Processing...

In this episode, we invite a community of printmakers, newspaper editors, and researchers to learn about the ways print has given those who have been systematically marginalized the power to center their own voices and empower each other. 

Thanks to our guests: Justin Jones, Gina Watkins, Megan Massenelli, Rob Taylor, Haylee Ebersole, and Kyrie Bushaw.

The print press paved the way for the mass production of information, and with quicker modes of distribution came the power to persuade the masses.

"Propaganda" as a term came into use in the 1620s, and we can see examples of various types popping up in the 1800s around the world, but it wasn’t until the start of World War I that we see the use of print presses as tools to spread it, and propaganda and the press have had an association ever since. 

But do we really understand propaganda and the power it has over us? Can you recognize propaganda? Would you want to make your own propaganda to influence the masses?

As the printing press spread across the world, standardized sets of cast metal letters appeared, bearing the names of their designers: Bodoni, Didot, Caslon, and others. Today there's a font for every occasion and mood. How do we interpret the meanings behind typefaces? In this episode, we explore how type can amplify a message. 

In this episode, we again invite our friends in the University of Pittsburgh Library System’s Archives and Special Collections to learn about the surprisingly contentious history of paper and how it became a worldwide phenomenon. Thanks again to our guests, Jeanann Haas and Anaïs Grateau.

In this episode, we talk with our friends in the University of Pittsburgh Library System’s Archives and Special Collections to learn about some of the mysteries of ink and what makes it a fleeting yet exciting material to work with. Thanks to our guests, Jeanann Haas and Anaïs Grateau.

Communication technology is advancing faster than ever in our digital world, so why is the Pitt's Center for Creativity and University Library System so excited about the arrival of a printing press from the 1960s? In this episode, we talk with our friends in the University of Pittsburgh English Department about letterpress printing on the Pittsburgh campus and what value we can find in this slow, manual craft.

Thanks to our guests, Dr. Jeff Aziz and Tim Appleton.

In our season finale of Processing..., our guests take stock of how this year has affected their creativity, and how change can expose us to new ways of reimagining the creative process. 

In this episode, we discuss how, in the period of safety restrictions brought about by COVID-19, limitations can be a source of innovation and reimagining of the creative process. Our creative cohort describes how improvisation is an integral part of navigating periods of intense change in their personal and communal lives, and the struggles they’ve encountered in a year that has called for constant pivoting.

Oronde speaks about the challenges of producing synergy between people while being far apart and ways he seeks to overcome them. Ivette takes us through the way a project inspired by past pandemics has bridged gaps in connections between herself and her neighbors. Hannah describes how her writing has become a point of connection with the world around her and, as a result, has become a refuge. Craig talks of how the separation caused by the pandemic has helped him create community with others, and how this has sparked a sense of purpose and responsibility in his own creative expression. Tahirah rounds out our discussion by examining how the slowing down of the world around her has caused her to become much more intentional and how the needs for justice, community, and health converge in new and interesting ways.

“How do you navigate a need for community, and a need for justice, while you're also really concerned about things on other levels...that's the creativity question, kind of writ large, right? Like it's a balance. You got to know when you put too much read in that thing, like I might want to write a poem and I might want every other words to be the F bomb, because that's how I feel. And yet, I kind of have to think like, but does that invite people to my work?...You got to make those decisions.” Tahirah Walker 

In this episode, we recount the events of the past summer surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, and the way such intense actions influenced how our makers view their own art.

Ivette explains conflicted feelings of navigating social pressures around creating art during protest. Hannah describes her "sarcastic optimism" concerning some institutional changes around Black creativity and how that measures real progress on the subject. Tahirah talks of her frustration with a Groundhog Day loop of systemic racism. Craig speaks on how he used his anger around news of the cases of police brutality to connect to others. Oronde communicates how the perfect storm of COVID and months of social isolation created a platform for this summer of political actions, and how he believes a perspective shift for activists and creatives will help forge real and lasting change in the years to come.

“...it wasn't really until, like, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery...  it is when those things happened that it all hit me. And I really started struggling, and that's when I really started getting into writing, saying like, ‘I can't be the only one that feels like everything's going wrong’.” Craig Hayes

Season 2 of Processing… continues to give us insight into how creative makers work through periods of intense political and personal uncertainty. Today, our five creatives take us through some of the struggles they faced while transitioning into the new normal of 2020. This season features the stories of Hannah Eko (MFA in writing graduate), Craig Hayes (undergraduate student), Oronde Sharif (Department of Africana Studies faculty), Ivette Spradlin (Studio Arts faculty), and Tahirah Walker (former staff, Center for Teaching and Learning). Hosted by Shannon Fink (Center for Creativity Operations Manager).

