embodied, humanistic approaches to interactive digital design through somaesthetic theory and practice My

work in this area is exploredin the Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/somaesthetics and is discussed at length in a new book with MIT Press, Designing with the Body: Somaesthetic

Interaction Design by Kristina Hook.

Boca Raton • Dania Beach • Davie • Fort Lauderdale • Jupiter • Treasure Coast

An Equal Opportunity/Equal Access Institution

I enthusiastically support this research, and if it is funded by the NEH, I look forward to working closely with professor Maraffi to discuss the digital humanities content to be included in the design and development of the augmented reality tour for Mitchelville

Brian A Canada, PhD

Associate Professor of Computational Science, University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB)

One University Blvd, Bluffton, SC 29909 • (843) 208-8314 • bcanada@uscb.edu • US Citizen

P ROFESSIONAL P REPARATION

Penn State University BS (with Highest Distinction), Chemical Engineering 1999

Penn State University PhD, Integrative Biosciences (Bioinformatics & Genomics option) 2010

Penn State University Graduate Minor, Computational Science 2010

A PPOINTMENTS , E XPERIENCES , AND S ELECTED H ONORS

USCB Chair, Department of Computer Science (as of July 1, 2019) 2019—

USCB Academic Leadership Fellow, University of South Carolina System 2018–2020

Beaufort Digital Corridor Instructor for inaugural Beaufort Digital Corridor CODEcamp 2018

USCB Vincent P Mesaric Faculty Award for Involvement in Student Activities 2016

Penn State University Research Assistant, College of Info Sci & Tech (IST) 2009–2010

S ELECTED P RODUCTS R ELATED TO THE P ROPOSED W ORK

1 Canada, B.A., Locally-Sourced Video Game Design Inspiration, Presentation to students at The STEM Academy

at Bartlett, Savannah, GA, September 2018 [Invited]

2 Canada, B.A., Brasseur, C.L., Bugs ’N Boo Hags, presented at Indie Grits Festival 2018, Tapp’s Art Center,

Columbia, SC, April 2018 [Selected for ‘Indie Bits 2018,” a showcase of southeastern interactive media; was selected again for 2019 showcase]

3 Canada, B.A., Southern Stories in Game Development, Geekend 2018, Savannah, GA, February 2018 [Invited]

4 Canada, B.A., Diversifying the Economy of Beaufort County via the Development of Locally-Inspired Video

Games, All Creatures Great and Small: 2017-18 Wednesday Night Programs, First Presbyterian Church of Hilton Head Island, January 2018 [Invited]

5 Canada, B.A., G.E Brings Good Things To Life: Using Video Game Development to Transform Student

Perceptions of the General Education Curriculum, 2017 South Carolina Conference on Innovations in Teaching and Learning (SCCITL), Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, July 2017 [Selected for oral presentation]

6 Canada, B.A., Santa Elena Education Station (an educational video game installation featuring works by USCB

Computational Science students Rob Currall, Paul Cerrillo, Will Eckrich, and Krysztof Lipski), Santa Elena History

Center, Beaufort, SC, July 2017—

7 Kilgore, R., Bessent, L., Canada, B.A., Blawat, C., Mallory, B., Vaughn, A., Innovating Across: A Cross-Functional

Perspective on Organizing a University Conference on Student Retention, 2017 South Carolina Conference on Innovations in Teaching and Learning (SCCITL), Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, July 2017 [Selected for focused discussion]

8 Canada, B.A., A Series of Video Games Inspired by South Carolina Folklore, History, and Culture, Center for Digital Humanities Open House, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, September 2016

9 Canada, B.A., Haints, Bugs, and Boo Hags, 2016 African-American History Month Event Series, University of

South Carolina Beaufort, Bluffton, SC, February 2016 [Invited Presentation]

10 Canada, B.A., Canada, A.E., Brasseur, C.L., Bugs ’N Boo Hags: A Video Game Inspired by the History & Folklore

of the South Carolina Lowcountry, PAX SOUTH 2016, San Antonio, TX, January 2016 [Selected for “PAX RISING,” an invited and curated group of up-and-coming independent game developers]

Mgmt., USCB) in Spring 2014 to have students in CSCI B146 and HRTM B450 work together to prepare mobile app-based hospitality marketing projects; (iii) Director of USCB Computational Science Summer Research

