Meet Our Spring New Media Fellows

This winter, Open Signal launched a new program for engaging artists with our community, the New Media Fellowship program. Open Signal New Media Fellows share their artistic expertise and technical knowledge with the Open Signal community via artist talks, classes and exhibitions, gaining in return access to our center's state-of-the-art equipment library, media workshops and workspaces.

Our first New Media Fellows are DB Amorin and Hannah Piper Burns. DB and Hannah both have a passion for making new media art accessible. Their practices are very different, but they both possess the quality of innovation, which we're so proud to share with the Open Signal community.

Read on to learn more about DB and Hannah.

DB Amorin

DB Amorin is artist from Honolulu, Hawai’i, currently living and working in Portland. He works within video, expanded audio and augmented environments, drawing upon DIY methodologies by using lo-fi materials and open source technology to create immersive experiences. 

He is a founding member of Public Annex, an arts organization that aims to break down systemic barriers that prohibit marginalized populations from being included in the contemporary arts community. Since 2005, he has curated deepwhitesound, a quarterly online exhibition of experimental audio by international artists. 

DB holds a B.A. in Art Practices from Portland State University. His work has been supported with awards from several granting organizations, including the Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Precipice Fund grant (funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Calligram Foundation and administered by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) in 2013), and a year-long Artist Residency at Hale 'Iolani in 2010. 

His visual art and curatorial programming have been exhibited at the Soundwave ((7)) Biennial (San Francisco, CA USA), PICA’s TBA:16, FalseFront, White Gallery and Weird Shift (Portland OR), as well as Gallery ‘Iolani, GoHA, Hawai’i State Capitol Building, Doris Duke Theatre and CRC Cube Space (Honolulu HI), among others.

See DB's work on his website.

Hannah Piper Burns

Hannah Piper Burns plays fast and loose with the idea of mediums and materials. Her last three projects include an interactive digital environment navigated with two custom controllers, an experimental found-footage film (actually, two experimental found-footage films) about a deceased reality show contestant and a multimedia performance organized around a live snail facial treatment. 

She has been a Portland resident since 2009, after previous lives in the Bay Area and Maryland, and has actively and collaboratively organized art events for the better part of a decade, including Grand Detour/Experimental Film Festival Portland from 2010 - 2014 and Compliance Division, a project space located in the Everett Station Lofts, from 2015-2016. 

She recently exhibited and screened at the Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles; Bronco Gallery and the Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival in Portland, OR; Tritriangle and the Nightingale Cinema in Chicago, IL; and Indie Bits in Columbia, SC.

See Hannah Piper Burns' work on her website.

Open Signal's New Media Fellowship program is made possible by a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC).