Artworks Data Table

In today’s digital media landscape, we are constantly surrounded by displays, from the LCDs found on the phones in our pockets to the ubiquitous screens that greet us whenever we enter a store, airport, taxicab, doctor’s office, or educational institution. This plethora of displays both allures us and contributes to the media’s saturation of our lives. The truth remains that we are never far from the next form of information display. Disney Research’s Pixelbots takes this truth as an inevitability and brings the display into a kinetic form, breaking the screen out of the confines of a rectangular or oval experience. Billed as “Pixels with Personality,” the Pixelbots’ enticing presence rests on our ability to project human qualities onto objects that move as we do in physical space.

Whenever we see robots, remote-controlled cars, boats, planes, drones, or anything else moving in controlled formations resembling a flock of birds or an army of ants, we project human characteristics onto them. Sigmund Freud discovered this phenomenon and named it “psychological projection”—the process whereby one projects one’s own thoughts, motivations, desires, feelings, and so on onto someone or something else. Pixelbots represents this form of empathetic display, as well as the evolution of how information will manifest itself in the near future. Similar to Greyworld’s The Source—a kinetic installation inside the London Stock Exchange consisting of tethered spheres that change color and position based on which stocks are doing well or poorly on the market [6]—Pixelbots shows how information can be arranged dynamically and fluidly on a physical platform and take material shape in the form of clusters or designed dynamic shapes. The screen itself becomes a fluid entity that can be harnessed and remixed into any shape, color, or manifestation one desires.

Russian artist Dmitry Morozov’s Metaphase Sound Machine plays off of our increasing dependence on the information and electronic noise that permeates our everyday lives. The project is based on the ideas of American physicist Nick Herbert, who created the Metaphase Typewriter—invented as a quantum device capable of communicating with ghosts—and Quantum Megaphone, a speech synthesis machine [5]. According to Morozov, Herbert’s interests also included the mixing of hallucinogenic drugs, paranormal activity, the nature of consciousness, and speculative connections. These early interests contributed to Herbert’s desire to design a quantum computer, but they did not confirm any theoretical research. Morozov’s piece was inspired by Herbert’s work, especially in relation to the amalgam of devices and networks that permeate our daily routines.

The Metaphase Sound Machine works like the spinning radars that manage flight traffic at airports, but instead of looking for moving objects, the machine scans its vicinity for radiation from networks, cellphones, laptops, and other electronic devices. Using an on-board Geiger counter, the machine gathers nearby radiation and translates it into sound waves based on its proximity. The element of randomness in Morozov’s work is derived from the data collected by the sensors, making the sounds produced truly unique every time the machine is activated. The kinetic motion of the system attracts visitors, causing a chain reaction as the machine senses their electronic devices, provoking further activation of the machine.

Objects are not always what they appear to be. Through this piece, I wanted to express this notion of objects in disguise and provide commentary on the nature of design in today’s contemporary aesthetic. The scenario is indeed familiar to many of us: the user coming into contact with an artifact of industrial, graphic, urban or any form of digitally interactive design from today’s sphere of post-modernism, feeling a slight sense of miscommunication, and only upon some reflection discovering the true intent or function of the artifact in question. The user does not immediately realize what it is that they are observing, yet it is the realization itself which cements the double meaning of such artifacts. An inconvenience to some, and a pleasure to others, I wanted to consciously communicate such a quality through this piece. Through the process of abstract imagery and visual double meaning, an alternate reality should emerge, bringing to light the surrealism of the situation inside both the 2D image, and hopefully, in our own 3D world.

Summary

The work proceeds with the question, ‘What is nature for urban people?’ For urban people, “naturalness” is the urban landscape and looks at it through Korean traditional music.

Abstract

See the scenery of the city through Korean traditional music. ‘object’ exists with time. We sometimes bring the ‘object’ of the past to reproduce the time of the past. ‘object’ becomes the music of Korean traditional music. What we are trying to reproduce is nature. What is nature? Nature is a phenomenon itself. For people in the modern world, is nature an urban ecosystem? We find the way back to nature through the ‘object’ called ‘Korean traditional music’. It looks at nature as the whole being, not as an individual who only has the impression of passing through without a clear form.

The work begins with the question, ‘What is nature for urban people?’. In modern society, people live without losing nature. In this society, for us, the meaning of nature exists in an ideological form, but does not exist. Although this work visually shows the urban landscape, it creates chaos in people’s perception system, making the city look like nature. This image is projected on a place with a three-dimensional surface, reveals its distortion form and once again gives confusion about form and notion.

A city girl at heart, I have had a love-hate relationship with suburbia for over 20 years. It began in 1979 when, over a period of many months, I photographed the lawns, gardens, and homes of Parma, Ohio, a western suburb of Cleveland and the epitome of middle Americana. To those who live on the East Side, the West Side is a cultural wasteland of cookie-cutter houses, meatball shrubs, bland lawns, and decorative cliches. So when I set out with my camera, it was as on safari to a strange and distant land. What I found were cookie-cutter houses, meatball shrubs, decorative cliches, patterns of light and shadow, geometric perfection, and quirky expressions of faith, love, and individuality. This was no modern gated community where a large question mark painted on a garage door would be against the rules. The result of the expedition was the series, Parma Piece, subsequently exhibited at the New Gallery of Contemporary Art and the Cleveland Art Museum. But Parma Piece was only part of the story. Suburbia is where the American Dream lives, and those who dwell there dream the Big Dream. Just as they (or their parents) fled to America in search of freedom and prosperity, they, in turn, fled the dirt, noise, chaos, and racial strife of the city in search of the quiet, order, cleanliness, and safety of the suburbs. For the vast majority, however, prosperity only went so far while they held fast to the notion that if they worked hard. invested, and saved, they, too, could live in European-style palaces with manicured gardens, a status that was unattainable under European political/economic systems. For the time being, however, a bungalow nested inside a row of identical bungalows would have to do. And while the palaces and sculpted gardens of Versailles were out of reach, they had their little plots of earth on which to plant their shrubs and weedless grass shaped and trimmed to unearthly standards of perfection. Instead of monumental statues, they had rocks and swans and flamingos and little boys carrying fishing poles. Their homes would be their castles, of sorts, and they would dream … Using digital tools, I am able to re-visualize that dream, to begin to imagine Versailles from their individual efforts. Touring Suburbia represents an attempt to recapture a dream once glimpsed.

