ASU MIX Center’s Fall 2024 MIXibition: Art and technology converge in downtown Mesa
Jialong Xu shows off his Points, Lines and Planes project for Weidi Zhang’s Designing Emerging Media Art Installations class. Photo by Jialong Xu and Shaoyu Su.
The ASU Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center opened its doors for the Fall 2024 MIXibition, a dynamic showcase blending art, emerging technology and innovation. Featuring applied projects from ASU students and MIX Center faculty, this biannual end-of-semester event brought the community together to witness the next generation of immersive experiences and interdisciplinary storytelling.
“MIXibition provided an incredible platform for pushing the boundaries of creativity and technology,” said Jialong Xu, a graduate student in the Media Arts and Sciences program, in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering. “I was thrilled to use Unity and Xcode to create a scuba diving experience game for the Apple Vision Pro and to have the opportunity to present this milestone project during the MIXibition. It’s truly inspiring to see how this event fosters innovation and transforms creative visions into reality.”
Bridging physical and digital realities
A standout feature of the MIXibition was a 15-foot-tall bespoke dodecahedron sculpture, brought to life with 3D projection mapping and immersive spatial audio under the direction of Professors Sven Ortel and Rodrogo Meirelles as a joint project between their classes. Within this towering structure, audio and visual focused students collaborated to unveil captivating projects like the Digital Terrarium, celebrating the complexity of nature, and A Reflection of Us, weaving together the emotions and memories of the local Mesa community. Another exhibit, Doh, guided visitors through a one-of-a-kind interactive narrative, demonstrating how physical installations can seamlessly merge with digital storytelling. All of these projects were projected in the MIX Center’s Enhanced Immersion Studio, a four-story, 3,200-square-foot, 150-person capacity performance venue and experimental media space equipped with cutting-edge rigging, lighting and audiovisual systems. Guests walked around the dodecahedron and experienced these projects come to life.
“All work students in my classes produce is meant to be shared,” said Sven Ortel, professor of practice in the School of Music, Dance and Theater and the School of Arts Media and Engineering. “Some work is intentionally designed for the general public and our community. It is incredibly gratifying for me to see how excited and interested our community is in the work that emerges from the MIX Center classes and how thrilled students are to receive this attention and feedback.”
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Attendee experiences Ana Herruzo’s Designing Drone Light Shows display in the MIX Center’s Virtual Production Volume (VPV).
Photo by Laura Segall
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Paulina Mejia and a guest learn about Jialong Xu’s Deep Sea VR experience for Apple Vision Pro.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Guests admire "A Reflection of Us," a collaborative project showcased during Sven Ortel’s Bridging Physical and Digital Realities MIXibition. The immersive experience, created by Juianna Piechowicz, Doster Chastain, JoAnn Lujan, Marisa Costagliola, Ethan Hall, Gabriel Wallace, Michael Shaughnessy, Steven Pedroza and Tiffany Pletting, integrated visual storytelling from Ortel’s class with the innovative spatial audio techniques developed in Rodrigo Meirelles’ Immersive Aspects of Sound course.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Bird’s-eye view of Bridging Physical and Digital Realities in the Enhanced Immersion Studio.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Arianna Huerta-Crummey and her family experience a VR installation by William Martinez.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Akshit Nassa (Left) Rupali Garewal (Right) during Biayna Bogosian’s Designing Extended-Reality Experiences.
Photo by Laura Segall
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ASU student Jing Gong exploring the Mesh Guilds Open House in Meteor Studio.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Attendee during The Spark of Creation. Project by Pratik Pansare, Lilly Lopez, Shailee Shah, Preethi Venkatesh, Odi Nwosu, Alice Koroma, Arpita Mandal, Hung-Fang Chen and Weidi Zhang in collaboration with Cambelle Gregory, Chase Kelln, Karina Stantiago, Alexander Best, Xincheng Ma, Nathan Levang, Sophie Kasen, Jacob Burrola and Maxwell Hosfeld.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Anish Powar assists attendee during Cathode Ray Dream, a cross-virtual experience inspired by Nam June Paik. Project in collaboration with Meteor Studio and led by Flemming Laursen, Anish Powar and Jesus Franco Yescas with Professors Sven Ortel and Kristy H.A. Kang.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Don Balanzat, associate faculty member in the School of Arts Media and Engineering, tries out a virtual reality experience using a Meta Quest 3 headset.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Attendees in the Dreamscape Learn Classroom Pod experiencing Season Two of Act One’s VR field trip, Weaving Our Story. This engagement takes participants on a 360° visual and audio journey through three local Indigenous Arizona artists’ work on the themes of weaving, storytelling, music, public art, and cultural heritage. In collaboration with Meteor Studio.
