OCAD announces first-ever Award for Distinguished

Research and Creation

David McIntosh In 2008, David McIntosh became the recipient of the first-ever OCAD Award for Distinguished Research and Creation.

This honour is conferred on the basis of a strong portfolio of evidence — not only of research, scholarship and creative activity, but also of the impact that activity has had on the broad spectrum of art and design research and practice internationally. The award also recognizes contributions toward undergraduate and graduate research and scholarly training. Only permanent, tenured or tenure-track faculty are eligible for nomination and nominations are reviewed by the Academic Council Committee on Research before recommendations are made to the vice-President, Research & Graduate Studies. Says Eric Nay, Associate Dean in OCAD’s Faculty of Liberal Studies: “David McIntosh is not only a committed and creative researcher with a phenomenal background that spans many years and many countries, he is also providing leadership and diligently working to establish programs, envision curricula and hire new faculty to further new media studies at OCAD.”

David McIntosh is Associate Professor, Media Studies, in the Faculty of Liberal Studies at OCAD. He is also a film producer, scriptwriter and curator in film, video and digital media. The subject of his Ph.D. in Communication and Cultural Studies at York University, which he undertook after two decades of fairly “consistent engagement” with the material, was the rise of decentralized media structures and distributed networks. In it, he considers the possibilities that are generated when increasing numbers of people get access to "the power of expression."

OCAD students are among these people, and McIntosh is keen on what new possibilities for expression they’re able to discover — inside and outside the classroom. Part of this award is in recognition of that, and of McIntosh’s contribution to their scholarly training.

Significant also is the fact that McIntosh communicates his expertise with local media constructions and innovations to an international audience, through regular trips to Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Mexico, where he lectures at leading universities on his research. That research has multiple point of focus, including: globalization and the political-economies of audiovisual spaces, network theories and practices, new media narrativity, mobile locative media, game theory, digital documents, Latin American media, and queer media.