Perhaps odd things are bound to happen when the largest student population in the country gather in a tiny town middle of nowhere Texas.
Following our semester-long coverage of the Aggie Bonfire for the fourth episode of my documentary series College Station Collage, I wanted to shed light on another student organization that showcased the sheer scale of juvenile grit and endurance rarely found in those other than college students, who some might simply label as mad. After all, it may seem a bit foolish to spend weeks camping in a muddy field through rain or shine stacking a couple thousand logs by hand all in the name of school spirit. However, as I found out from my time following these different clubs of Texas A&M, there seems to be an inexplicable force that compels college students to seek adventure, for stories they will carry for a lifetime.
I first met the Aggie Lemons in January 2024 during a beginning-of-semester open house meeting for A&M student clubs. Despite being unfamiliar with the Lemons race, after a brief talk with the club president Ethan Eve, I quickly learned that they were an organization that rivaled, or perhaps even surpassed the madness of the Bonfire crew- a group of unsanctioned students who were building behemoths of wicker to create a literal inferno every year which has already claimed twelve Aggie souls.
The 24 Hours of Lemons is an endurance motorsport race where teams compete for the most laps in 24 hours, much like its more official counterpart: the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However unlike the French race where car companies of great prestige spend millions to squeeze as much performance and reliability into their prototype cars, the spirit of the Lemons race is to race “lemons”, and has a $500 price limit on their cars (though instances of bribery and cheating were often witnessed and sometimes encouraged). It is a race meant to democratize car racing from just the uber-wealthy to everyone with a love for the sport.
Immediately intrigued by the premise, me and my crew of journalists immersed ourselves within the Aggie Lemons, joining their club meetings, workdays, and driving events throughout the year. We saw firsthand the hardships of restoring a barnyard 1997 Mustang to operating condition, let alone racing. It took many months of workdays sometimes ending as late as 4 am just to get the car started and running on all six cylinders. After years of neglect, the wirings were disintegrating and the fuel lines were clogged with old petrol that needed to be repaired and rerouted all by the students. They then cracked the engine block which resulted in a laborious engine swap with a salvaged motor from a junkyard. We learned that there has not been a single successful Lemons race in the club’s history, with the most recent race ending tragically after only a couple of laps and a failed transmission. Although the Aggie Mustang was always a problematic mess of exposed wires and rusted metal plates, it was hard not to develop some feelings of fondness for a scrapped vehicle I personally witnessed being revived into a race car over the course of the year. So when I learned that the club was looking for drivers to participate in the 2024 Lemons race in Houston, I knew I had to apply for a chance at commandeering the maroon steed.
When I introduced my project on the Aggie Lemons to the Creative Media Lab, Professor Lopez provided a complete racing simulator setup equipped with a VR headset. Using the simulator rig I trained daily, learning proper driving techniques such as finding the racing line, optimal braking points, and timings for downshifts. I also followed Ethan on many track days where I sat with him through multiple professional level driving and drifting courses. The driver tryouts were two different events, an aptitude test for driving manual cars, and a race held at a karting track. Although I was a newcomer in the club with less than a semester of experience, I was able to prove my competence and was selected as a reserve driver outside of the four drivers chosen.
The events of the actual Lemons race held in November 2024 is one that deserves its own essay, but I will leave it omitted for the reader to watch the story themselves from the fifth and final episode of my show College Station Collage. As for the results, the Aggie Lemons successfully finished the entire race for the first time in the history of the club with more than 170 laps completed, of which I was able to contribute about 20 laps. In my experience, most Aggies- whether they notice it or not- feel a sense of urgency that they are gathered in College Station for a reason and that their time here is limited. This leads to many desperately seeking a sense of community, which was also my reason behind creating this show. I wanted to witness and record the stories made by the thousands of students who will briefly call College Station home. I hope this show can explain just a little bit what kind of things happen in the middle of Texas.
Lorefest is the annual student-driven, research-based celebration of local/ glocal folklore that encourages Texas A&M students to work with Bryan/College Station communities and present their own creative take on regional Texas folklore. The students are charged to explore a range of folktales, then take their research and convert that into performative output shared with the people in the area during the festival. Each day had a unique focus maintaining the theme of local/glocal folklore and public scholarship. The events were all at full capacity, as well, with often over 250 attendees per event (where possible). Students and various local communities assuredly gained knowledge and understanding of their own culture(s) through being part of this annual festival.
Lorefest Day 01: Folklore Wrestling!
