eCreate Resources & Equipment

e C r e a t i v i t y

Digital media theorist Dene Grigar has rightly questioned the role of the electronic writing lab within the traditional English department. Hand in glove with this lies the issue of the changing nature of writing itself in a digital world. As creative 'writing' expands to include digital and mixed media -- image, sound, animation, video, performance, installation, blogs, wikis, and various modes of interactivity -- how does the eCreate Lab remain true to the text-based concerns of literary scholars at the same time as it expands the roles and definitions of literary texts themselves? The Lab can grow to incorporate interdisciplinarity not just within texts, but within the media of scholarly studies themselves. As writing more and more becomes an event that is performed in time and space, it is important that we continue to find new ways to both navigate and critique it.

As a magnet at the centre of these happenings, the newly reorganized and restructured eCreate Lab at the University of Texas at Arlington is fostering various media collisions, blendings and collaborations that incorporate students and faculty across campuses and disciplines, establish an artists, writers, performers and programmers in residence program, enable multimedia publishing, performance and distribution experiments, and apply these creative vectors and trajectories to the existing and future frameworks of literary and cultural studies.

Equipment Available for Check-Out

The Lab has a range of equipment available for students and faculty to use in the lab or to check-out for 24 to 48 hour periods.

• Digital Cameras
• • 1 Canon PowerShot Digital Camera
  • 2 Sony CyberShot Digital Cameras
  • 1 Sony DSLR Camera (Faculty Use Only)
  • 1 Nikon DSLR Camera (Faculty Use Only)
• Digital Voice Recorders
• • 4 Olympus Voice Recorders
  • 4 Sony Voice Recorders

• Digital Video Cameras
• • 4 Panasonic Hard-Disk Drive Cameras
  • 3 JVD Hard-Disk Drive Cameras
  • 15 Flip Cameras
  • 2 Sony HD HDD Cameras (Faculty Use Only)
• Laptops
• • 3 Dell Laptops
  • 14 Apple MacBooks

 

Classroom and Lab Access

The Lab (PH 311) is available 24/7 to current UTA English faculty and graduate students through the use of their MavExpress Faculty or Student ID Card. If you are a graduate student and do not have access, contact the Graduate Advisor and MavExpress to gain access to the lab. Undergraduate students are allowed Lab access only with the supervision of either faculty or eCreate Lab personell or via prior approval and notification from the eCreate Lab director.

• Lab Equipment
• The following is a list of equipment that is available for Lab use.
•  
• 9 Apple iMacs
• 1 Apple MacPro
• 1 Apple MacMini connected to an Epson Projector (Instructor Station)
• 3 Dell Optiplex PCs
• 3 Scanners, including a HP ScanJet 8270 with Auto-Document Feeder
• 1 Nikon Slide Scanner
• 1 ADVC-300 Digital Video Convetor
• 1 Brother Laser Printer
• 1 HP OfficeJet Color Ink Jet Printer
• 1 CD/DVD Label Printer

• Lab Software
• All iMacs have a version of the Adobe CS suite, iLife, and Microsoft Office.
•  
• Adobe CS2 Suite (Acrobat, InDesign, PhotoShop, Illustrator)
• Adobe CS3 Suite (PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, Flash, FireWorks Illustrator)
• Apple FinalCut Express
• Apple iLife 08, 09, 11 Suite (GarageBand, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iWeb)
• MacroMedia DreamWeaver 8
• Microsoft Office 2007 (on all computers)
• Various audio and video format conversion programs
•  
•  
•  

The Classroom (PH 310) is available for use as a conference, presentation, or lecture room when not scheduled for classroom use. To reserve the Classroom when it is available, contact Trudi Beckman in the English Department.

• Classroom Equipment
• The following is a list of equipment that is available for Classroom use.
  
•  
• 22 Apple iMacs
• 1 Apple MacMini attached to a projector (Instructor Station)
• 1 Brother Laser Printer
• 1 5.1 Speaker System

• Classroom Software
• The following is a list of software installed on the iMacs.
  
•  
• Adobe PhotoShop Elements
• Apple iLife 09
• Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
• MacRabbit CSSEdit
• Microsoft Office 2008
• Plasq ComicLife Deluxe

Lab personell are available during posted hours to provide support for both the Classroom and Lab and the UTA English Department.