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Michael Betancourt

Motion media design professor

Education

  • Ph.D., interdisciplinary studies, University of Miami 
  • M.A., film studies, University of Miami 
  • B.A., radio-TV-film, Temple University

Credentials

Teaching experience

  • Professor, motion media design, 2009–present
    Graduate coordinator, 2010–2016
    Interim department chair, 2010–2011, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
    Developed curriculum for undergraduate and graduate classes, online M.A./M.F.A. programs.
  • Faculty, 2005–2006, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
  • Adjunct professor, Grand View College, Des Moines, IA

Awards, recognitions, and honors

  • "#1 Motion Graphics School," The Best Creative Schools in the World - Rankings for 2017, The Rookies
  • "#1 Motion Graphics School," The Best Creative Schools in the World - Rankings for 2016, The Rookies
  • 2016 ENnie Award: Nominated Best Free Game for Toonzy! The Cartoon Role-Playing Game, The GenCon EN World RPG Awards, 2016
  • "#2 Motion Graphics School," The Best Creative Schools in the World - Rankings for 2015, The Rookies
  • Dancing Glitch nominated for a Jury Prize in "Caffeinated Jitterbugs program," Montreal Underground Film Festival 8, 2013
  • Student Ambassador's Choice Award, Savannah College of Art and Design, 2012
  • Savannah College of Art and Design Presidential Fellowship to support writing the book The History of Motion Graphics: From Avant-garde to Industry in the United States, 2011
  • National Endowment for the Arts Grant (FY08) for Resplendent Reconnaissance: A Site-Specific Installation by Liz Miller, 2007
  • National Endowment for the Arts / Iowa Arts Council, Artist Project Mini-Grant: FY05 – July, for Surveillance State public art installation, 2005

Organizations

  • College Art Association
  • Society for Cinema and Media Studies
  • Artists Rights Society

Publications and presentations

Movies

  • The Dogs of Space, 2015
  • The Multiplication of Landscapes, 2015
  • Coming and Going: An Experiment in Time-Motion-Space Displacement, 2014
  • Rey Parlá Orders Pizza (documentary), 2014
  • Beware of Boredom, 2014
  • The Dark Rift, 2014
  • The Kodak Moment, 2013
  • Helios | Divine, 2013
  • Dancing Glitch, 2013

Exhibitions

  • #AVLGlitch Juried Glitch Photography Show, Revolve-Cotton Mill Studios / The Asheville Darkroom / The BLOCK off Biltmore, Asheville, NC, Oct. 1–31, 2016.
  • Snap to Grid, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA, Dec. 10, 2015–Jan. 2, 2016.
  • Stuck Up, New Bedford Art Museum/UGLY Gallery, New Bedford, MA, 2012.
  • Slap Happy Charity Sticker Invitational, Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL, 2011.
  • Small Works, Gutstein Gallery, Nov. 20–Dec. 24, Savannah, GA, 2009.
  • "Untitled Abstract Photograph," Des Moines Art Center Faculty Exhibition, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA, 2005.

Books

  • The Digital Agent Versus Human Agency, Wildside Press, 2020.
  • The Iconology of Abstraction Non-figurative Images and The Modern World, Routledge, 2020.
  • Glitchasemics, Post Asemic Press, 2020.
  • Force Magnifier: The Cultural Impacts of Artificial Intelligence, Wildside Press, 2020.
  • Typography and Motion Graphics: The 'Reading-Image' (Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice), Routledge, 2018.
  • Kritik des digitalen Kapitalismus (German trans. The Critique of Digital Capitalism), WBG Verlag, 2018.
  • Title Sequences as Paratexts: Narrative Anticipation and Recapitulation (Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice), Routledge, 2017.
  • Synchronization and Title Sequences: Audio-Visual Semiosis in Motion Graphics (Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice), Routledge, 2017.
  • Semiotics and Title Sequences: Text-Image Composites in Motion Graphics (Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice), Routledge, 2017.

Articles

  • "Abstraction in Visual Music," Iconology of Abstraction: The Language of Non-Figurative Images, ed. Krešimir Purgar, Bloomsbury Academic, in preparation.
  • "Asemic Typography in Kinetic Design," Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, pending publication.
  • "'Cinema' as a Modernist Conception of Motion Pictures," AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, No. 16 (Sept., 2018).
  • "Postcinema, Motion Perception and Glitch Movies," AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, No. 15 (April, 2018), guest editor Ernest Ženko, doi: 10.25038/am.v0i15.242.
  • "Glitched Media as Found/Transformed Footage: Post-Digitality in Takeshi Murata’s Monster Movie (2005)," Found Footage Magazine, No. 3, 2017.
  • "The Paradox of Agency," Theorizing 21c: 21C031, CTheory, Jan. 12, 2016.
  • "The Limits of Utility," Theorizing 21c: 21C012, CTheory, Nov. 3, 2015.
  • "The Semiotics of the Moon as Fantasy and Destination," Leonardo, vol. 48, no. 5, 2015, pp. 408-418; 435.
  • "The Calligram and the Title Card," Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, No. 204, 2015, pp. 239-252.
  • "The Demands of Agnotology::Surveillance," Theory Beyond the Codes: 058, CTheory, July 17, 2014.
  • "Critical Glitches and Glitch Art," Hz, No. 19, July, 2014.