Day 01 was an amazing evening of students working with local professional wrestling production company, Lions Pride Sports to bring folklore characters to live and have them take part in exciting battles within the squared ring! Participants from TAMU’s PERF 301 classes trained at the LPS facilities with coach Houston Carson, leader of the Lions Pride Den, and worked with the LPS professional wrestlers to prepare for the night of outstanding entertainment performance art. The students designed costumes, worked with puppet-maker Victoria Snaith to create props, filmed videos and prepared music for the intros of their fighters, and sweat like fiends in the gym to learn the ropes (and be safe). Wrestlers to grace the card included Sirenhead, The White Wolf of West Texas, Sismito, the Mexican Bigfoot, and many more! The first night of Lorefest was a smashing success (pun intended) and we simply cannot wait to host the incredible wrestlers from Lions Pride Sports again next year! Special thanks to our sponsors for all their support including the Racial and Ethnic Studies Institute, The Texas A&M Data Science Institute, PVFA, CMJR, Destination Bryan, the City of Bryan, Lions Pride Sports, the Grand Stafford, the Parker-Astin Gallery, Jason Harris and Rich Copper, slowdanger, Yoko Hiroaka, Marty Regan, 2AM Productions, and of course everyone at the Creative Media Lab! Cheers all! It could not have been done without you!
Day 02: Haunted Japan!
Rudder Forum was the site for an evening of Yoko Hiroaka retelling scary folktales from Japan. She explained the stories in English before reciting them in Japanese with subtitles, including two of the scariest tales to come from Japan – Hoichi the Earless and Kurozuka: Witch of the Black Mounds. Yoko accompanied the amazing tales with performances on the biwa, a traditional Japanese plucked lute. It was a sold-out show and students were invited to dress up for Halloween, adding to the night of unsettling celebration! A delightful treat that should not be missed if Yoko returns to grace us with her tales again in the future!
Day 03: War of the Aggie Worlds + Podcasts + Dungeon Snyth
The third night of Lorefest was hosted by the Grand Stafford in Downtown Bryan, TX, where the students and local residents were bestowed with a Halloween treat – a rewritten version of H.G. Wells’ classic War of the Worlds with a twist: this version was set in Bryan/College Station! That’s right… the aliens landed on Texas A&M campus first! The live audio drama was written by Dr. Michelle Simms and performed by students from voice acting and sonic design classes offered through the College of Performance, Visualization, and Fine Arts. Before that, PERF 301 students presented some of the folktales they researched in the form of a podcast-style discussion, culminating with guests Dr. joey lopez and Johnny Guajardo hosting an Aggielore live podcast, full of spooky tales from A&M’s campus. The night was capped off with outstanding performances from visiting dark ambient and dungeon synth artists from Austin – Hexpartner, Jaycie Carver, and Black Magic Cyborg, all of whom merged homemade instruments, innovative use of technology and aethereal sounds of the unknown for a night of delicious, Halloween-fueled, sonic madness.
Day 04: First Friday – Puppets, Noise, Food, and Dance
Day 04 was jam-packed with Lorefest goodness! Hosted by the Parker-Astin Gallery in Downtown Bryan, TX, students and faculty participated in the monthly First Friday event. Inside the Parker-Astin, students shared a variety of food that they baked/cooked and drinks they concocted related to the folklore they researched for class. Also inside, was a VR-supported, interactive experience inspired by the folklore of La Lechuza, a testing ground for a larger immersive experience, escape-room-style event being developed by Dr.s Edgar Rojas-Muñoz, Anne Quackenbush, and Matthew Campbell. Other inside activities included video games developed by PVFA VIZ students, Board and tabletop RPG games created by PVFA Fine Arts students, and folklore-inspired facepainting by PERF 301 students.
Outside, the night was kicked off with students who worked with visiting artist Victoria Snaith to create walkabout-style puppets based of their folklore research, accompanied by Vozembouch-style instruments built and played by MUSC 381 students. The event was introduced by Allison Pimm, a TAMU Honors Student, where the spirits from beyond the vale (the puppets) were lead a la the pied piper (the musicians) away from the town center to ensure the positive nature of the celebration.
Later, Dr. Grace Adinku’s students presented a promenade of student-designed folklore fashion made from recyclable materials as a lead into a faculty-led performance, It Devours! conceived of and performed by Drs. Anna Holeman, John Cartwright, Riti Sachdeva, and Michael Poblete. Overall, it was an exciting night of creativity and a great chance for students and community to learn through performance more about their own local/glocal folklore!
