I (joey) would like to thank Craft Cultura and Rountree Market for hosting the Freedom Writing Workshop. My idea for the event came together after attending a Craft Cultura event in San Antonio Texas hosted at Young Blood Gallery in San Antonio and led by Marco Cervantes, a good friend of mine. The event was so good and I covered it in a blog post on my personal blog.
So I set to work getting to know Misael of Craft Cultura and ideating a Brazos event and boom we were in tune and set an April 25th date and I had already been in contact with Victor about having Rountree Market hosting an event, so we were good.
Misael of Craft Cultura was adamant about having a good flyer, so I reached out to my good friend Ernest Cuevas and he made us an amazing poster for the event and it ended up capturing so much of the event.
With a flyer on hand we began advertising the event and getting the word out there. This is one part I personally reflect on often. What is a successful event? One where hundreds show? The one where just a few show, but it’s highly impactful? What is a “first” event suppose to be measured by, especially in a small town.
With the event starting at 2pm, a few people had shown up, but really it wasn’t until 3pm that we had a group and began working away and the group would become a TAZ for that hour we gathered. We were not a big or small group, just a group. We shared our backgrounds, our stories, and then we wrote, and we wrote. After writing we began sharing our pieces and that is where things really began taking off, the stories, the lived realities and ability to engage with like minded people was inspiring.
The event for myself was a roller coaster of feelings. For me, I put this event together because at the last one it felt so great and I figured there were people in Brazos county that such programming would resonate with and it did. Now the goal is to have more events where people can engage with writing as a source of release and empowerment in Brazos county. To be able to build community and feel heard.
So stay tuned for more programing in Brazos County by the Convergent Media Collective. We plan to host some community mural events, more freedom writing workshops and general creative meet ups and collaborations. If you would like to collaborate with us, feel free to reach out to me, joey lopez phd.
Hello and welcome to the Creative Media Lab’s Fall 2025 write up. To say the least we have been up to a lot. This semester’s projects, events, initiatives, workshops and physical lab have all been in play. We had some great programing take place as well as helped with PVFA events as well. Will Connor Ph.D., Jonathan Guajardo Ph.D. Candidate, joey lopez Ph.D. and Matthew Campbell Ph.D. all worked hard to maintain the level of programing offered in past semesters, and not only did they maintain it, but they grew the amount of programing.
joey (currently the one writing) and Jonathan Guajardo are the Co-Coordinators of the Creative Media Lab, and while we have not yet found an official way to give Professor Will and Campbell titles, we would like to recognize their efforts and awesomeness here on this blog. Their contributions to the Creative Media Lab has been invaluable and appreciated professionally and as amazing professors, mentors and professional learners themselves.
In addition to great support, we had something major happen to our physical lab, Bolton 113. As of this winter break it will be under construction and a whole new lab is being built. The completion date is set for Fall 2026.
In the meantime we have moved to the basement of Bolton where our lab is now distributed throughout 4 rooms and located next to joey’s and Johnny’s offices. The changes aligned with a bursary professor Joey received for teaching LMAS201 in the Spring of 2025 and some funds professor Guajardo obtained through teaching Hullabaloo courses.
So over the Summer and in the beginning of the Fall joey and Johnny solicited feedback from all the Creative Media Lab members and our CMJR’s department professors about equipment they would like to see offered in the lab. They physical results have been the creative of 4 rooms, each with various capabilities:
BLTN 010 – Podcasting Space
BLTN 013 – Gaming Lab
BLTN 014 – Audio and Video Editing and Production Lab
BLTN 019 – Storage and Check-Out
Later in this blog post you will get an update about each room, what equipment they have and their capabilities. Johnny and I would like to thank the students, especially Bryan and Kaan who played critical roles in setting up the Gaming Lab and A/V Editing and Production lab respectively. It has been amazing to see how our community has grown and ownership of the spaces organically seized.
So to say the least, the lab has had some major movement, pun intended. Now let’s get into the highlights of all the work we have been up to!
Events/Workshops
Lorefest (Will & Campbell) – Coming Soon…
Dia De Los Muertos Shoebox Altar Workshop
The Dia De Los Muertos Shoebox Altar Workshop was our 4th time having the event! Over the years it has been a small but power turnout of 10-15 people. This year Will (Dr. Connor) shared enough shoeboxes to last us for the next couple years, it was an amazing donation. One of the things I like to do is have a photo printer ready for people to print photos with and lots of reuse arts materials, which we not have two bins worth. The results are always amazing, we share each others stories, our boxes and what they mean to use. This year I (joey) created a shoebox altar for Mary Cantu, a good friend of mine who passed away this past year, I did my best to have it really exude her energy and celebrate her life. Others created altars and/or added to theirs from years past.
Drone Workshop
Like in the Spring of 2025, we hosted a Drone Workshop once again led by drone operator Kaye Cruz who provided a full day of drone education with both in class and in the field hands on experience. The attendees loved the event, some even bringing their own drones, it was a great event once again. We cannot thank professionals like Kaye for being so giving of their time.
Retro Gaming – Spooky Night (Johnny & Bryan)
Retro Gaming – Spooky Night was sponsored by the College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts on October 28th, with college providing pizza, candy & drinks. We cannot thank professors Matthew Campbell Ph.D. and Patrick Sullivan Ph.D. for their continued support of these events.
The theme for the night was Spooky gaming and the presentation on the docent led games of the night were undergraduate Bryan Wiesepape & professor Jonathan Guajardo. The turnout was great and the presentations very informative. The docent led games were also a hit with people playing into the night. Good times!
Audio Engineering Workshop
We hosted an audio engineering workshop where students learned about the audio resources of the lab, basic microphone techniques and DAW overviews. The results from the workshops led the CML to continue building out audio production resources and continue programming into the Spring of 2026.
Post American Variety Show Videography
The Post American Variety Show was a show put on by the College of PVFA professors teaching improvisation courses.
“Set in a post-apocalyptic College Station, “The Post-America Variety Show”is a new variety extravaganza that takes a nostalgic look back at a time that never was: the Roaring 2020s, a time when people from different points of view were able to set aside their differences, come together, yell and fight, but also laugh. Enjoy singing and dancing, original music and choreography, comedy and more, all created by Texas A&M students. There may not be any running water or electricity, and the nuclear rats are getting more dangerous by the day, but that’s no excuse not to have a little fun!”
Robert Pepper (Dr. Pepper) Visit and Performances
Robert Pepper, a noise music artist invited by Professor William Connor Ph.D. to work with students and faculty to develop noise music compositions to be performed on campus. Over a series of weeks, artist Robert Pepper worked with 2 student groups and 1 faculty group on noise music performances that were presented in the black box in LAAH on November 14th. The results were amazing and the night was one to remember, check out the photos and videos below. Robert also gave a great lecture where the seats were full and the Q&A allowed the audience to really engage with Robert with questions ranging from his audio techniques to his travels and performances in other countries.
Spaces
2025 Creative Media Lab Physical Shake Up
Well the lab is currently under construction and as such has been moved into multiple rooms in the basement of Bolton, much like a lower layer in an 80’s movie… The results have been good, we worked over the summer, through this fall session and into the spring to create four rooms:
Gaming Lab
The gaming lab room is 014 and has proved to be a major draw by all kinds of projects and students, with a 75” television and dolby Atmos home theater system, the core of the gaming lab is robust. Additionally with every modern gaming system and an array of retro gaming solutions, the lab offers a great way for students to engage with gaming at many levels. Game studies sessions have taken place, smashbrother meet ups, student org sessions and of course general gaming has occurred with a highlight being our use of the space for retro gaming spooky night as mentioned earlier in this blog post.
Production Studio
The production studio has been a room in the making, offering full video editing systems, audio editing systems, plug in editing spaces for a laptop and an array of musical instruments and digital interfaces, the Production Studio has served as a major hub where student congregate and ideate about their projects and initiatives. It is also where the CML meets for their weekly meetings.