A city girl at heart, I have had a love-hate relationship with suburbia for over 20 years. It began in 1979 when, over a period of many months, I photographed the lawns, gardens, and homes of Parma, Ohio, a western suburb of Cleveland and the epitome of middle Americana. To those who live on the East Side, the West Side is a cultural wasteland of cookie-cutter houses, meatball shrubs, bland lawns, and decorative cliches. So when I set out with my camera, it was as on safari to a strange and distant land. What I found were cookie-cutter houses, meatball shrubs, decorative cliches, patterns of light and shadow, geometric perfection, and quirky expressions of faith, love, and individuality. This was no modern gated community where a large question mark painted on a garage door would be against the rules. The result of the expedition was the series, Parma Piece, subsequently exhibited at the New Gallery of Contemporary Art and the Cleveland Art Museum. But Parma Piece was only part of the story. Suburbia is where the American Dream lives, and those who dwell there dream the Big Dream. Just as they (or their parents) fled to America in search of freedom and prosperity, they, in turn, fled the dirt, noise, chaos, and racial strife of the city in search of the quiet, order, cleanliness, and safety of the suburbs. For the vast majority, however, prosperity only went so far while they held fast to the notion that if they worked hard. invested, and saved, they, too, could live in European-style palaces with manicured gardens, a status that was unattainable under European political/economic systems. For the time being, however, a bungalow nested inside a row of identical bungalows would have to do. And while the palaces and sculpted gardens of Versailles were out of reach, they had their little plots of earth on which to plant their shrubs and weedless grass shaped and trimmed to unearthly standards of perfection. Instead of monumental statues, they had rocks and swans and flamingos and little boys carrying fishing poles. Their homes would be their castles, of sorts, and they would dream … Using digital tools, I am able to re-visualize that dream, to begin to imagine Versailles from their individual efforts. Touring Suburbia represents an attempt to recapture a dream once glimpsed.

A city girl at heart, I have had a love-hate relationship with suburbia for over 20 years. It began in 1979 when, over a period of many months, I photographed the lawns, gardens, and homes of Parma, Ohio, a western suburb of Cleveland and the epitome of middle Americana. To those who live on the East Side, the West Side is a cultural wasteland of cookie-cutter houses, meatball shrubs, bland lawns, and decorative cliches. So when I set out with my camera, it was as on safari to a strange and distant land. What I found were cookie-cutter houses, meatball shrubs, decorative cliches, patterns of light and shadow, geometric perfection, and quirky expressions of faith, love, and individuality. This was no modern gated community where a large question mark painted on a garage door would be against the rules. The result of the expedition was the series, Parma Piece, subsequently exhibited at the New Gallery of Contemporary Art and the Cleveland Art Museum. But Parma Piece was only part of the story. Suburbia is where the American Dream lives, and those who dwell there dream the Big Dream. Just as they (or their parents) fled to America in search of freedom and prosperity, they, in turn, fled the dirt, noise, chaos, and racial strife of the city in search of the quiet, order, cleanliness, and safety of the suburbs. For the vast majority, however, prosperity only went so far while they held fast to the notion that if they worked hard. invested, and saved, they, too, could live in European-style palaces with manicured gardens, a status that was unattainable under European political/economic systems. For the time being, however, a bungalow nested inside a row of identical bungalows would have to do. And while the palaces and sculpted gardens of Versailles were out of reach, they had their little plots of earth on which to plant their shrubs and weedless grass shaped and trimmed to unearthly standards of perfection. Instead of monumental statues, they had rocks and swans and flamingos and little boys carrying fishing poles. Their homes would be their castles, of sorts, and they would dream … Using digital tools, I am able to re-visualize that dream, to begin to imagine Versailles from their individual efforts. Touring Suburbia represents an attempt to recapture a dream once glimpsed.

The hair particle drawing project was originally intended to be and still is a component of a larger ongoing project. It is based around a ParticleFX engine I wrote for a game some time ago. I altered the particles to behave like growing hair. In the early stages of development, the particles rendered long and flowing hair with loose curls. For the Big Hairy Bush application, hair with a tighter, more erratic curl was required. In general, hair growing in darker areas grows longer and thicker and maintains a tighter curl. This is to preserve some of the detail that would get overgrown otherwise. Hair will continue to grow over time. This portrait of President Bush was grown over a weekend. Big Hairy Bush is intended to be non-partisan and humorous. It is my belief that all career politicians have something unattractive that they hide. Intentional or not, the nature of their careers requires compromise and back-door dealing. President Bush was a convenient subject for this exercise, but it is certainly possible to replace Bush with any career politician from either political party. The beauty industry and the advertising industry have conditioned us to hide or cover up so called “unwanted hair” such as back hair, pubic hair, arm pit hair, and leg hair. We cover it up, shave it, and wax it off. With the proliferation of mass media, it is desirable to whitewash the unattractive traits of politicians. Using hair as a metaphor for that which is undesirable, what would politicians look like if they did not cover up their unwanted hair?

Unnecessary Signage resembles a series of industrial road signs that depict humanity’s struggle with morality and the human condition. Each sign contains a prohibitive instruction and pictograph that refer to a real-world event involving birth, childhood, love, marriage, parenting, social recognition, or death. Most of the signs are associated with an actual tragedy that occurred within the last 30 years, such as a woman who murdered her husband eight days after their marriage (Do Not Push Husband Off Cliff During Honeymoon). Each sign is accompanied with a QR code that contains a link to an associated news article.

One of the delights (rather, the seduction) of working as an artist in the 21st century is using digital technologies (that continue to become more sophisticated). I think (no, I know), that I am participating in an authentic revolution. Before the revolution, I received my Master of Arts in experimental printmaking, specializing in 30 intaglio prints, photography, and very early computer graphics. Since 1983, I have been working with the computer and creating digital art.

The basis of my work is in using combinations and permutations of “throw-away” corrugated cardboard boxes and their inner divider elements. Now, however, instead of drawing the image on a zinc plate, I am utilizing electronic techniques to scan an image (my own sculptures, photographs, or prints) with a digital video recorder or digital camera.