Lorefest is infinitely grateful to Dr. Kathy Torabi for leading students to populate and perform along a downtown Bryan Ghost Walk! Students used their folklore research to create spooky “stations” along a path that wove through the Downtown area, leading participants to experience a variety of local/glocal tales of the supernatural and other worldly happenings! Truly a highlight of the Lorefest events!
Day 05: Lorefest Conference
The first part of Day 05 consisted of the first Lorefest Conference. The day started with international speakers from India, Pakistan, and Italy. The second panel featured TAMU students, both graduates and undergraduates, covering topics related to their classes including campus folklore, literary lore, and more. After lunch graduate students from other universities joined the discussion and gave talks on hospital folklore and concepts of death, urban legends, and family witchcraft and pagan practices. The conference ended with a captivating fairytale recounted by Dr. Sandy Stone and her analysis of it following the telling. It was an excellent academic round-up of thoughts and discourse on folklore and performance, and we are already excited to host the second conference next year!
Day 05: Abyss!
Lorefest was brought to a close with an amazing performance, Abyss, by the PVFA Artists-in-Residence, slowdanger, visiting the college to develop a new work that will premiere in 2026. The duet currently is based in Pittsburg, but one of the two, Taylor Knight, grew up in Texas and his father has stories to tell of the Forth Worth Goatman! Slowdanger interviewed Taylor’s dad, and they informed their performance specially made for Lorefest with the tales his father imparted. The show was abstract, beautiful, and intense, featuring movement art by the two dancers as well as original music composed and performed by slowdanger throughout the piece. The show also featured an amazing Goatman mask created bespoke for Abyss. We were incredibly lucky to have slowdanger be part of this year’s festivities and we couldn’t have asked for a more impressive and fitting end to the five-day festival – artistic interpretation of ethnographic local folklore research. Perfect!
We would like to dedicate this Fall 2024 Write Up to Winston Li who passed away this summer right before the semester started. Winston Li was a Texas A&M Engineering student and filmmaker. He joined the Creative Media Lab in the Fall of 2023 when he and David Kang walked into our lab after hearing about us on social media. Winston was quiet, but when he spoke up, he lit up. He was truly a filmmaker, and we do not say that lightly. A lot of people aspire to be filmmakers, many will shoot projects with their phones or do small vignettes and shorts. Winston was working on a full feature film when we met him, he had assembled a motley crew (the best kind) of fellow filmmakers for the production and over the next year they worked on the script and the film went into production. Along with his filmmaking updates he would share in the meetings and on our groupme. Winston also always shared advice with others about a wide array of topics. Winston was a true polymath, interested in philosophy, engineering, software, art, photography, filmmaking and much more. David Kang, his best friend, is still working with the production team to finish Winston’s film which is now in post production.
His passing was sudden and hit the Creative Media Lab hard. In all honesty we are still working through his passing. For those who have been with the Convergent Media Collective, you know we have experienced loss before and it is never easy. We would like to thank all those who have reached out and also thank his parents for being so kind when we saw them. Winston, we miss you and carry your enthusiasm for the arts and sciences with us.
Professor Joey, son jojo and Ash and David Kang traveling to Winston’s funeral.Winston’s Parents & David Kang
First off, we have an announcement, we would like to officially recognize that the joey is no longer the director of the Creative Media Lab. In an effort to bring an even more facilitative structure to the lab, he decided to restructure and now both he and Professor Jonathan Guajardo are co-coordinators of Creative Media Lab. This structure will help us facilitate many more projects (as you will see below) and build out a lab with that much more vision and facilitative leadership.
We would like to thank everyone who stepped it up this semester. To say we had a productive semester would be an understatement. We are all pretty tired at the end of it as well. With 4 activities a week happening at the lab and multiple other informal meetups occurring, the lab has stayed busy and has literally outgrown it’s space. To this end, the department is working with us to expand the lab in the near future and we are very excited to see what comes of this.
Below you will see projects, conferences, initiatives and updates about collective and individual work. We are so proud of our labs facilitative model. We love providing a space for creative ideation and production to take place. Building community is our #1 goal and watching the lab expand over the past couple years has been fulfilling for all those involved.
So brew a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage and enjoy!
Weekly Programing
Smash Bros. Club Meetup (Mondays 5pm)
Conceptualized and created by Nathaniel Nason, The Smash Bros. Club Meetup is a weekly meet up where attendees play Nintendo’s franchise game title Smash Brothers. Smash Bros. has a “cult” like following with multiple releases over the decades still being played to this day. To facilitate the meetups, the CML ordered an additional Wii, GameCube title Super Smash Bros. Melee and two GameCube controllers. Additionally we also purchased the Nintendo Switch title Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The meetup has been a huge success and we look forward to hosting it next semester as well as some special events based around Smash Bros.