In this episode of Processing..., we hear from each creative about if and how creativity helped to sustain them through painful shared experiences like pandemics and protests, and through intensely intimate ones like the death of a loved one. Tahirah recounts how she uses her past experiences of grief to help push her forward in her creative journey. Ivette describes how she has used photography to form connections between neighbors and between pandemics, as well as talking about a personal experience of loss this year. Oronde details the difficulties in how we are able to continue performance traditions in the face of public safety, in order to give people a familiar creative harbor to return to. Hannah talks of how writing has given her an anchor to hold onto in the midst of unimaginable chaos. Meanwhile, Craig describes how the impact of both the pandemic and the back-to-back cases of police brutality in the spring caused a shift in the way he writes that helps him connect to others feeling the same way.

“I think that, it's funny, like that's how I actually think of writing is like, it helps me to make sense of, and also even just to kind of record my own confusion. I think in the midst of a crisis, it's really about the same.” Hannah Eko

Most of us instinctively react to feelings of anger, fear, confusion, and sadness by retreating. We often prefer consumption to creation during difficult times: rereading favorite books, or binging a whole season of television in an afternoon, or doomscrolling on our phones. We’re not built to handle uncertainty, and our impulse is to escape into the familiar.

But creativity calls us to take risks, to dare failure, to face the immense and potentially overwhelming possibilities of a blank page or canvas or computer screen, an empty stage, a bare plot of earth. It’s often uncomfortable at the best of times. And these, to state the obvious, are not those.

How do creative makers work through periods of intense political and personal uncertainty? Can outrage and anxiety power creativity, or do they inevitably work against it? How can we learn to practice creativity, a generative and fundamentally optimistic act, in times that all too often seem to reflect back to us the most fearful versions of our neighbors and ourselves?

In this season of Processing... we engage with these questions by talking with Pitt creators who persist.

What are your assumptions about creativity?

"Processing..." will question, explode, subvert, and, in some cases, confirm what you think you already know about creativity (and the University of Pittsburgh community).

Through one-on-one conversation, our podcast explores the individual experience with creativity, with a focus on its processes rather than its products. Join us for inspiration, community, and a connection to your own creative process.

What are your assumptions about creativity?

"Processing..." will question, explode, subvert, and, in some cases, confirm what you think you already know about creativity (and the University of Pittsburgh community).

Through one-on-one conversation, our podcast explores the individual experience with creativity, with a focus on its processes rather than its products. Join us for inspiration, community, and a connection to your own creative process.

What are your assumptions about creativity?

"Processing..." will question, explode, subvert, and, in some cases, confirm what you think you already know about creativity (and the University of Pittsburgh community).

Through one-on-one conversation, our podcast explores the individual experience with creativity, with a focus on its processes rather than its products. Join us for inspiration, community, and a connection to your own creative process.

What are your assumptions about creativity?

"Processing..." will question, explode, subvert, and, in some cases, confirm what you think you already know about creativity (and the University of Pittsburgh community).

Through one-on-one conversation, our podcast explores the individual experience with creativity, with a focus on its processes rather than its products. Join us for inspiration, community, and a connection to your own creative process.

What are your assumptions about creativity?

"Processing..." will question, explode, subvert, and, in some cases, confirm what you think you already know about creativity (and the University of Pittsburgh community).

Through one-on-one conversation, our podcast explores the individual experience with creativity, with a focus on its processes rather than its products. Join us for inspiration, community, and a connection to your own creative process.

What are your assumptions about creativity?

"Processing..." will question, explode, subvert, and, in some cases, confirm what you think you already know about creativity (and the University of Pittsburgh community).

Through one-on-one conversation, our podcast explores the individual experience with creativity, with a focus on its processes rather than its products. Join us for inspiration, community, and a connection to your own creative process.

What are your assumptions about creativity?

"Processing..." will question, explode, subvert, and, in some cases, confirm what you think you already know about creativity (and the University of Pittsburgh community).

Through one-on-one conversation, our podcast explores the individual experience with creativity, with a focus on its processes rather than its products. Join us for inspiration, community, and a connection to your own creative process.