Using digital images seems to be a natural evolution of the method that printmakers have been utilizing for centuries: layering. I take my intaglio prints, ghost prints, and monoprints and transform them by adding or compositing portions of a new digital image to them. These new digital methods are exciting additions to the print vocabulary. I can print on a canvas, hand-made paper, transparent media, silk, metal, and then I can transfer images through a heat method (on and on and on). I end up with paintings on canvas or handmade paper using large-format printers. To these new creations, I add handwork of encaustic, gold leaf, and metal.

I admit that there seems to be a little cognitive dissonance (and I like that dissonance) in my use of high-tech software and hardware to depict urban detritus (the “throw-aways,” the “quickly disposable,” and the “tacky”). In my hands, the digitally assisted and reworked images of corrugated cardboard boxes, dividers, and crates become an illusion to another world or universe. I am inventing a new world, new landmarks to point to the familiar but unacknowledged. I give visual clues of a dilapidated apartment house, the slums along the border, or the foretelling of a “blade runner” future for Los Angeles in the 22nd century. I depict alternative universes. Creation of these new universes is a symbol of my search for time without end or perhaps life to be continued … somewhere else.

One of the delights (rather, the seduction) of working as an artist in the 21st century is using digital technologies (that continue to become more sophisticated). I think (no, I know), that I am participating in an authentic revolution. Before the revolution, I received my Master of Arts in experimental printmaking, specializing in 30 intaglio prints, photography, and very early computer graphics. Since 1983, I have been working with the computer and creating digital art.

The basis of my work is in using combinations and permutations of “throw-away” corrugated cardboard boxes and their inner divider elements. Now, however, instead of drawing the image on a zinc plate, I am utilizing electronic techniques to scan an image (my own sculptures, photographs, or prints) with a digital video recorder or digital camera.

Using digital images seems to be a natural evolution of the method that printmakers have been utilizing for centuries: layering. I take my intaglio prints, ghost prints, and monoprints and transform them by adding or compositing portions of a new digital image to them. These new digital methods are exciting additions to the print vocabulary. I can print on a canvas, hand-made paper, transparent media, silk, metal, and then I can transfer images through a heat method (on and on and on). I end up with paintings on canvas or handmade paper using large-format printers. To these new creations, I add handwork of encaustic, gold leaf, and metal.

I admit that there seems to be a little cognitive dissonance (and I like that dissonance) in my use of high-tech software and hardware to depict urban detritus (the “throw-aways,” the “quickly disposable,” and the “tacky”). In my hands, the digitally assisted and reworked images of corrugated cardboard boxes, dividers, and crates become an illusion to another world or universe. I am inventing a new world, new landmarks to point to the familiar but unacknowledged. I give visual clues of a dilapidated apartment house, the slums along the border, or the foretelling of a “blade runner” future for Los Angeles in the 22nd century. I depict alternative universes. Creation of these new universes is a symbol of my search for time without end or perhaps life to be continued … somewhere else.

One of the delights (rather, the seduction) of working as an artist in the 21st century is using digital technologies (that continue to become more sophisticated). I think (no, I know), that I am participating in an authentic revolution. Before the revolution, I received my Master of Arts in experimental printmaking, specializing in 30 intaglio prints, photography, and very early computer graphics. Since 1983, I have been working with the computer and creating digital art.

The basis of my work is in using combinations and permutations of “throw-away” corrugated cardboard boxes and their inner divider elements. Now, however, instead of drawing the image on a zinc plate, I am utilizing electronic techniques to scan an image (my own sculptures, photographs, or prints) with a digital video recorder or digital camera.

Using digital images seems to be a natural evolution of the method that printmakers have been utilizing for centuries: layering. I take my intaglio prints, ghost prints, and monoprints and transform them by adding or compositing portions of a new digital image to them. These new digital methods are exciting additions to the print vocabulary. I can print on a canvas, hand-made paper, transparent media, silk, metal, and then I can transfer images through a heat method (on and on and on). I end up with paintings on canvas or handmade paper using large-format printers. To these new creations, I add handwork of encaustic, gold leaf, and metal.

I admit that there seems to be a little cognitive dissonance (and I like that dissonance) in my use of high-tech software and hardware to depict urban detritus (the “throw-aways,” the “quickly disposable,” and the “tacky”). In my hands, the digitally assisted and reworked images of corrugated cardboard boxes, dividers, and crates become an illusion to another world or universe. I am inventing a new world, new landmarks to point to the familiar but unacknowledged. I give visual clues of a dilapidated apartment house, the slums along the border, or the foretelling of a “blade runner” future for Los Angeles in the 22nd century. I depict alternative universes. Creation of these new universes is a symbol of my search for time without end or perhaps life to be continued … somewhere else.

One of the delights (rather, the seduction) of working as an artist in the 21st century is using digital technologies (that continue to become more sophisticated). I think (no, I know), that I am participating in an authentic revolution. Before the revolution, I received my Master of Arts in experimental printmaking, specializing in 30 intaglio prints, photography, and very early computer graphics. Since 1983, I have been working with the computer and creating digital art.

The basis of my work is in using combinations and permutations of “throw-away” corrugated cardboard boxes and their inner divider elements. Now, however, instead of drawing the image on a zinc plate, I am utilizing electronic techniques to scan an image (my own sculptures, photographs, or prints) with a digital video recorder or digital camera.

Using digital images seems to be a natural evolution of the method that printmakers have been utilizing for centuries: layering. I take my intaglio prints, ghost prints, and monoprints and transform them by adding or compositing portions of a new digital image to them. These new digital methods are exciting additions to the print vocabulary. I can print on a canvas, hand-made paper, transparent media, silk, metal, and then I can transfer images through a heat method (on and on and on). I end up with paintings on canvas or handmade paper using large-format printers. To these new creations, I add handwork of encaustic, gold leaf, and metal.

