I began looking at art seriously and pursuing studio classes through high school and college. I was also very interested in how things work. I get a lot of enjoyment out of figuring out complicated processes. This led me to pursue a degree in Aerospace Engineering, which was the most expansive kind of engineering out there.

Helicopter Flight Testing Presentation Excerpts

I pursued a career at NASA because I wanted to do research and make discoveries. I enjoyed conducting experiments and analyzing large amounts of data.

Designing simulations allowed me to think in multiple dimensions – both in the experiment setup and in the helicopter dynamics that I was testing. I created the visual cues that the pilot referenced out the window and on head-down displays. Writing papers on the results helped me improve my written skills and presenting at conferences helped me improve my speaking abilities.

I created the slides and graphics that are illustrated in this project.

Publications:

Blanken, Hart, & Hoh. “Helicopter Control Response Types for Hover and Low-Speed Near-Earth Tasks in Degraded Visual Conditions” Presented at the 47th Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society, Phoenix, AZ, May 1991

Hart, D. “ADS-33C Flight Test Maneuvers Validation in a Degraded Visual Environment” Presented at the 50th Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society, Washington, DC, May 1994

Keller, Hart, Schubert & Feingold. “Handling Qualities Specification Development for Cargo Helicopters” Presented at the 51st Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society, Forth Worth, TX, May 1995

Hart & Reynolds. “Validation of ADS-33C Flight Test Maneuvers in a Degraded Visual Environment”
NASA Technical Memorandum 110377, February 1996

Hart & Mitchell. “A Simulation Investigation of Motion Cueing and Visual Time Delay Effects on Two Helicopter Tasks”, – NASA Technical Memorandum 110385, April 1996

Research site: US Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate

Diagram showing the levels of subconscious thought that can be activated through creative efforts.

A 5-year stay in Geneva, Switzerland transformed my life and allowed me to experience another culture. I engaged in creativity classes with an amazing artist at the “Here and Now” studio. We did visual exercises that were designed to move you off of your dominant trait, and encourage circulation to the opposite pole. This movement and vibration is where you are exposed to new ideas.

My artistic education has taught me how the movement between conscious and subconscious thought can enrich the creative process. Great art resonates with many people because it connects with their similar experiences.

d’apres Raphael (Doña Isabel de Requesens y Enríquez de Cardona-Anglesola) (12×26″, acrylic on canvas)

“Jet d’Eau” Lake Geneva (18×24″, acrylic on board)

PHASE – a project to develop educational and entertaining metaphors for sound/visual/haptic interaction. The work relied heavily on signal processing in MAX/MSP. The culmination of this project was an installation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

I was involved first as an intern to aid in the prototyping and later as a contractor to produce a documentary video of the installation.

The project consisted of two phases of equal importance. 1) To better understand the relationship between visual, sound, and haptic feedback. Several metaphors were developed to illustrate the richness of experience when these three senses are stimulated simultaneously. 2) The creation and installation of a musical composition game that would appeal to the general public. The ability to reach out and touch the physical terrain and to create musical feedback was of prime importance in this development. Technically, the development was done using a powerful music synthesis program (MAX/MSP) and a CG visual program (Virtools). The final installation required four dedicated computers to generate the real-time interactive sound, visual, force-feedback, and to spatialise the sound.

PHASE was collaboration between four French organizations:

• IRCAM – Institute for music/acoustic research
• CEAlist – software-intensive technologies
• Haption – force-feel systems
• ONDIM – 3-D graphics

This video excerpt is part of a 1-hour video that I produced for PHASE. The images and graphics in for the interactive game were made by the project designer.

PHASE Project site: PHASE

The Django CMS allows the editors to enter all the content directly into the database. Zend/php publishing templates are automated to produce flat html/css/javascript pages that are deployed on the live site.

Technologies used include: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, Flash, Django, and SQL.

Live site: NOVA

NOVA homepage

Lift and Drag interactive

Beyond Good Intentions Film website

I designed and built this video site. It’s an example of my freelance work that allows me to exercise my talents in production, design, and development. The challenge in this project was to illustrate the author’s journey while highlighting her point of view on aid work across the globe. Developed in 2012, this video-intensive site was developed in Flash AS3 with a full html fallback site.

Live link: BGI films

In the NOVA Labs project, I collaborate with scientists (at NASA Goddard, CMU, Harvard, and MIT) by adapting their research for the purpose of educating high school students. The platform presents video, an educational game, and an open-ended experience where students can do research on the same data that scientists are using. Part of my contribution is to ensure that a hands-on digital game experience is included in each of the labs.

Technologies used: AngularJS, jQuery, CSS, Raphael, canvas, Django.

Live link: NOVA Labs

The images and graphics in this project are NOVA’s. I worked from storyboard sketches and Illustrator graphics to develop the animations that appear in this video and I produced the video walkthrough.

This was a series of paintings where there was no traditional support (no canvas or board). I accomplished this through what I call “pours”. This consists of pouring the paint onto a flat surface and then peeling off the paint when it has dried. The resulting piece can be viewed from both the front and back side, the latter picking up the texture of the surface it was on. Some of these pieces consisted of mixing paint into water and then freezing the “painting”. Some of these results were remarkable as the ice crystals combined with the pigment in unexpected ways. As with the pours, these pieces could be lifted out of their mold and viewed from all sides. The destruction of the ice pieces, either by breaking them or by melting them resulted in additional works.

Ethereal art – light art. I also experiemented with reflected light to create temporary pieces of art. These are enjoyable to do and can really only be shared through photo or video.

One of the products of my research on private and public spaces was the fabrication of a series of six folding wooden cubes. My photographs of urban and natural scenes illustrated contrasting perspectives. Playing with the cubes allows you hide images on the interior, combine images together, and make your own connections between the subjects.

Members Juried II group show
Concord Art Association, Concord, MA
James Hull, curator (Green St. Gallery)
Feb 2006