Podcast Studio
The Podcasting Studio has been a work in progress for over a year, with the fall introducing a full PTZ based video streaming setup with a new computer, cameras and studio monitors, along with lights. The usage has been amazing to see as classes and students have used the lab to create content.
Storage Space
The Storage Space may sound obvious, but we have also used it for the VR simracing setup and other initiatives. It has been a continued work in progress and as we transition back to the labs main space upstairs we see the VR setup having it’s own space.
Initiatives
Game Studies Meet Up
Throughout the fall the lab spent time organizing the gaming and setting up the structure to begin Game Studies Meet Ups once again. CML member Bryan Wiesepape and Kaan McCormick played integral rolls in setting up the space and Bryan took the reigns to begin planning game studies meet ups for the spring of 2026 as Kaan obtained a spring 2026 internship at Tesla.
Glasscock Game Studies Collaboration
In addition to our game studies meet up inititaive, Patrick Sullivan Ph.D. and Matthew Campbell Ph.D. of PVFA announced that they had formed a Glasscock Game Studies working group and asked if the lab would like to be participatory. The CML group loved their ideas and quickly agreed to collaborate and began working on a couple of tentative talks for the spring of 2026, with a platformer gaming presentation involving professor Anna Bowman slated as the first event.
VR/AR Initiatives (Kaan)
Durning the fall of 2025, Kaan McCormick worked on various VR and A/R projects in the lab, specifically working with the Meta Quests and Sony VR2 PS5 setups we have on hand. Highlights included demonstration of various driving simulations beyond sim racing, such as big rig driving. He also worked with local DJ’s to develop virtual reality DJ’ing environments.
Individual Projects
Joey’s Acrylic Synth
Joey’s Acrylic Synth is a project he undertook over the summer and worked on through the fall and continues to work on. In the fall of 2026 he brought the synth to campus for students to experience and interact with, as well as presented the Acrylic Synth to the music making and culture Glasscock working group through a public lecture facilitated by William Connor Ph.D.
The Stranger Short Film
Under my film production company, Martinez Film Productions, I put together my 6th film made at college station called The Stranger. It was a horror short film, and an adaptation of a short story I made back in high school. The film follows a college student running from his life, from an unknown supernatural force, that he believes is out to kill him. For this film, I collaborated with friends from the SWAMP filmmaking club at A&M and other people I could find to be part of the cast and crew. In terms of the creative media lab, they were gracious enough to let me use some of their equipment for the film including a Ronin SC 2 gimbal and a cinelens that I used for many shots of the film. I was able to get some feedback over audio and overall editing from some of the people in the lab and even spent some time in the lab chipping away at parts of the film. The film was definitely a huge endeavour especially in its opening scene, where I filmed a 5 minute one take sequence. While there were ups and downs along the way, and it took a long time to prep, everything did come together well and I was able to showcase to the creative media lab group and to a film festival at A&M hosted by the SWAMP club.
Down below are some photos and videos of the film:
Bomi Documentary
The Bomi documentary continued through this fall with joey documenting Bomi’s training and multiple races, a 10k and half marathon leading up to his Spring 2026 Houston Marathon. In tandem joey began working on a script and scouting editors. Stay tuned!
Conclusion
Overall the semester was beyond busy with the lab, so even our write up has taken a lot longer to compile, as even the Spring 2026 semester is proving to be very busy as well. We would like to thank all the students, faculty, community members, alumni and artist & professional participants. It is with your alls participation that we exist, period.
The Lab for Immersive Media at UT Austin was founded by Michael Baker and is run by Kyle Evans, an amazing artist, arts facilitator and professor. Before working for UT Kyle has a track record of doing serious performance arts in the community and for being a connectory for artists through his concurrent venture DadaLabs, a community centric space for creatives. Our visit was with Kyle and and lab maintainer Micheal. They gave us a full tour, explained their interactive wall that incorporates 16 camera tracking system that was truly amazing to experience. They discussed their interdisciplinary collaborations across campus. We discussed what future collaboration might look like and performances we would like to collaborate on. Our current hope is to have a Spring 2026 Synthposium where we host speakers from their lab and Dadalabs. We cannot thank Kyle enough for taking the time to show us the space.