Creative Media Lab Meetups (Tuesdays 5:30pm – 7pm)
The Creative Media Lab meetups were a huge success with multiple workshops and general planning meetings. We will highlight the workshops in a separate section. The idea behind our weekly meetups is to provide a place for the CML community to come together and see what projects we are working on individually and collaboratively. We plan out future workshops at the beginning of the semester, taking everyones ideas into consideration and then lining up the resources needed to make them happen. Our meetups were successful this semester in building community. We would often go get dinner afterwards and continue our creative conversations.
Gaming Analysis Meetups – David Dockery (Wednesday 5:30pm – 7pm)
Last spring Ph.D. Candidate David Dockery started a Gaming Analysis Meetup where attendees would chose a game and then over an hour or two play through the game while making observations about the game and also the communities interactions. This event proved to be of interest to many students and continued through this Fall’s semester. The Creative Media Lab cannot thank David Dockery for all the work he has done to sustain this meetup. This meetup transformed our space and capabilities. David educated the coordinators of the lab Joey and Johnny with more nuanced approaches to game studies and also showed them how to deliver presentations on the topic. David will be going on to work full time on his dissertation in the spring and so the torch of the Gaming Analysis Meetup will be handed over to Joey while we find a new organizer of the meetup. This semester’s titles played were:
Organized by Drew Tiritilli, CoverCampus is a student organization meetup where they plan their initiatives, whether it is mural planning, swag design (stickers) or budgeting, the group uses their time in the lab to move their organization forward. They originally chose this location because they said it felt creative and inspiring and we have since loved hosting them.
Creative Media Lab Ideation Hours (Fridays 11am – 3pm)
The Creative Media Lab Ideation Hours started off as a time to plan the Latinx Pop Magazine Video Game Podcast. Once sorted and launched, we continued to meet and use this time as an additional “CML office hours” with joey and Johnny facilitating ideation on projects and planning for the Creative Media Lab. The results were Fridays were a ton of fun and people came in to the lab and worked and ideated about a slew of projects and initiatives. Equipment would be checked in and out.
Workshops
Dia De Los Muertos Shoebox Workshop (Collaboration between the Creative Media Lab and the National Hispanic Journalism Association.
The Dia De Los Muertos Shoebox Workshop is a yearly tradition for the Creative Media Lab where we host students, faculty, friends and family to learn about Dia De Los Muertos. This year we joined up with the newly formed National Hispanic Journalism Association Student chapter and held the workshop in the lab. At the CML lab we keep supplies ready for the event, collecting shoe boxes over the year and crafting materials. We also have a printer capable of creating photos for when the event happens. It was great hearing everyone’s journeys and to reflect on what the day means to everyone. Some people who came had never celebrated Dia De Los Muertos and got to learn as we created the shoebox altars. We look forward to next year. This years Dia De Los Muertos is dedicated to Winston Li, a CML member who passed away this summer. We miss you Winston.
Podcast Workshop
One of the workshops CML members requested was a podcasting workshop. So joey and Johnny put one together going over how to conceive and pitch a podcast, the hardware it requires and personnel. They then gave a hands on tutorial on creating a podcast in the CML podcasting studio. The CML members had a great time and were happy to get so many hands-on experiences. The CML podcast studio is open to students and faculty to create podcasts both audio and video. Reach out to the CML podcast studio manager Jonathan Guajardo for scheduling and training.
Puppet Workshop by Victoria Snaith
English puppeteer and thespian Victoria Snaith visited the CML and gave a two week workshop on creating puppets and how to work with them. In the second week the CML members then shot a short film. We are so appreciative of Victoria’s time and expertise, she is an amazing teacher and performer. You will read more about her projects in our Lorefest write up.
Conferences
A.I. News & Media Production Symposium
Hosted by the Creative Media Lab, the A.I. News & Media Production Symposium was conceived by joey and CML community member Kaye Cruz after talking about the impact A.I. on news reporting and journalism. Once pitched to the general CML members, another community member, Mark Solis, mentioned how much of an impact A.I. has been in their marketing agency. And so we were off to the races developing a Symposium. We reached out to the Institute for Data Science who offered funding and support through a presentation about A.I. ethics. The Symposium consisted of presentations about A.I. by Kaye Cruz about broadcast journalism and general reporting, followed up by a workshop where attendees ideated about various projects and research that could be initiated through various collaborations.
Mark Solis and John Frazee would present on A.I. media production in their Marketing Agency Love Marketing. They then held a workshop on the current tools being used for A.I. media production which was simply amazing. They showed not only A.I. text modeling, but image, video and music modeling.
We would like to thank joey, Johnny and the Institute of Data Science for their financial support of the symposium, it provided stipends and lodging for presenters and food for the symposium.
Lorefest Symposium
Lorefest is the annual student-driven, research-based celebration of local/ glocal folklore that encourages Texas A&M students to work with Bryan/College Station communities and present their own creative take on regional Texas folklore. The students are charged to explore a range of folktales, then take their research and convert that into performative output shared with the people in the area during the festival. Each day had a unique focus maintaining the theme of local/glocal folklore and public scholarship. The events were all at full capacity, as well, with often over 250 attendees per event (where possible). Students and various local communities assuredly gained knowledge and understanding of their own culture(s) through being part of this annual festival. For the full write up click here.
Latinx Critical Creative Consortium
Professor joey represented the Creative Media Lab at the Latinx Critical Creative Consortium at the University of Texas at Austin. Having hosted the 2nd annual LCCC, it was great to attend the forth one and see how it has evolved. This year’s theme was graduate writing facilitation. Professors from various universities presented about writing for both academic and general fiction and non-fiction. Professor joey hosted a workshop about multimodal academic publishing and documenting your process and journey through academia. Other workshops included zine making, how to publish your own memoir, taking published papers to the next level. It was very cool to see the next generation of academics getting an alternative publishing praxis.
Creative Media Lab Initiatives
Saying “Howdy” to Our New Podcast!
This Fall Semester brought with it many new additions and returning traditions. One of the most prominent events returning to campus, The Lone Star Showdown football game between Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin, filled the minds of Aggie students as they matriculated through their semester courses. With all the hype surrounding this game, the semester seemed to fly by as students and alums eagerly awaited the return of the rivalry following a 10-year hiatus. Luckily, the Creative Media Lab crew anticipated this long before the first autumn leaf alighted upon the storied bricks of Military Walk. Last Spring, we were approached by TAMU CMJR Professor Angelique Gammon and UT-Austin Professor Kathleen McElroy to propose the idea of producing a joint TAMU/UT-Austin student podcast about the return of the rivalry. Later in the Spring, we held a meeting to gauge the interest of students in producing a joint podcast with UT-Austin students from The Drag chronicling the return of the rivalry. This initial meeting, moderated by the Lab’s own joey lopez and The Drag’s Katey Outka, was highly attended, with many students exclaiming their excitement to participate in this podcast.
After gauging students’ interest at this initial meeting, faculty members joey lopez phd, Jonathan Guajardo, and Katey Outka met multiple times throughout the summer to plan out and develop a better sense of the scope of the project which was set to launch officially in the Fall of 2024. These meetings took place mostly via telecommunication on Zoom, with one notable exception being a June 27th meeting with Katey Outka at The Drag in Austin where A&M and UT-Austin faculty leadership laid out plans for the Fall 2024 episode publication schedule.
While the aforementioned faculty members from both universities took on leadership roles with this new podcast, students soon stepped up to take on the reins. Texas A&M students Jackson Moss and Sophie Villarreal, as well as UT-Austin student Neha Donthi, all took on leadership roles at the start of the semester and began to meet weekly with TAMU Professor Jonathan Guajardo to plan out the direction of the podcast. After several meetings and much deliberation, the name Howdy and Hook ‘Em, was chosen by the student leaders and the weekly topics were agreed upon by all members.
Following these notable achievements, students from the larger pool of interested respondents were solicited and recruited as hosts, producers, and social media managers for each individual episode. UT-Austin students recorded episodes in their facilities at The Drag and our Aggie CMJR students utilized the Creative Media Lab’s new podcast recording studio in the basement of Bolton Hall to record their individual portions of the episodes. Notable CMJR students who hosted these podcasts include Samantha Delgadillo, Youngchan Kang, and Ciara Anderson. These students took on podcast responsibilities and went above and beyond in their commitment to this endeavor and Professor Jonathan Guajardo utilized these recording sessions as opportunities to teach students the fundamentals of podcasting through practical pedagogical experiences.
