Biography

Mona Kasra is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media Design in the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia (UVa). A cross-disciplinary scholar and a creative practitioner, she employs, explores, and experiments with existing and emerging media to enhance the concepts of narrative and performative arts.

Mona has exhibited work in numerous gallery and online exhibitions and has programmed, curated, and served as a juror for several film festivals and art exhibitions. She often employs video editing, remapping and spatial techniques (through the use of multiple projections) to address theoretical concerns that arise from her research inquiries. She is a member of the DWZ, a Dallas-based collective of performance, visual, sound, and installation artists dedicated to post-disciplinary, place-based explorations of new, old and yet to be revealed forms of theater and performance. The DWZ mission is to develop a unique aesthetic and encourage original, experimental, and collectively created work that defies categories and convention. Since its founding in 2011, DWZ has produced many original works, written and directed by Thomas Riccio, including blahblah, Flesh World, (w)hole, T.N.B, and kaRaoKe MoTeL, for which Mona has created multiple video installations.

Mona received her Ph.D. in Arts and Technology, with a focus in emerging media & communication, from the University of Texas at Dallas. In her research, she applies an interdisciplinary framework combining semiotics, media theory, and cultural studies to examine the power and impact of online images upon cross-cultural and cross-political life in the networked age. She has presented her research at various conferences, including The Society for Photographic Education (SPE), The Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA), Union for Democratic Communications (UDC), SXSW Interactive, and Social Media & Society. She is committed to transdisciplinary and collaborative modes of scholarship, as her work has thrived in collaborative spaces such as ACM SIGGRAPH, Digital Societies and Social Technologies (DSST) Institute, and the HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) Scholars program, an online scholarly community funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

In 2016, Mona serves as Conference Chair at ACM SIGGRAPH, undertaking an engaged role in the strategic planning, leading, and managing of the world’s largest, most influential annual conference on the theory and practice of computer graphics and interactive techniques.