Join us in Critical Media Practices

  My name is Stephanie Spray and I am an assistant professor in the Department of Critical Media Practices at the College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI). 

I am a filmmaker, phonographer and anthropologist whose work examines the poetics of everyday life. My current project is a feature-length documentary called The Immortals, which I shot for 10 weeks while at sea aboard a scientific drilling ship.

Much of what I teach in class is rooted in my own research and creative work as a filmmaker and anthropologist. In my course Audio Vision, students learn to think about the critical relationship between sound and image in moving image arts, but through the lens of sound studies. A critical approach to sound was central to the making of my film The Immortals, where I recorded sound in three different modalities during production. This semester I’m teaching a course called Ethnographic Media, which examines recent and canonical works in film, video, sound and online media.

I was excited to see the Department of Critical Media Practices being formed in this new college because it has formalized what a lot of students are interested in pursuing and what they are already doing in their approach to thinking about the world, which is hybrid and interdisciplinary work. There's plenty of latitude for students to suggest projects that have not been done before as we explore emergent technologies and practices. As a media artist, you will have the support to pursue cross-disciplinary work and try new things with “old” and “new” technologies.

I hope you will apply to CMCI and join us this fall as we work together to shape this new model of a college!

Stephanie Spray
Assistant Professor
Department of Critical Media Practices
College of Media, Communication and Information
University of Colorado Boulder