Nine episodes of the podcast were produced in total. These episodes covered everything from the rivalry’s origin, to the successes and failures of both teams over the years, the cessation of the rivalry in 2010, the fashion and lifestyle aspect of the rivalry, and the implications of the rivalry’s outcome. Even though our Fightin’ Texas Aggies did not prevail on the field against a talented Longhorn squad on November 28, 2024, our CMJR students all emerged as victors, producing a successful podcast which looks to expand more over the coming semester and into next year as the rivalry continues throughout multiple sports until both football squads meet up again in their Fall 2025 matchup at Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium in Austin.
Retro Gaming Night – Zelda (Creative Media Lab & College of Performance Visualization & Fine Arts)
Professor joey was approached by the College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts Professor Patrick Sullivan and Professor Matthew Campbell about hosting a retro gaming night. After some initial meetings it was decided that the Creative Media Lab would host it on November 7th and curate a guest speaker and docents for the retro gaming nights theme: The History of Nintendo’s Zelda Franchise.
The night started off with Communication and Journalism Ph.D. Candidate David Dockery giving a wonderful lecture on the history of Zelda and then after the lecture, the attendees were introduced to a group of docents who would hosting various instances of Zelda titles. The docents consisted of David Dockery hosting Zelda Twilight Princess on the Nintendo Wii on a vintage CRT Television, Amanda Oates hosting Zelda Majora’s Mask on GameCube via Wii and a LCD monitor. Gavin Phillips was docent for Zelda Breath of the Wild and jojo Lopez was docent for Zelda Echos of Wisdom, lastly Professor Patrick Sullivan was a rover docent. The attendees loved the event with many staying over an hour past the stop time. We would like to thank the College of PVRA for providing pizza and sodas. We look forward to the next retro game night collaboration!
Sim Racing Rig
Conceived by David Kang, the Sim Racing Rig was pitched by Kang as a way of getting the CML lab involved with Sim Racing and also real racing, as Kang was currently (Spring 2024) working on a documentary about the A&M Lemons racing team. Using bursary funding from teaching LMAS 201, joey ordered a full logitech rig consisting of:
Play Seat, Trophy – Logitech G Edition Sim Racing Cockpit
Logitech G923 Racing Wheel and Pedals
Logitech Driving Force Shifter
Sony PS5
Sony VR2 Headset
Grand Turismo 7
The parts would show up over a couple weeks at the end of summer and early fall. Once assembled the Racing Sim proved to be a game changer for the lab in terms of drawing people in and also in terms of Kang training nonstop with hopes of racing in the Lemon’s race he currently documents. Now that we have a grasp on the Sony sim ecosystem we are hoping to branch out to other systems, such as PC iRacing and Assetto Corsa Competizione. Once we have enough experience and feedback, we hope to create some videos and also texts about Sim Racing in terms of the field of games studies and gaming culture.
Skateboard Art Project
In its third semester, the Skateboard Art Project pushes ahead with it’s deadline for submissions by students and artists January 6th, 2025. Once all collected we will have a photo & video shoot to create promotional materials for an event we will be hosting where the Artists and Skateboards will be featured in a Gallery setting. Here are pictures of some of the boards we had submitted so far. This project has taken on a life of its own and we have really enjoyed that. Professor joey purchased a skateboard rack to display the boards done so far in the lab.
Latinx Video Game Podcast
The Latinx Pop Magazine Video Game Podcast is a cross collegiate project with the University of Texas at Austin’s Latinx Pop Lab run by Professor Fredrick Luis Aldama. The concept for the podcast is to highlight the reflexive relationship between Latinx culture and video game culture and where their paths meet, whether it is in game play, design or where people play games or how they interact in gaming spaces. We plan to interview experts in the field and develop a working understanding of the multidimensional aspects of the field itself. A preview of the podcast can be seen below.
Faculty-Student Works
Bomi Running Project
Hey this is joey checking in on this one. This is a project I didn’t see coming. One day in September 2024 Bomi, an active Creative Media Lab member contacted me about meeting up. In our lab he is known for being a stellar photographer. He has an ability to not just shoot great shots, but evoke his subjects emotions and personality. So when he started talking to me about running marathons I was thrown off, but totally enthralled. Next thing I know he and I are at a soccer field at 6:30 in the morning and I am documenting his training for the BCS Marathon on December 8th, 2024. For the next three months, I follow Bomi on his journey and from this journey we will be creating a documentary and have already released vignettes and photos of the journey. So stay tuned over the Spring 2025 semester for the release of the documentary and see how one journey ends and another begins!
