Like a great conversation, ideas collide in my work to reveal new perspectives. Lending new voices to often marginalized communities, I frame my subjects with dignity by letting them speak candidly telling stories that uplift.
My work is collaborative, engaging subject and audience to question and to reframe important timely subjects.
I apply traditional fiction and documentary storytelling techniques to established and emerging media such as extended reality, virtual reality and augmented reality to educate, entertain and empower people to think critically about the world around them.
Through new technologies, I create living exhibits that tell stories in the physical spaces they occupy that triggers dialogue between creator and participant. I am fascinated with the future of the Internet of Things and Web 3.0 and its potential for decentralized crowd-sourced collaborative stories in the very physical spaces the stories occupy. My interests in this arena include geo-connected stories, AR virtual animated AI powered guides, and VR aerospace simulations.
Jason spencer is a time-based XR artist and documentary filmmaker. His current XR exhibit Visions and Voices of Emancipation is being featured simultaneously at the Nia Cultural Center in Galveston, Texas and the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture at Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas in celebration of Juneteenth 2023.
He is an adjunct instructor at Prairie View A&M’s School of Architecture, where he teaches courses in design and digital media and has taught Digital Filmmaking at the Art Institute of Houston. He is a classically trained documentary filmmaker having worked on such projects as David Wolper’s Celebrate the Century for Warner Bros, Ken Burns’ series Jazz and Frank Lloyd Wright, and Henry Hampton’s America’s War on Poverty, both for PBS. He has also worked on programming for ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, E! and MTV Networks.
Spencer is the recipient of a multi-year film fellowship from the Juneteenth Legacy Project through Texas A&M’s College of Architecture. He has received support for his work from the Norman Lear Family Foundation, the Puffin Foundation Fellowship, the West Side Cultural Center of New York, and the Missouri Capital Punishment Resource Center, (now the Public Interest Litigation Clinic).
He is pursuing his Ph.D. in Architecture (Visualization) and an M.S. in Computer Science at Texas A&M University. He is part of three research labs, the JLP Project, the Astro Center and TEILab at Texas A&M. His first conference paper Predictive XR Telepresence for Robotic Operations in Space for IEE was published in 2021 for IEE. Spencer has a M.A. in Film from New York University and a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University. He grew up in rural New Jersey and has lived in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Houston. Spencer currently lives in Bryan, Texas with his dachshund chihuahua Lulu.