Experience a magically imagined world... Manipulating and working with systems intended for other uses, or riding a workhorse, if you will, a true, natural, and essential creativity is revealed through Sam’s creative work. Technology is but a shadow of man's mind. These works bring out raw patterns of thought and by distilling one’s self within these systems, the viewer comes closer and farther than ever to mastering their own making. Okay cool, but what does this mean… 

How does one use technology to make digital art without letting the technology dictate what the art will look like? Technology always threatens to make artisans obsolete, yet makers adapt and find new ways of making that work with technology in interesting and sometimes unexpected ways. Al is a hot topic and one that artists are pushing against in this current moment. It has exploded on social media where viewers enter both a keyword and a photo and Al makes fantastical images based on other artists’ work. This has crossed the line where copywriting laws are concerned. But when Al is used as an artistic collaborator and not an author, it becomes a useful tool. Through training Al with original images, 3D models, direct artistic language, material knowledge, and 3D rendering skills, repeatable and original work can be produced as seen here in imagine /.

Sam Hayes-Hicks is an experiential designer that specializes in digital design, 3D design, and augmented reality. They are a maker and storyteller at heart who earned a Master’s Degree from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Applied Craft and Design, and are currently working on their PhD in Educational Design and Learning Technology. Sam currently works at Southern Oregon University as an Assistant Professor in the Emerging Media and Digital Art Department. They bring their extensive studio knowledge and excitement for emerging technology to the classroom, and their biggest focus in the studio is on designing for inclusion to help create a better world for those that come next.