The Grotto 101 Performance Space is run by Heather Barfield Ph.D. a performance artist, performance arts facilitator and active scholar. The Grotto 101 is located in south Austin and provides an intiment performance space for artists to perform and practice. We had some great coversations about her visiting and ideating about possible collaborations in BCS. We would like to thank Heather Barfield Ph.D. for hosting us.
Last but not least we went to Jerry’s House. We could write a whole book about Jerry’s House. Basically it is a house that was inhabited by Jerry Chamkis and is has been since bought and continued on as a private meeting space. The meet ups held there are legendary and so many stories are in the walls. Jerry was a polymath who worked at the Texas School for the Blind and also was a general hacking community connectory. It was a pleasure to get invited to stop by and see what people were up to.
TAMU Skaters Skateboard Features – Gabe
The TAMU Skaters student organization led by student org president Gabe and Faculty sponsor joey phd took on a summer skateboard feature building initiative. Based out of the porch of joey phd’s house, TAMU Skater org members worked together to build multiple skate features such as quarter pipes, p-rail and wedge ramp throughout the summer with Gabe taking on multiple solo sessions to keep the builds on track as many students go home for the summer. The results have been amazing with one ramp already making it to campus. The features all have wheels making them ultra portable to move around campus for various events. We look forward to see how they are painted and utilized over the coming fall 2025 semester.
Polar.Booth Book Pop Up
This is a video from Aug 2025 where Will (Aka Seesar) and joey setup at Roundtree Market, in Bryan, TX where Polar Photobooth hosted a book theme polaroid shoot and Sarah, aka @BudgetGirl had a book giveaway. It was a good time and Will and I definitely enjoyed taking the eurorack synth out. Currently it is all Behringer modules as I am still learning the whole world of eurorack, my hope is to slowly replace each module with my own DIY built ones by niche designers and cover the process. So stay tuned. And thank you to both Valerie and Sarah for hosting an amazing event! The Creative Media Lab looks forward to collaborating with Roundtree Market on multiple events and programming in the future.
Lab update
The Creative Media Lab has big physical changes happening. The biggest is a full remodeling and expansion of the Creative Media Lab’s space. As such the Creative Media Lab as a space has been moved into Bolton Hall’s basement into rooms 010, 013, 014 and 020. Yes a lot of rooms, but the results have been quite amicable and has given focus to the various offering.
010 – CML Podcast Studio
013 – Gaming and Media Lab
014 – Audio & Video Post Production Studio
020 – Sim Racing/VR and Storage Space.
With a remodel completion date forecasted for Fall of 2026 we will continue to give updates over the coming semesters.
We currently do still have access to Bolton 113 where we will continue to host meet ups as well until construction starts.
Love Craft Book & Instrument Build – Will
Jonathan Dissertation Update
Joey’s Personal Projects
Below are 5 projects joey documented over the summer, they represent his polymath approach to life and what hey enjoys to do on his spare time.
Acrylic Synth Project
Coming Soon
Jojo’s Daft Punk 5 Questions
This video came out of a project jojo had to do for school. Will (aka Dr. Connor) and joey phd work through all the albums by Daft Punk with Jojo after he was assigned to talk about a famous person and their impact. The video covers the 5 questions assigned and we think this video resonates pretty well in terms of showing how children’s enthusiasm for pop culture can serve as amazing learning tools.
This second video is an overview of the Nintendo Switch 2 which was launched in early June. Additionally we also have a video of the night of as it was it was true “release” experience. Moments like this are always fun to document and again see how they resonate with others experiences.
Ahhh “Project GTI,” the bane of joey’s existence this summer, this 2005 VW GTI had an oil cooler leaking oil into the coolant system. To say it was a big job for a shade tree mechanic would be an understatement. Joey literally just watched Youtube videos to learn how to fix the car and documented the journey.