Photo by Laura Segall
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Christy Spackman shows Laura Cechanowicz and a guest the Atmospheres of Belonging project, an intermedia art installation that uses smells, stories and a kinetic machine to reveal how food and scents shape the sense of belonging. Co-created by Byron Lahey, Lauryn Mannigel and Spackman, this project invites you to experience the city’s social and cultural atmospheres through a visceral and interactive lens.
Funding for the project was provided from the ASU-Leonardo Initiative, the Global Futures Laboratory and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. In partnership with Mesa Public Library and its patrons.
Photo by Laura Segall
Designing the future of storytelling
The MIXibition spotlighted cutting-edge MIX Center courses and their resulting projects:
Designing Drone Light Shows: Led by Ana Herruzo, associate professor of immersive experience design in The Design School, students collaborated with leading drone show company Nova Sky Stories to craft awe-inspiring aerial storytelling through synchronized drone technology.
Designing Extended-Reality Experiences: Led by Biayna Bogosian, assistant professor in The Design School, and Shaoyu Su, assistant professor in the School of Art, students introduced attendees to cinematic and interactive worlds built with Unreal and Unity engines, showcasing the potential of Extended Reality (XR).
Worldbuilding: In this course led by Laura Cechanowicz, assistant professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, students created imaginative, collaborative narratives that demonstrated unlimited potential for constructing rich, interactive media ecosystems.
Interactive learning and innovation
MIXibition highlighted the interdisciplinary approach that defines ASU's media programs, where courses push the boundaries of creativity and technological application.
One of the courses featured included the Immersive Aspects of Sound from The Sidney Poitier New American Film School, led by Meirelles. This innovative class immerses students in the art and technology of storytelling through sound, leveraging the state-of-the-art resources of the MIX Center. Students in this course explored spatial and immersive audio, designing intricate soundscapes using tools like Dolby Atmos and creating spatialized assets for VR Dreamscape projects. They also mastered advanced techniques, such as crafting dynamic Spacemaps to fill the MIX Center’s 55-speaker environment with vibrant, multi-layered sonic canvases. For their final projects, students collaborated with students from Professor Ortel’s Bridging Physical and Digital Realities class and Professor Weidi Zhang’s Immersive Experience Design course to merge spatial audio with visual storytelling.
The MIXibition also featured projects from the Philosophy of Media and Technology course, taught by Professors Ortel and Kristy Kang. This class explored the cultural and technological evolution of experiential media, emphasizing the connections between theory and practice. One of the projects, the Spark of Creation, led by Zhang in collaboration with Meteor Studio and Dreamscape, invited attendees to solve intricate puzzles while unraveling hidden narratives. This also gave individuals an interactive journey enhanced by the cutting-edge audio techniques developed in the Immersive Aspects of Sound.
These projects demonstrated how ASU’s programs bridge disciplines to create a holistic, hands-on learning environment that challenges students to think critically, collaborate across fields and innovate in ways that resonate with the future of media and immersive storytelling.
A platform for creativity and connection
The MIXibition reaffirmed the MIX Center’s role as a vibrant hub of innovation, connecting the Mesa community with the next frontiers of media arts and technology. Each experience represented the talent and ingenuity of ASU’s community, offering the public a glimpse into the future of immersive storytelling, education and research.
As ASU MIX Center looks toward the future, events like the MIXibition provide a vital platform for showcasing groundbreaking work while inspiring students and visitors alike. With each immersive experience, the center cements its position as a leader in innovation, community engagement and the transformative power of media.
For more on the MIX Center and its upcoming events, visit mix.asu.edu.
Andrew Ballon and Stephanie Tomlin contributed to this story.