I admit that there seems to be a little cognitive dissonance (and I like that dissonance) in my use of high-tech software and hardware to depict urban detritus (the “throw-aways,” the “quickly disposable,” and the “tacky”). In my hands, the digitally assisted and reworked images of corrugated cardboard boxes, dividers, and crates become an illusion to another world or universe. I am inventing a new world, new landmarks to point to the familiar but unacknowledged. I give visual clues of a dilapidated apartment house, the slums along the border, or the foretelling of a “blade runner” future for Los Angeles in the 22nd century. I depict alternative universes. Creation of these new universes is a symbol of my search for time without end or perhaps life to be continued … somewhere else.

One day, while rummaging through boxes being thrown out by a neighbor, I found a stack of old discarded computer boards. I was intrigued by the detail, shapes, and forms of the circuitry. In my mind, circuits and wires became a city in motion. This is where the basic concept for Heading Out was formed. Not only would the circuit boards add interesting features and textures to the canvas, but would also help to incorporate three­-dimensionality.

As in all of my paintings, Heading Out was an experiment into the realms of my imagination. With this particular piece, I took my basic skill as an impressionistic artist and combined surrealism and animation. But like real functioning computers, I wanted to obtain a sense of kinetic flow and movement that would give the painting life. I combined cartoon-like features with city life, then brought the highway from the city itself, first descending and then forwarding, with an auto-mobile actually coming up and off the canvas.

When I work on a piece, I try to cap­ture a certain mood or feeling, and I want more than painterly strokes on the canvas. The combination of texture and three-dimensionality in mixed media painting helps me to achieve this.

The convergence of art and science through computer graphics has been my obsession for 17 years and has culminated in a variety of artistic and scientific endeavors that include visualization and virtual reality. Technology is an extension of nature and a collaborative assistant as I mediate between scientific data and artistic expression. My insatiable curiosity with science relates to a desire to understand the universe and our place within it, and to make the invisible visible. Illness and death in the family have inspired my recent poetry, which informs much of this contemporary artwork. The underlying theme is the evolution of consciousness through recycled realities of human experience. If the universe is becoming more conscious, then it gropes and grows through our experiential being.

Old familiar is-ness,
You’ve been everything to me:
anchors of laughing candles,
intermingling crests of regret,
revealing memories unborn,
confessing tearful forgiveness.

Glowing recycled images fall like cards to an earthly panorama
from a galactic merger. Time may be infinite, matter may
be conserved, life may be recycled, yet the here and now is
our truest experience.

Beyond all appearances of
evolving atomic finesse,
Discovering no slice is better to claim, …
No-thing. No-time. Than This.

The convergence of art and science through computer graphics has been my obsession for 17 years and has culminated in a variety of artistic and scientific endeavors that include visualization and virtual reality. Technology is an extension of nature and a collaborative assistant as I mediate between scientific data and artistic expression. My insatiable curiosity with science relates to a desire to understand the universe and our place within it, and to make the invisible visible. Illness and death in the family have inspired my recent poetry, which informs much of this contemporary artwork. The underlying theme is the evolution of consciousness through recycled realities of human experience. If the universe is becoming more conscious, then it gropes and grows through our experiential being.

Old familiar is-ness,
You’ve been everything to me:
anchors of laughing candles,
intermingling crests of regret,
revealing memories unborn,
confessing tearful forgiveness.

Glowing recycled images fall like cards to an earthly panorama
from a galactic merger. Time may be infinite, matter may
be conserved, life may be recycled, yet the here and now is
our truest experience.

Beyond all appearances of
evolving atomic finesse,
Discovering no slice is better to claim, …
No-thing. No-time. Than This.

Summary

This project uses an old text from Edgar Alan Poe’s story “The Golden Bug” and re-imagines it into a 3d tree. The shape of the tree was generated by a syntax analysis of the text, which was later turned into an L-System code.

Abstract

“Losing Ground” is a plea for awareness of our role as stewards of the environment. Using images spanning more than a decade and text from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it combines traditional processes and print-on-demand technology to share its important message.

I am a painter by training and collage-maker by nature who began my experimental printmaking with reprographic machines. Since being introduced to computers in the late 1960s while working on my doctorate at Pennsylvania State University, I have combined tra­ditional and digital media. My work includes large-scale mixed-media pieces, artist books, and book-like objects that bridge between these two forms. It embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials (plaster, tar, wax and pigment) with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future. My art ­making is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue, a visible means of exploring meaning.

Village and Margoa are components of Passages, a series that in­cludes doors, windows, tunnels, openings, corridors. The term also encompasses movement from one place to another, the transition from one condition or state to another, and the right or permission to come and go freely. We speak of passing time, safe passage, and “passing over” or dying. These images reference those varied meanings as well the barriers that prevent us from coming and going at will.

A painter by training and collage-maker by nature, I began my experimental printmaking with reprographic machines. Since being introduced to computers in the late 1960s while working on my doctorate at Penn State, I have combined traditional and digital media. My work embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials (plaster, tar, wax, and pigment) with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future.

By focusing on timeless personal and universal issues (hopes and fears, wishes, lies and dreams, immortality and transience), I challenge myself and the viewer to look beyond the surface to see what depths are hidden. I imbue my work with the quality of allegory, not to be factual, but to be truthful in character. There are no prescriptive messages, but the montaged images invite subversive readings. By questioning the issue of power and how it is implemented, the dignity of the individual and the strength of the spirit are celebrated in my work.

These pieces began with a series of photographs taken of twin performance artists Emily and Abigail Taylor. They were done for a solo exhibition, Dorothy Simpson Krause: body + soul, at the Danforth Museum of Art in the spring of 2003. The series includes several groupings of images and a book. The book, Vengeance is Mine, is an accordion-format collage of digital prints on black Arches cover stock coated with encaustic and pigment. It has a cover of wood wrapped in lead with ribbon and silver ornament.

Strapped, is a UV-cured inkjet print of 3/4-inch polycarbonate with mirror and metal strapping.

A painter by training and collage-maker by nature, I began my experimental printmaking with reprographic machines. Since being introduced to computers in the late 1960s while working on my doctorate at Penn State, I have combined traditional and digital media. My work embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials (plaster, tar, wax, and pigment) with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future.

By focusing on timeless personal and universal issues (hopes and fears, wishes, lies and dreams, immortality and transience), I challenge myself and the viewer to look beyond the surface to see what depths are hidden. I imbue my work with the quality of allegory, not to be factual, but to be truthful in character. There are no prescriptive messages, but the montaged images invite subversive readings. By questioning the issue of power and how it is implemented, the dignity of the individual and the strength of the spirit are celebrated in my work.

These pieces began with a series of photographs taken of twin performance artists Emily and Abigail Taylor. They were done for a solo exhibition, Dorothy Simpson Krause: body + soul, at the Danforth Museum of Art in the spring of 2003. The series includes several groupings of images and a book. The book, Vengeance is Mine, is an accordion-format collage of digital prints on black Arches cover stock coated with encaustic and pigment. It has a cover of wood wrapped in lead with ribbon and silver ornament.

Strapped, is a UV-cured inkjet print of 3/4-inch polycarbonate with mirror and metal strapping.

I am a painter by training and collage-maker by nature who began my experimental printmaking with reprographic machines. Since being introduced to computers in the late 1960s while working on my doctorate at Pennsylvania State University, I have combined tra­ditional and digital media. My work includes large-scale mixed-media pieces, artist books, and book-like objects that bridge between these two forms. It embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials (plaster, tar, wax and pigment) with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future. My art­ making is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue, a visible means of exploring meaning.

Village and Margoa are components of Passages, a series that in­cludes doors, windows, tunnels, openings, corridors. The term also encompasses movement from one place to another, the transition from one condition or state to another, and the right or permission to come and go freely. We speak of passing time, safe passage, and “passing over” or dying. These images reference those varied meanings as well the barriers that prevent us from coming and going at will.

In Spacebase DF-9, you’ll build a home among the stars for a motley population of humans and aliens as they go about their daily lives. Mine asteroids, discover derelicts, and deal with the tribulations of galactic resettlement in Earth’s distant future. Meteor impacts! Explosive decompression! Unbearable loneliness!

This physical computing project creates an ecosystem for a rubber, tree, where conditions for life or death are controlled by monitoring fluctuations in the price of Home Depot stock. The plant was purchased from The Home Depot, so the project is eligible for the company’s one-year return policy if the tree dies. Spore 1 .1 makes visible the artificiality of our immediate reality by relating the stock market to the ecosystem. Using small-form-factor computing, microcontrollers, and custom software, the life of a plant is controlled with data typically used to monitor the life of a corporation. The primary goal of the project was to find creative expression within a system of control that is systematically monitored through globalization, the growth of multinational corporations, and the loss of heterogeneity and market-driven economies. Another goal was to produce a visually engaging work that shows the familiar form of a potted plant encased within a cybernetic environment that reads as simultaneously unpleasant and bound, yet balanced and harmonious. Spore 1.1 derives creative expression from, and visually exposes, a growing system of control that has steadily been replacing heterogeneous market-driven economies. These systems (or multinational corporations) employ a variety of strategies in the name of consumer freedom (liberal return policies, etc.) but forcefully act as consumercontrol mechanisms on the macroscopic level.Spore 1 . 1 has already died five times and been replaced each time through Home Depot’s one-year guarantee. Unexpectedly, each death was a result of too much water, an interesting consequence that remarks upon the effects of runaway economic growth. While shareholders and executives are enjoying the capital rewards of this growth, other detrimental effects go unnoticed. New Spore projects are in progress, utilizing physical computing technology and data mined from economies of scale. Spore 2.0 will be strategically installed to capture the recent propagation of wireless internet signals radiating from homes and businesses across the country. Internal components will compare signal-to-strength ratios, deploying nutrient-enriched water to encourage fungus growth in non native urban settings.

Poetry is a subjective medium – it is designed to create contexts for emotions and epiphanies. It is impossible to teach a computer to appreciate poetry for its own sake. However, computers may ana­lyze patterns of poetry that have been identified by people as good. Given feedback and analysis, computers may teach themselves to generate better poetry.

HaikuTree.org is a system designed to help computers write better poetry. The system employs a poetry generator, ranking, a weather­ing algorithm, and a community of people to reveal the most popular poems. HaikuTree.org then analyzes the structure behind the poems and modifies its generative methods to write poems sim­ilar to those promoted by the community.

The idea of a Haiku Tree is taken from a real tree I saw at Reed College in the late 70s. Somebody had calligraphed several little poems about trees, rain, and wind, and tied them to a tree north of the library. These lovely poems were melting away in Portland’s fall drizzle. The paper was handmade, a coarse collection of cotton fibers. They were knotted with ribbon and could not be removed without destroying them. These poems could only be read in this brief context and they provided a clear representation of the tran­sience of all things. These poems were small masterpieces of immaterialism.

I learned later that these poems were known as WeatherGrams, and that they had probably been created by Lloyd Reynolds. Lloyd is known as the father of American calligraphy. He taught several famous font designers and Beat poets in his tenure at Reed. The inspiration of his work has stayed with me all these years.

The primary interface for HaikuTree.org may be found at the Web site (HaikuTree.org). I have been experimenting with other interfaces including email, screensavers, and voice menu systems. Interaction will be the same in each medium. There are three main activities: generate, judge, and top ten. To generate, the computer creates a new poem based on patterns that have evolved over the life of the system. The user is then asked if s/he likes this poem and would like to place it on the (virtual) tree. If not, a new poem is presented until the user finds one that s/he prefers. In the judging activity, a poem is randomly selected from existing poems and the user is asked if it should be promoted or demoted.

Each poem on the tree is given a starting life of 50 days. The poem’s life is shortened by one day, every day (weathering). Poems are also subject to judgment by the community. Judgment is the sum of all promotions and demotions performed by the community. Promotion increments the life of a poem by one rank; demotion decrements the life by one rank. Poems are removed from the system when life reaches zero, and rank is determined by comparing the poem’s life to its age. The “top ten” is the collection of the highest ranked poems, those whose life most exceeds the statistical mean.

Summary

In Artificial Interruption, the cube, a digital abstraction interrupts the natural order. The seasons fold like boxes; we see time crystalize. AI slides open a door and leaks into a tightly networked sea of ice. Underneath the last mammal escapes and swims away with our past, coded in her genes.

Abstract

The artificial, a cube, a digital abstraction interrupts and breaks the natural order.

The AI builds into rectangles and cubes, abstract, perfect, but empty of life. The seasons fold like boxes into structures of gray, as we see time crystalize.