Workshops on Designing Effective User Interfaces and Experiences (2013) and Digital Image Processing (2011),

both sponsored by SC EPSCoR; (iv) Committee member, Graphic Designer, and Webmaster for USCB Student Research and Scholarship Day since 2012; (v) Supervised preparation of funded student research proposals selected for the Magellan Scholar Awards (USC Office of Undergraduate Research) in 2012 and 2017 and have served as a Magellan proposal reviewer since 2013; (vi) Supervised numerous CSci & Biology students on award- winning poster presentations for USCB Research Day since 2011

2 STEM Outreach: (i) Co-PI and S-STEM Advisor for “Enabling the Future: Scholarships in Computational Science”

scholarship program, funded by NSF Award #1259283, PI: Yiming Ji, PhD, Prof of CSci at USCB; (ii) Co-PI,

Recruiter, Graphic/Web Designer, and Co-Director of SharkBytes, a one-day, invitation-only STEM outreach

program that brought over 80 secondary students to visit USCB in March 2013 (co-sponsored by the Heritage

Classic Foundation and the Verizon Wireless Foundation); (iii) Participant in 2014 STEMposium at Bolden

Elementary/Middle School (a U.S Dept of Defense Education Activity School in Beaufort, SC)

3 Mobile App Development Teaching and Service: (i) Developed and published USCBsafety campus safety app

for iOS and Android (starting from web app originally co-developed with USCB student Bill Glesias);

(ii) Developed and published USCB Research Day (official app-based event guide for the USCB Student Research

and Scholarship Day) for both iOS and Android; (iii) Developed new course CSCI B321: Database-Driven Application Development (on PHP/MySQL and Android application development), first offered Spring 2014; (iv) Led USCB to join iOS University Developer Program in 2015 (with Eddie King, USCB Director of I.T.)

4 Web Development Service Activities: (i) With student members of the USCB chapter of ACM, led the 2016

redesign of the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District website (St Helena Island, SC) and the 2018 redesign of Heritage Library Foundation (Hilton Head Island, SC); (ii) Developed database and user interface for USCB’s NSF S-STEM scholarship application website; (iii) Created the USCB Marketing Toolbox and materially participated in the redesign, testing, and deployment of the new USCB website and integrated marketing materials (with STAMATS, Inc.); (iv) Co-PI and technical project lead for SIMMER Phase I: Developing an Electronic Genetics Recitation (with USCB students Bill Glesias, Ryan Corn, and Calvin Calvert; funded by 2013 RISE grant, PI: Joseph Staton, PhD, Professor of Biology and Marine Science, USCB)

5 Career and Extracurricular Advising for CSci students: (i) Founding member and past faculty advisor for USCB

chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery; (ii) Regularly transport, accompany, and advise USCB students attending the Science, Engineering, and Technology (S.E.T.) Career Fairs at USC-Columbia; (iii) Actively seek out opportunities for student participation at regional workshops and conferences such as CODEtalks (Charleston, SC) and Geek-End (Savannah, GA); (iv) Spearheaded partnership between USCB and IT-ology (Columbia, SC) in 2013 to help provide CSci students with technical interview preparation services

6 Referee for National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of International Science and Engineering, Program

in Catalyzing New International Collaborations Also reviewer for Bioinformatics; PLoS ONE; IEEE

Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Part A); as well as Multimedia Tools and Applications (Springer)

C OLLABORATORS & O THER A FFILIATIONS

a Collaborators and Co-Editors (published works): Candace L Brasseur (Holy Trinity Classical Christian School),

Keith C Cheng (Penn State), Timothy K Cooper (Penn State), Yanxi Liu (Penn State), John C Schleicher (Penn State / Microsoft), Georgia K Thomas (Penn State / SUNY Upstate Medical University), James Z Wang (Penn State)

b Graduate Advisors: James Z Wang (Integrative Biosciences, Information Sciences & Technology, Computer

Science and Engineering, Penn State); Keith C Cheng (Integrative Biosciences, Experimental Pathology, Functional Genomics, Penn State); Kenneth M Weiss (Integrative Biosciences, Biological Anthropology, Evolutionary Genomics, Penn State)

c Mentoring and Supervision of Undergraduate Student Researchers: Alexis Miller (USCB class of 2020), Calvin

