Since 2023, THE LUME Featurettes has been a model for how institutions can meaningfully support the next generation of digital artists, through thoughtfully commissioning immersive, stand-alone digital works, paired with a major exhibition. This year, Newfields partnered with students at the Herron School of Art + Design to showcase early-career creators not just as learners, but as contributors to the evolving language of contemporary art.  

This year, new Featurettes by pairs of Herron students explore themes of emotional transition, childhood memory, and cosmic wonder through richly layered visual and sonic environments.  

What follows is a closer look at each of these works and the artists behind them, offering insight into the collaborative processes, creative challenges, and personal experiences that shaped these compelling pieces. Each of these three works is connected by a shared commitment to creating fully immersive environments that speak through sound, image, and atmosphere. 


Echoes of Home 
While Harmonia turns inward to explore emotional states, Echoes of Home by Jansing Lunato and Macy Oberhart draws on nostalgia and childhood memory to build an imaginative, immersive world. Lunato bases the piece on emotionally charged scenes and items. “I took scenes and everyday objects... and represented them in a way that reflects the deep sentiment I associate with my childhood,” Lunato wrote. “I invite the audience to literally step into the work, offering them a space to reflect on their own memories and the emotions they evoke.” 

Oberhart’s sound design deepens this personal landscape. Influenced by her own memories of backyard swing sets and childhood play, she composed a soundscape filled with layered textures and natural recordings. “I used a lot of audio samples of things that you may not even think about when going through your day,” she explained. These subtle elements contribute to a journey that flows through a house, a backyard, a lake, and an ocean. “Echoes of Home is made to showcase multiple important pieces of a child’s life and imagination,” Oberhart said. “Viewers will connect with different details of the piece, relating them to their own lives.” 

Harmonia 
In Harmonia, artists Gregory Fisher-Fox and Maxwell Arney structure their work around a powerful emotional cycle: bliss, anxiety, and harmony. Fisher-Fox’s initial inspiration came from a vision of dramatic transformation: “a living, breathing Parthenon, with statues that move and alter the space over time.” As the concept took shape, it became a mirror for his own internal landscape. “I recognized the influence of my own anxiety,” he said. “That led me to create a narrative rooted in emotional cycles.” 

Sound plays a defining role in shaping the experience. Arney’s surround-sound composition allows the music to inhabit the space physically, reinforcing the visual narrative. “Without the ability to spread out some of the musical elements across the space, the experience simply wouldn’t be the same,” he explained. One of his most rewarding moments came in the mixing process: “I hope that the audience catches on to why I placed certain parts of the mix in the spaces that I did!” 

Evren 
With Evren, Kyleigh Sprout and Regan Wakeman shift their focus toward space, stars, and speculative cosmologies. Sprout, inspired by her lifelong fascination with astronomy, asks, “How would it look if you were surrounded by planets and astronomical events?” Her painterly approach to galaxy-building used digital layers and hand-drawn textures to render an expansive, celestial space. “My main goal was to have a recognizable galaxy,” she wrote, “but have it textured in a way that would cause the audience’s minds to wander and imagine.” 

Wakeman crafts her musical composition to match that sense of cosmic wonder. It was her first experience working with multichannel surround sound, and the process became central to the project’s impact. In a small circular room designed to represent the sun, she creates an acoustic illusion using directional sound. “Fire-crackling sounds move in a circular motion around the listener creating a surreal sensation of being engulfed by the sun.” For Wakeman, the piece is not just an exploration of space, but of perspective. “We simply want to create space for questions, for awe, and for reflection on what lies both beyond and within us.” 

Each Featurette invites viewers not just to observe, but to feel. Whether that’s the quiet unease of emotional transition, the warmth of remembered childhood, or the wonder of a vast and unknowable universe. These artists use digital tools not as spectacle, but as instruments of emotional clarity and spatial storytelling.