As the artificial interruption spreads fields and leaves shatter into ice cubes. Nature once fluid, splatters, then freezes.

The AI slides open a door and leaks into a tight, glacial surface of data cubes, a networked sea of ice. Under this sea sheet of networked ice, the last mammal escapes and swims away and with her, our past, coded in her genes.

Summary

The generative art project was founded in 2016 to experiment with generative algorithms to create new art forms. Since then, numerous creators from all over the world have developed and used novel methods to create such art, and we have had numerous opportunities to admire and appreciate their legacies.

Abstract

Summary

The generative art project was founded in 2016 to experiment with generative algorithms to create new art forms. Since then, numerous creators from all over the world have developed and used novel methods to create such art, and we have had numerous opportunities to admire and appreciate their legacies.

Abstract

Tokyo is a generative artwork created by visualizing continuous recorded Tokyo temperature data obtained from the Japan Meteorological Agency from 1990 to 2017, and then printing out the result in a creative manner. The colored dots in the artwork reflect the temperature of each day. Cold days were colored in blue while warm days were displayed in orange. There are two primary reasons for using natural phenomena, such as temperature data in generative art creation. First, the data allows us to embrace and comprehend the unpredictability of natural phenomena. Second, when used with a generative algorithm, it makes possible data visualization in ways that allow us to create abstract art. Since there are massive amounts of historical temperature data, such artwork would be impossible to create without computers. Simple patterns like noise are not always random and often contain repeating patterns that can be expressed harmoniously. The seeming randomness of dots showing temperature distributions of hot summer days can be painted as patterns that result in abstract artwork. When applied to Tokyo temperature data, the stain-like patterns that resulted are among the most attractive characteristics of generative art painting and would be difficult to express without the generative algorithm.

This project examines the everyday journey of bicyclists and pedestrians in the New York City area by mapping their paths using data captured from ambient lighting conditions at various times of day. The end result is two-fold. First, a duration-based animation shows the cityscape over a 24-hour period, not through geographical representation, but from light and dark information captured by the cyclist. The second outcome consists of an illuminated glasswork pane that is marked with a composite of the map. The project uses light to remap space in an effort to re-examine familiar locations.

Light plays an important role in the function of a city. Light conditions, whether natural or artificial, inform our perceptions and responses. By aggregating data over time, we transform the urban landscape into a digital painting of light.

In this animated short, Flotsam, our hero, is found wandering through a world of cross hatchings and boxes until he stumbles upon a rather curious device and quickly learns a valuable object lesson. The animation was created with PowerAnimator and RenderMan, and it uses textures created with pen and ink to achieve a unique look.

The works in this series toy with the perception of macro and micro. What seems large, resembling surface terrain, might very well be seen as minute, like microscopic gestations in a petri dish. These images are neither. They are, instead, entirely procedural entities. Each image is a 30 shader rendered on a plane, representing a “pure” world of mathematical functions, a world that is neither big nor small but somewhere else altogether, yet not entirely unfamiliar.

The works in this series toy with the perception of macro and micro. What seems large, resembling surface terrain, might very well be seen as minute, like microscopic gestations in a petri dish. These images are neither. They are, instead, entirely procedural entities. Each image is a 30 shader rendered on a plane, representing a “pure” world of mathematical functions, a world that is neither big nor small but somewhere else altogether, yet not entirely unfamiliar.

The tones caused by a linear light source are more delicate than those are generated by a point source, especially for the penumbra areas and reflective effects of metal, china, and glass.

The tones caused by a linear light source are more delicate than those are generated by a point source, especially for the penumbra areas and reflective effects of metal, china, and glass.

There supposedly was an exchange of letters between Leonardo and Michelangelo wherein Leonardo asserted that painting was the superior art form, because Michelangelo could not sculpt fog. Michelangelo’s retort was that only when Leonardo could walk behind the painting would he agree!

Can we now have our cake and eat it too? Computer graphics and 30 imaging suggest that it might be so. To that end, I decided to explore the possibility of looking at the other side(s) of a painting.

I have long been sympathetic to the Cubist movement and particularly to the work of Fernand Léger. Central to the idea of Cubism is the notion of multiple views changing over time and condensed into a single image. (Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase is a good example). I was quite curious as to what would happen to a “decompressed” and then “reconstructed” Cubist work. What would it lead to? Would it still be Cubist? Would it still hold together? And, finally, would it validate the rather abstract ideas of Cubism and yet be a substantive and independent work of art?

What you see is my attempt to answer those questions. The work that was “processed” was a 1923 pencil drawing by Léger: Still Life With Bottle.

The Night Journey is a video game/art project based on the universal story of an individual mystic’s journey toward enlightenment. Visual inspiration for The Night Journey is drawn from the work of Bill Viola. Narrative inspiration comes from the lives and writings of great historical figures including: Rumi, the 13th-century Islamic poet and mystic; Ryokan, the 18th-century Zen Buddhist poet; St. John of the Cross, the 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet; and Plotinus, the 3rd-century philosopher. The interactive design attempts to evoke in the player’s mind a sense of the archetypal journey of enlightenment through the “mechanics” of the game experience: the player’s choices and actions. A voyage through The Night Journey takes a player through a poetic landscape, a space that has more reflective and spiritual qualities than geographical ones. The core mechanic in the game is the act of traveling and reflecting rather than reaching certain destinations (a trip along a path of enlightenment).

News Knitter materializes ephemeral online data through wearable garments. Large-scale data gathered from online political news is used as a source to generate patterns for a fully computerized knitting machine. Knitting, a very conventional mode of physical production, is preferred as a medium to embody digital information and to produce daily, wearable, washable sweaters. Digital bits are transformed into physical stitches and the information is visualized through three-dimensional, tactile, personal belongings.

News Knitter proposes an innovative workflow and production pipeline as an alternative for the common methods of fabrication of knitted garments. It translates the individual design process of patterning into a worldwide collaboration by utilizing live data streams as a source for pattern generation. Due to the dynamic nature of live data streams, the elements of worldwide participation and unpredictability are introduced into the design process. Situated at the intersection of digital data visualization and analog knitting, News Knitter offers a fresh insight to new modes of industrial production. It brings two controversial concepts, unique design and mass production, into discussion.

