Finding Inspiration at the Intersection of Art and Technology

As an accomplished musician, visual artist, game designer, programmer and educator, Matthew Nolan finds inspiration at the intersection of art and technology. 

This summer, he brought his unique skill set and nearly two decades of experience in sound design, digital audio, and interactive multimedia to the University of Maryland’s Immersive Media Design (IMD) program as a new lecturer in the Department of Computer Science.

“Immersive media kind of encompasses a lot of different disciplines,” Nolan explained. “It’s essentially where computation and media sort of shake hands or meet, and it’s quite a unique challenge.” 

Before joining UMD, Nolan spent 17 years at George Mason University pioneering courses and enhancing student experiences as an assistant professor in the university’s Computer Game Design program. This fall at Maryland, he’s teaching IMD’s senior capstone class.

“We have 53 students who are working on a two-semester-long capstone project, and we cover everything from software engineering all the way to artistic installations, film projects, virtual reality, computer games and beyond,” Nolan explained. “It's a unique challenge in that I am teaching both tracks of the IMD program—the B.A. program in art and the B.S. program in computer science. It is a true interdisciplinary experience.”

Over the course of the capstone class, students will apply the skills they learned to research, design, prototype and implement a large-scale immersive media design project.

“It can be almost anything that they envision, so long as it is in scope with our requirements,” Nolan said. “Some examples include data visualization, a utility, or a piece of software. Others might create an immersive storytelling experience, a 360-degree film, a virtual or augmented reality experience, or a music project that incorporates immersion and adaptive technology, embodied computing, or motion capture and animation. There are some very exciting technologies now for those students to work with, so we really try and support their journey.”

Coding and creativity

Interested in music from an early age, Nolan earned a Bachelor of Music degree in music synthesis from Berklee College of Music in 2007 and a Master of Music degree in music composition in 2012 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in visual art in 2022 from George Mason University. During those years, he began to see how programming and coding could expand and enhance the creative process.

“I got into a lot of hardware creation,” he explained, “So through the adaptation of physical computing, I started writing code that allowed me to use these physical devices and implement them into performance systems or software solutions on the screen, things like linear media, film scoring and game design.”

Nolan’s early work experiences doing production for major concert events featuring artists like Avril Lavigne and Dolly Parton fueled his passion for music; they also helped inspire his own experimentation with sound and technology. A game developer, musician, performer and composer with numerous commercial album releases and production credits, Nolan has spent nearly two decades developing sound, music and interactive technology for music videos, games and films. Along the way, he discovered a passion for education.

Taking game design to school

Nolan leveraged his computer science, interactive media and artistic skills to help build and grow George Mason’s multidisciplinary game design program.

“It was an interdisciplinary program between the Department of Computer Science and the College of Visual and Performing Arts,” Nolan explained. “Through my teaching, curriculum development and experiences there, I really got to see the beauty in teaching students coding as an expressive tool.” 

Now, as a professional-track faculty member in the IMD program at UMD, Nolan sees a wealth of opportunities for undergraduates who want to pursue both computer science and the arts, particularly the growing number of students interested in a career in game design.

“A well-rounded game design curriculum often requires integration of the human psychology element. Many considerations go into designing a game: What motivates players, what interrupts them, the delicate balance of intrinsic and extrinsic information, suspension of disbelief, flow theory, spatial awareness, cognition, feedback and more,” he noted. “In essence, the IMD program at UMD already has most of these bases in game design as course topics and faculty strengths, including arts, computer science, movement, architecture, sound and music, storytelling and cinema, and many more.”

Nolan sees the potential for even more opportunities in the future.

“The IMD program is uniquely suited to bring together interested parties from across campus and act as a conduit for their legitimate aspirations to learn and work in the field of game design,” he explained. “I'm very excited about the direction that Maryland is heading right now and the trajectory of the IMD program.” 

More than anything, Nolan is committed to his students’ success. His goal: to give them the advice and support they need to grow and take immersive media design into the future.

“I feel like I'm shaping this field, but I also think that, more importantly, we're graduating people who will be the future of it,” Nolan said. “I want my students to know that I'm here for them. I'm in the office five days a week for them to come meet with me and speak with me about their ideas so they can realize their goals and their dreams for the future.”

—Story by CMNS