Joline Blais, Associate Professor of New Media at UMaine, co-directs Still Water, and co-founded LongGreenHouse. Her book At the Edge of Art (2006) investigates how new media art puts the power of networks and distributed creativity into the hands of ordinary citizens in a variety of non-art contexts.
Blais’ publications and creative work explore the overlap of digital culture, indigenous culture and permaculture. LongGreenHouse (2007-2011) weaves the Wabanaki Longhouse, permaculture gardens, and networked collaboration into a hybrid “communiversity.” This cross-cultural braid articulates tribal and networked alternatives to our hierarchic (and failing) economic and political structures, and seeds the re-emergence of the ‘commons’ in multi-age learning communities. She has been expanding this work from the university to community contexts as a partner and member Belfast Cohousing and Ecovillage, and as a member of Orono and Belfast Transition Town Initiatives.
Blais’ Fair eTales and her courses in creative hypertext and digital narrative explore alternative narrative structures.
What do I teach?
- NMD 203 Creative Hypertext
- NMD 303 Digital Storytelling
- NMD 206 Project Design Lab
- IMD 520 LifeArt