This physically interactive new-media work visualizes genetic data as calligraphic forms. A novel computer-vision interface allows multiple participants, through their movement in the installation space, to select genes from the human genome for visualizing the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), a primary algorithm in comparative genomics. For both ethical and technical reasons, the function of each gene in the human genome cannot currently be ascertained directly from the human genome itself. Usually, in order to determine the function of a gene, scientists must rely on comparisons between our genes/genome and those of other organisms. BLAST allows researchers to compare DNA or protein sequences of unknown identity, function, and structure with “knowns” from validated databases, providing a measure of similarity or homology among sequences. BLAST analyses are conducted worldwide via web servers supported by major genome sequencing consortia in Europe, Japan, and North America, as well as in local laboratories on individual computers. Every day, an average of 100,000 unique BLAST runs from 70,000 unique IP addresses are conducted on the US National Center for Biotechnology Information’s web servers. BLAST is arguably the most widely used data-mining tool in history. Yet, despite its ubiquity, BLAST is a “black-box” process that is not well understood, even by researchers in the biological sciences. For Ecce Homology, intermediate information about the progress of BLAST is revealed by an animation of the intermediate products of the algorithm as it operates on genomic data in real time overlaid on the calligraphic forms. This revelation of the operation of a normally invisible process is at the core of the installation’s aesthetic experience. Transformed into an experience that proceeds at the scale of human-perceived time, BLAST is the engine and subject of this interactive installation. We believe that an artistic, holistic visualization of genomic data coupled with an esthetically engaging interactive experience of genomics-based biology can encourage the general public to engage the subject critically. Additionally, Ecce Homology’s novel calligraphic visualization of multi-dimensional genomic data is an example of artscience research that explores the possibility that artistic or aesthetic approaches can nurture discovery in the sciences. Unprecedented amounts of genomic data are generated daily. To capitalize on this wealth of data, new tools must be developed. T he need to build knowledge from data, or to find patterns within vast datasets, is driving development and application of interdisciplinary and alternative approaches. Ecce Homology is one such approach. Its outcomes are both hybrid process and product. As the next era in the life sciences becomes increasingly dominated by interdisciplinary and discovery-based inquiry, Ecce Homology exemplifies an integrated art-science practice that goes beyond models of influence and convergence to explore the deep structures of science and technology in search of their expressive potentials and cultural relevance. T hough it is driven by aesthetics, Ecce Homology suggests a new form of scientific visualization that may one day contribute to comparative genomics. If the arts can nurture discovery in the sciences, it is possible that the process can bring about a new paradigm for our relationship to nature, one in which human creativity is the avenue for our rapprochement with nature. Ecce Homology is sponsored by Intel Corporation; NEC Solutions America, Inc.; Visual Systems Division, University of California, Los Angeles; Technology Sandbox, UCLA Academic Technology Services; Computer Graphics and lmmersive Technology Laboratory, University of Southern California Integrated Media Systems Center,;University of California, San Diego Center for Research in Computing and the Arts; UCLA HyperMedia Studio; UCSD Sixth College: Culture, Art and Technology; National Center for Microscoypy and Imaging Research; and the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. We also gratefully acknowledge the instruction in calligraphy offered us by Hirokazu Kosaka, Buddhist priest, calligrapher, and director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles. Special thanks to Neil R. Smalheiser, BetaTPred2, and the UCLA Fowler Museum.

This work combines and contrasts the highly architectural and sculp­tural materials of acrylic sheet and polished stainless steel with the ubiquitous, instantly disposable office Postlt note. Each red acrylic square holds a fresh, unmarked Postlt.

The work forces viewers to re-address their views on tough, struc­tural materials and everyday, throw-away objects.

S[tr]eam is a video art installation that straddles the boundaries between video projection and sculptural object. The project examines the capability of the digital to enhance or confuse the human perceptual experience of the environment. The mind’s capacity for learning, pattern grouping, and reification enable swift perceptual comprehension. At the same time, the increasing pervasiveness of the digital redefines how we perceive and interact with the world around us. Digital media can combine virtual and physical space, presenting new and unique perceptual challenges. The virtual has the potential to extend or reinvent the physical, but it can reorganize and even fracture perception. S[tr]eam integrates organic phenomena with formalist approaches to explore fragmentation and fluidity, and to challenge our notions of logical and natural boundaries. S[tr]eam also explores the tensions and harmonies between the digital projection and the physical sculpture.

Ornitorrinco (platypus in Portuguese) is a telepresence artwork. It provides the conditions for a participant to experience presence in a remote and decidedly odd space. This is accomplished by allowing a person to see through the eye of a telerobot and to control its motion. By employing regular telephone lines, this project launches the concept of personal telepresence. It generates on experiential context which the participant explores. Two main features of the project are l) the creative solutions the participant improvises in configuring a “strategy of vision” and 2) the organization of the remote space, which takes a number of forms (installation, maze, mirrored environment, etc.). Special thanks to Steven Waldeck and Joan Truckenbrod of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and to Geof Goldbogen, Academic Computing Deportment, Columbia College, Chicago.

The title of this interactive installation, Teleporting an Unknown State, is borrowed from the first scientific paper ever published on the subject of teleportation. The installation takes the idea of teleportation of particles (and not of matter) out of its scientific context and trans­poses it to the domain of social interaction enabled by the Internet. Following my previous work with telematic interactive installation and my exploration of non-semiologi­cal forms of communication with electronic media, this new installation uses remote trans­mission of video images not for their representational content but for their optical phenom­enon as wavefronts of light. Internet videoconferencing is used to teleport light particles from several countries with the sole purpose of enabling real biological life and growth at the installation site. A new sense of community and collective responsibility emerges from this context without the exchange of a single verbal message.

This piece connects a physical gallery to the placeless space of the Internet. In the gallery, the viewer sees an installation: a monitor hangs from the ceiling and faces a pedestal, where a single seed lays on a bed of earth. At remote sites around the world, anonymous individ­uals point their digital cameras to the sky and transmit sunlight to the gallery. The photons captured by cameras at the remote sites are re­emitted through the monitor in the gallery. The video images transmitted from the interna­tional sites are stripped of any representational value and used as conveyors of actual wavefronts of light. The slow process of growth of the plant is transmitted live to the world over the Internet as long as the exhibition is running. All the participants are able to see the process of growth.

