Melissa Malzkuhn

Motion LIGHT Lab at Gallaudet University

Motion Light Lab is a space where creative literature meets digital technology to create immersive learning experiences. Our projects aim to explore visual narratives within a bilingual interface, converging digital and physical spaces for learning. We are one of four hubs of the National Science Foundation Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning. 

CURRENT:

HISTORY, AS WRITTEN IN 2011

Established in 2009, Motion Lab was the creative outlet (and answer) to the demands of everyday filming and documentation of academic discourses in sign language for the Deaf Studies Digital Journal (see index for more information). While working in the studio frequently, I had more questions than I had answers for - with the process of filming. What angle would work better? Would editing that way convey information in a way we can process to learn? Most of the questions I had, they needed to be "played out" in order to find the right approach, techniques, and even formulas in doing. What I had was a lack of process - the lack of time, space, and artistic creativity - to approach questions with an academic rigor and discipline. (I know what I just committed - I put in creativity in the same sentence with rigor and discipline. This is where research comes in; this is where documentation comes in. Our creativity is fuelled in two ways: 1) research and research, 2) artistic inspiration. And through a rather solid (rigor, maybe) framework, we can document the progress. And through documentation - we will be able to study what we have learned and continue to tweak (thus, the experimental part in experimental media) to find different ways of presenting for others to learn. It comes back to the core motivation of this Lab - keep playing and sharing.