Student Works
XwhY Podcast (Delaney Wessel)
The XwhY Podcast is the show where 4 college roommates with the help of a male guest star answer the women’s burning questions about the male brain. Originally an idea formed in their living room hosts Delaney, Anna, Libby, and Mia come back each week with a new guest star and lots of different questions. The show features not only hypotheticals, trivia, and relationship questions, but also brings commentary on worldviews and cultural norms. Aiming to bridge the divide between the genders, the XwhY Podcast has been called “a modern take on Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.” Producer Delaney Wessel says, “The show has been so fun to get to make. Every episode gets better and better as we get more comfortable with the podcast setup. I’m so happy that people like something that I have created.”
You can learn more about XwhY at itsthexwhypodcast.com.
CSTAT Collage – Lemons Racing
CSTAT Collage is a Documentary Series produced by Creative Media Lab member David Kang. Last year he produced a documentary about the Aggie Bonfire. This year CSTAT Collage focuses on the Aggie Lemons Racing team, a group of students who race annually in the 24 Hours of Lemons Texas race which this year was the MSR HOUSTON (Texas Tippin’) 2024 which took place near Houston, TX at Motorsports Ranch aka MSR. The Documentary itself is still in the editing phase, click here for a full write up and images from the race.
TAMU Rowing Crew
Kaan joined the Aggie Crew (rowing) team as a freshman and wanted to educate other students about the sport and help recruiting efforts. Crew is a great sport for many reasons and Kaan wanted to show that. Rowing requires perfect synchronization between team members. The success depends on each rower working in sync with the others. Unlike some sports where one person’s performance stands out, crew is a sport where the team’s collective effort is what counts. This fosters camaraderie between team members. Rowing requires rigorous training and commitment and team members push each other to work harder. The early mornings and grueling workouts are hard, but results are worth it. The coxswain directs the boat, but rowers also communicate non-verbally, syncing their strokes and maintaining consistent rhythm. This continuous interaction requires trust that your teammates will be in sync with you. Crew creates friendships because of the time spent together training and racing, and Aggie Crew is a wonderful tight community where each of us feel part of a family.
Kaan tried to show how hard the team members work, how they have excellent communication and trust, how they work towards a common goal, and how it is all worth it. He included an interview with a team member, and tried to show the team working, training, having fun, and enjoying the water, especially during a beautiful sunrise.
Course Documentation
COMM 410 Speaker Making Workshop
Joey’s COMM 410 got to experience his Speaker Making Workshop. Generally deployed in COMM 410, the Speaker Making Workshop is where students in groups literally make speakers! Using 8.5X11 paper, some magnetic wire (link), neodymium magnets (link), some scotch tape and a headphone adapter (link). The results are always amazing as students can plug these speakers into their iphones and laptops. For them to see how technologically basic speakers are, even in the 21st century is definitely a magic trick that opens up their ideas to how sound and music is recorded and played back. I say recorded, because you can also use the speakers as microphones!
COMM 662 Survey of Media Studies
This was the first graduate course professor joey has ever taught at Texas A&M. COMM 662 proved to be a huge journey man than just a class. He worked on building trust with the students and “thinking outside the academic box.” Through workshops, lectures and project based learning, the course took on a multi modal form. Professor Jonathan Guajardo helped out with a Podcast Workshop and Ph.D. candidate David Dockery gave two workshops on game studies where the students got hands on experience with game analysis and gaming observation. The students also gained video and audio skills working with Jojo, professor joey’s son.
Guest Speakers
Luis Vasquez, Social Media Speaker
Professor Jonthan Guajardo invited Luis Vasquez to come and speak about his new media ventures in San Antonio and speak about his journey of maintaining consulting projects, running a restaurant and helping his family restaurant businesses. Luis gave a great presentation to the COMM 275 social media class and had some lively discussion at the end about students and their own new media/social media ventures.
Kaye Cruz, Independent Media Journalist and Producer
Kaye Cruz is a long standing guest speaker with the Creative Media Lab and is someone who has been involved with the CMC since 2010. Kaye is a new media producer and Audio ENG, producer and FAA licensed drone operator. Jonathan Guajardo invited him to come speak to his class and as usual Kaye delivered with great lectures and engaging content that got the students thinking about how they will use what they are learning in the field and create an impactful career.
Love Marketing (John Frazee & Mark Solis), Marketing Agency
In addition to presenting at the A.I. in Journalism & Media Production Symposium, Love Marketing’s John Frazee & Mark Solis presented to joey’s COMM 330 & COMM 476 courses, giving engaging lectures on A.I. and it’s impact on media production and the field of communication in general. We cannot thank them enough for all the engagement with A&M students over the years.