Calvert (USCB, now at Reynolds American), Andrew Wetmore (USCB class of 2020), Bill Glesias (USCB, now at Fidelity), Ryan Corn (USCB, now at Blue Acorn), John Hollingsworth (USCB, now at Gulfstream), Ivana Simic (USCB, now at Gulfstream), Sarah Ludwig-Monty (USCB, now at Duke University River Center), Kelsey Bauer (Penn State, now at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), John C Schleicher (Penn State, now at Microsoft)

Total: 10

May 21, 2019

Christopher Maraffi

Asst Prof of Multimedia Production, MFA, MSc

Media, Technology, and Entertainment MFA Program

School of Communication & Multimedia Studies

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, FL 33432

Dear NEH Grant Committee Members,

It is my pleasure to serve as a digital media adviser on Professor Topher Maraffi’s NEH Digital Projects for the Public

grant proposal Exploring the Roots of Freedom: Augmented Reality Tour for Mitchelville South Carolina Gullah-Geechee Heritage Site

The Mitchelville augmented reality tour project is an exciting opportunity to bring together humanities scholars and digital media researchers to collaborate on new methodologies for educating the public about the history and culture

of an important site related to Reconstruction history and Gullah-Geechee culture Employing spatial computing headsets like the Magic Leap One and game engine technology for immersing visitors in a historical scene that is both interactive and educational is on the cutting edge of digital media research, and it has the potential to open up new experiential learning possibilities for museums and historical sites alike

As a computational scientist with significant interest in the digital humanities and the exploration of cultural heritage

in video games and related interactive experiences, I am looking forward to being part of this project Since 2015, I have led web development projects related to cultural heritage preservation in the local community, including new websites for Penn Center National Historic Landmark District (St Helena Island, SC) and the Heritage Library

Foundation (Hilton Head Island, SC) This summer I will be publishing Bugs 'N Boo Hags, a new commercial video

game inspired by South Carolina sea island folklore and history, including aspects of Gullah-Geechee culture My experience in using the Unity game engine to develop a finished product suitable for widespread public consumption, combined with prior experience in VR/AR system development within Unity for research purposes, provides a strong foundation for developing the augmented reality tour applications being proposed for this project My strong ties to the local community will also help to ensure and sustain public support and goodwill for the project

I strongly and enthusiastically support the proposed research If Professor Maraffi’s proposal is successfully funded, I look forward to meeting with him to begin discussing the design and development of the augmented reality tour applications

Sincerely,

Brian Canada, PhD

Associate Professor of Computational Science

Chair, Department of Computer Science (as of July 1, 2019)

University of South Carolina Beaufort

Biographical Sketch

Dr Arnav H Jhala

College of Engineering, North Carolina State University e-mail: ahjhala@ncsu.edu, tel: +1-919-513-6698

(a) Professional Preparation

Gujarat University, Gujarat, India; Computer Engineering; B.Eng., 2001

North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC; Computer Science; Ph.D., 2009

(b) Appointments

2016–present: Associate Professor, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

2015–2016: Associate Professor, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

2009–2015: Assistant Professor, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

2008-2009: Assistant Professor, IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

2003-2004: Research Programmer, Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern

Cali-fornia, Los Angeles, CA

(c) Relevant Publications

1 Inferring Performer Skill from Aesthetic Quality Features in a Dance Game Gesture Corpus, C Maraffi,

S Ishikawa, and A Jhala, Aesthetics in Games Workshop at AIIDE 2013, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 2013.

2 What Does That ?-Block Do? Learning Latent Causal Affordances From Mario Play Traces, by A Summerville, M Mateas, M Behrooz, and A Jhala, submitted to the 11th International Conference

on The Foundations of Digital Games(FDG), 2016.

3 Analyzing the Impact of Camera Viewpoint on Player Psychophysiology, by H P Martinez, A Jhala, and G Yannakakis, Proceedings of the conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII09), Amsterdam, Netherlands, September 2009.

4 Cognitive and Experiential Interestingness in Abstract Visual Narrative, by M Behrooz, A maein, A Jhala, E Whitehead, Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci), pp 136–141, Madison, WI, 2018.

