It’s been an exhilarating and eventful year for CETI with an exciting impactful breadth of programs—creative research, generative ideation and design sessions, inspiring institutes, creatathons, and finally wondrous augmented storytelling experiences infused around the city.
Augmented (XR) Storytelling, Culture, and Placemaking
Each year, an interdisciplinary collective of the CETI community and partners collaborates on projects and innovations focussed on a urgent relevant issue carrying out creative research, generative ideation and experiment sessions, and critical dialogue to create something unique together—a lovely model for skill-sharing, experiential learning, and powerful imaginative creation and socially impactful innovation.
This year, we focused on environmental justice and community history and launched two new series of experiences
XRchive: (Hi)stories and Visions of Block 14 at Lone Fir Cemetery
XRchive: (Hi)stories and Visions of Block 14 at Lone Fir Cemetery, launched in August and October at Lone Fir Cemetery, and can now be seen at the Lan Su Chinese Garden and Portland Chinatown Museum through early 2025.
Postcards From Our Climate Resilient Future
Through a series of interactive augmented spatial experiences placed around Portland, Postcards From Our Climate Resilient Future in partnership with Multnomah County’s Office of Sustainability, supported by an NEA Our Town Creative Placemaking grant depicts imaginative, joyful, and hopeful visions of a just climate future in Multnomah County. These experiences bring to life tactics and imagined futures that are personal, poignant, powerful, and memorable—creating a storyscape around the region to inspire and mobilize action to build our climate future.
We would love for you to go for a “walk” to start the new year with friends, family, and colleagues, engaging in a conversation about what you would create and the change you’d like to see.
We plan to continue this line of creative inquiry, exploring impactful and imaginative uses of new technologies to tell hidden community histories, to educate and mobilize around climate resilience and environmental justice, to imagine possible futures and to tell stories with data—painting the cityscape with these magical experiences.
Creative and Emerging Technology Institutes
We expanded our advanced learning in emerging technology: incredible workshops, collaborative experiments, demos, inspiring speakers, skill-sharing and performances:
Spatial SPA
We held our second annual CETI SPA (Spring Break Adventures in Learning) focused on creative coding and spatial experiences—an intensive week filled with experiments, talks, hands-on workshops, and opportunities for collaborative learning and creations.
Enchanted Technology Festival of Institutes
We conducted our annual Summer Enchanted Technology Festival of Institutes—three exciting weeks of workshops, generative design and ideation sessions, and collaborative experimentation in creative and emerging technology for over 100 students, educators, artists, technologists, professionals, and community members.
And we hosted two summer camps with Building Blocks 2 Success at their Lloyd Center space and at McDaniel High School where students learned emerging media and fabrication techniques including cutting-edge video and sound production, 3D scanning and printing, electronics and microcontrollers.
CETI Lab
We supported and engaged a diverse community in our cutting-edge lab staffed by professional experts volunteering time—trainings, emerging tech study groups, hack days, student and educator tours, and project support.
Collaborative Experimentation and Creation
Constellations: Technoluminescence
We held our fourth Constellations: Technoluminescence hackathon and show for the Portland Winter Light Festival. 50+ creators collaborated on 25 magical installations and experiences for 3000+ visitors!
Spectral Entropy
Our fall creatathon and show, Spectral Entropy explored our anxieties and fascination with the lurking algorithms that study us, harvesting our thoughts to create uncanny whimsical futures indifferent to human existence. We had 20 amazing interactive installations and 40+ creators.