Sandy Stone, International Theorist
Allucquére Rosanne “Sandy” Stone Ph.D. visited A&M as part of Lorefest as a keynote speaker. She attended joey’s COMM 330, COMM 476 and COMM 662 co-lecturing with joey about technology and society (COMM 330), music production (COMM 476) and its impact on culture and talk to the graduate course COMM 662 about media studies. Additionally she attended the Creative Media Lab meet up and got to ideate and discuss projects and research various members were working on.
Matt Fangman, Design Thinking
The Creative Media Lab had the pleasure of Matt Fangman, a Design Consultant, visit us and led a workshop on Design Thinking. Matt Fangman’s workshop really woke up the attendees and got them thinking about their creative process, from developing ideas to implementation to creating works that are audience/customer focused. Undergrads, grads, faculty and staff were all in attendance and we got to reflect on the Creative Media Lab’s approach to project development and over the coming weeks discussed how we can implement design thinking into our approaches. Here are some quotes from attendees:
“The design thinking workshop was great! I enjoyed getting to look at problem-solving from a different perspective and sparking initiative when you can be struggling with creative blocks.” – Sophie V.
Graduate Student Check Ins
David Dockery Ph.D. Candidate
David Dockery has been a pillar of the Creative Media Lab this semester. He hosted the weekly gaming analysis meetup, hosted multiple game theory and studies workshops, regularly engaged with students and faculty at lab hours and gave a stellar presentation at the Retro Gaming Night Zelda event. People like David make the lab what it is.
He is in the process of writing his dissertation and has been making major headway with the guidance of TAMU CMJR professor Nathen Crick Ph.D. where he explores gaming, mythic lore and more.
He has recently began working on his content creation skills and released his first gaming stream that explores the game play and journey of the game Minecraft. This piece is a great example of how approachable game studies can be.
Valentina Arduen Ph.D. Candidate
Valentina Arduen has spent this semester dissertating and working on her documentary. She presented her work “Black Land Matters: Understanding Roots, Routes (noun) and Route (verb) for Environmental Justice” as part of the Summer Time for the Advancement of Research (S.T.A.R.), which is Communication & Journalism departmental funds for doing research over the summer. Her presentation was great and the conversations that came out of it at the presentation were great.
Rick Pulos Ph.D. Candidate
On August 16, 2024 – Madonna’s birthday!!! – 1776: The Musical opened at the Theatre Company of Bryan-College Station for a 3-week run. As the director of 1776, Rick led a cast, crew, and orchestra of over 40 BCS community members between June and August. In addition to his directing duties, Rick created the social media marketing campaign for the show and designed all the projections. 1776 tells the story of the 13 colonies as they declare independence from the British Crown.
After 1776, Rick immediately pivoted to his dissertation proposal. Queering, Diversifying, and Transforming Media Fandoms is an ethnographic critical audience research study that focuses on queer fans and their engagement with the Star Trek media franchise and with each other socially at the intersection of identity, media, and culture. As one site of his hybrid ethnography, Rick is making an ethnographic film tentatively titled To Boldly Go Where No Gay Has Gone Before. On November 15, he successfully defended the proposal and became ABD (All But Dissertation), a.k.a. a PhD candidate.
On November 17, Rick was given the The Randy Wilson Award by the Theatre Company of Bryan College-Station. TTC gives this prestigious award each year for service and leadership. One of the things Rick created and administered this year was TTC Teaches, a series of low-cost workshops to help community members learn new skills. Rick created the branding and marketing campaigns for all the workshops. You can see an example here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xLairQDQ3YU
On November 21 at the National Communication Association’s 110th Annual Convention, Rick presented “Zoe Nowak: Bridging Sound, Movement, and Visuals as a Transgender Artist.” This video was a collaboration with Dr. Will Connor, joey lopez phd, and the Creative Media Lab. Electronic musician Zoe Nowak visited Texas A&M University in Spring 2023. She collaborated with faculty and students throughout her weeklong residency. This collaboration resulted in several public performances with students. In February 2024, Texas Scorecard, a conservative “media outlet,” attacked Zoe’s visit, characterizing it as pushing transgender ideology and labeling Texas A&M a “Den of Degeneracy.” This documentary short is the story of Zoe’s visit.
You can watch the video here:
Rick is about to embark on his dissertation project which already has IRB approval. He was lucky enough to receive a super competitive and blind-reviewed Dean’s grant of $2000 from the TAMU College of Arts & Sciences that will support the videography work of his dissertation film.