Mobra-5 Choice Poetics by Example, P Mawhorter, C Zegura, A Gray,A Jhala, N Wardrip-Fruin, M Mateas, Arts 7(3) - 47, 2018

6 From Mechanics to Meaning, A Summerville, C Martens, M Mateas, N Wardrip-Fruin, A Jhala, IEEE Transactions on Games (ToG), 2017

7 Towards Affective Camera Control in Games, G Yannakakis, H P Martinez, A Jhala, User-Modeling and User Adapted Interaction (UMUAI), 2010.

8 Cinematic Narrative Discourse: Representation, Generation, and Evaluation, A Jhala and R M Young, IEEE Transactions on Games (ToG), 2010.

9 Opponent State Modeling in RTS games with Limited Information using Markov Random Fields by M.Leece and A Jhala, IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games Conference (CIG), Dortmund, Germany 2014.

interdisci-May 21, 2019

Christopher Maraffi

School of Communication & Multimedia Studies

Florida Atlantic University

The Mitchelville augmented reality tour project is an exciting opportunity to bring together humanities scholars and digital media researchers This collaboration has excellent potential to develop novel methodologies for educating the public about the history and culture of an important site related to Reconstruction history and Gullah-Geechee culture The project is well-framed and takes advantage of local expertise across disciplines Employing spatial computing headsets like the Magic Leap One, from a company based in Florida for development of immersive experiences for visitors in a historical scene that is both interactive and educational is on the cutting edge of digital media research The team is well-poised to take on this challenge The project seeks to make contributions to interaction design, pedagogical design for informal learning, and participatory experiences for education

My research background is in the development of adaptive algorithms for interactive experiences such as games Professor Maraffi and I have successfully collaborated on the Performatology project for judging aesthetic quality of dance performers using motion capture technology This project has led to successful publications at leading computer science venues My contribution to the project is primarily on the software development, and statistical analysis and evaluation of the data collected from the deployed AR application

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science

Director, Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Cluster in Visual Narrative

North Carolina State University

ahjhala@ncsu.edu

Web: ricardotobon.com email: tobonric@gmail.com cell: (310)422-6753

Current Animation Director

Vital Game Studios, Los Angeles, California

• Help push the boundaries of video game animation

• Establish the style and feel of animation for Vital Game Studios’ games

• Provide direction and mentorship to the internal and outsourcing animation teams

• Direct talent during motion capture shoots

• Advice engineers and tech artists to ensure the game engine can deliver the best animation possible April 2015 –

November 2018 Head of Animation & Virtual Performance

Tangent Games (formerly Tangentlemen), Los Angeles, California

• Leveraged the power of virtual production for cinematic and gameplay storytelling

• Provided the highest level of keyframe and mocap animation

• Gave feedback, direction and mentorship to the internal and outsourcing animation teams

• Created previs sequences for in-game interactions and cinematics

May 2014 –

April 2015 Performance Animation Consultant

DreamWorks Animation, Los Angeles, California

• Helped develop and implement DreamWorks’ performance animation process

• Provided the highest quality of virtual performance and production

• Helped the studio leverage virtual production techniques to lower the cost of animation

December 2013 –

May 2014 Animation and Camera Layout

Digital Domain, Los Angeles, California

• Game trailer for Battleborn (Animation & Layout | PC, Xbox One, PS4)

• Cinematics for Infamous: Second Son (Animation | PS4)

• Game trailer for EVOLVE (Animation | PC, Xbox One, PS4)

May 2013 –

November 2013 On-location Mocap Consultant

Weta Digital | 20 th Century Fox, Various U.S Locations

• Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

• Part of the team tasked with capturing the performances of Andy Serkins, Toby Kebbell, Judy Greer, Karin Konoval, Terry Notary and the rest of the apes cast alongside main live-action photography

• Part of the virtual production team capturing digital performances on the mocap stage

February 2011 –

April 2013 Lead Technical Animator

Sony Computer Entertainment America, San Diego, California Games: Killzone: Shadow Fall | Knack | The Last of Us | Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception | God of War

Ascension | Resistance: Burning Skies | Uncharted: Golden Abyss | Fuse | Dust 514 | Sorcery | Defiance |

Full list of game credits available upon request.

Feature Films: Edge of Tomorrow (Mocap TD) | Oz: The Great and Powerful (Mocap TD) | Men In

Black 3 (Mocap TD) | The Amazing Spiderman (Mocap TD)

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