Through the collaborative action of individuals around the world, photons from distant countries and cities are teleported into the gallery and are used to give birth to a small and fragile plant. It is the par­ticipants’ shared responsibility that ensures the plant’s growth as long as the show is open.

This piece operates on a dramatic reversal of the regu­lated unidirectional model imposed by broadcasting standards and the communica­tions industry. Rather than transmitting a specific message from one point to many passive receivers, Teleporting an Unknown State creates a new situation in which several individuals around the world transmit light to a single point in the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center. The ethics of Internet ecology and social network survival are made evident in a dispersed and collaborative effort.

I’m interested in recurring patterns, forms that one perceives in the micro and the macro, textures and sensations that appear in the leaf of a tree, the behavior of a city and our online interaction. This piece combines recorded footage of a girl walking in a forest processed through digital software, generative visuals and texts.

I go on walks and photograph curious shapes in the surrounding environment. I highlight these shapes using image-editing software. In 3D modeling software, I stack these photographs proportionally to the time at which each photograph is taken. Next, I extrude a virtual surface through the collected shapes in each photograph. Then, I collect the virtual forms and fabricate them as physical objects using additive manufacturing machines. The original photographs are at the top left. The photograph of the fabricated sculpture is in the bottom right.

I go on walks and photograph curious shapes in the surrounding environment. I highlight these shapes using image-editing software. In 3D modeling software, I stack these photographs proportionally to the time at which each photograph is taken. Next, I extrude a virtual surface through the collected shapes in each photograph. Then, I collect the virtual forms and fabricate them as physical objects using additive manufacturing machines. The original photographs are at the top left. Photographs of the fabricated sculpture are on the right.

Open Reel Ensemble is performance art by remodeled reel-to-reel tape recorders.

Ivan Illich once said: “Convivial tools are those which give each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or her vision.” Convivial is originally a French word that means “live together with joy”, and by “convivial tool”, Illich indicates “an instrument (technology) used differently from the usage of industrial value”.

This idea inspired transformation of a reel-to-reel analog tape recorder, a device that some consider obsolete, into a musical instrument, as a “convivial tool” using today’s information technology. Reel-to-reel tape decks have disappeared from mainstream use, but by asking, “what if it never disappeared?” the artists recreated it. They attached USB ports to the recorders and customized them so they can “play” them as a musical instrument.

The system uses an iPhone as a remote control to synchronize several decks through an OSC transmis-sion network, auto-switching, and real-time sound processing while recording vibrating tapes to forge a sound using solenoids to control the recording operation and looping the output.

Welcome to the world of sound where “what if” echoes!

Windgrass explores the contrast between natural forces and computa­tional processes, between human intimacy and technology that creates distance. Computational technology often leads us further away from the physical world, particularly when the interaction it supports is channeled through the narrow bandwidth provid­ed by the keyboard, mouse, and screen. Windgrass seeks to address this problem by bringing more intimate physicality into the play between human and machine.

Lightly blowing across the surface of Windgrass sets off an undulating visual display on a field of 768 tiny incandescent lights. In addition, Windgrass amplifies the users’ soft blowing. This movement makes the object pull against its tether in the same way a dog pulls against its chain.

Windgrass evokes the emotional closeness we associate with our rela­tionships to domestic animals. It sug­gests a domesticated piece of tech­nology with a dependency on intimate human input. The user is compelled to bend down closer to the tethered object to interact with it in an intimate way. This recreates a sense of famil­iarity in the interaction the object requires.

StellrScope: ‘Wheat’ builds on a story connecting the Canberra region to Australia’s major crop in delivering a science artwork. It celebrates a 100 years of wheat innovation from the days of William Farrer through to the present day research undertaken at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), namely in the Future Foods and Computational Informatics. In coining the term, StellrScope to describe translating information complexity into a simplistic visual rendering of meaning, it is significant in such a project where the volume of scientific information is possibly overwhelming for people outside of the scientific field and requires a comprehensive visual interpretation. In tackling such a project, the processes involved are not always predetermined and respond much more to the direction of ideas, content building, researching and an aesthetic understanding and construct for creating the artwork.

StellrScope: ‘Under the Surface’ uses the same methodology in investigating scientific innovation in Australia’s minerals research with a focus on mining in Western Australia.

These images are actually constructed to form video content for the hemispherical projection system that requires a two video track process and one layer is part removed by body detection to reveal new information. As the images require several layers of manipulation first, the composition of elements (CT scans, 3D animation stills, 3D models & sketches) are combined to create a visual aesthetic that is a result of scientific and artist collaboration. The images are an important step in the creation of the video and also artworks as singular images.

All the works that were produced in StellrScope were a result of an artist and scientist in collaboration with results that proved valuable for both parties, including the science host organization.

And is drawn from a series of large-scale digital images by gatescherrywolmark that construct a series of intersections between disparate practices, technology, and subjectivity, word and image. Intersections are transitional points at which the familiar becomes defamiliarised, unsafe, and capable of creative reinterpretation. Their existence at the site of such intersections enables the images to disrupt the dualisms on which traditional categories of both artmaking and art criticism are based. Thus, categories such as original and copy, artist and technician are at issue, as is the whole notion of authenticity. As the boundaries between practices and processes begin to break down, the work increasingly finds itself in an unfamiliar “elsewhere,” a “placeless place” that is appropriately hybrid, plural, and impure. This “placeless place” might be thought of as a paraspace (a space that has a symbiotic, non-hierarchical, and ultimately subversive relation to ordinary space). As such, it is a transgressive place, a place of power and excess in which space, place, and identity become fluid.

And is located within such a paraspace, or placeless place. The work explores the dynamic interplay between time and memory, presence and absence, being and becoming, and it contains meanings that are incomplete and partial. The contours of this placeless place are mapped through metaphors of the ordinary and the everyday, generating intimate and feminised spaces within which new narratives of the self can be constructed. The work can be seen as part of an ongoing gatescherrywolmark project to create improvisational and open-ended work in which control over meaning becomes a negotiated process between makers and viewers.

The members of gatescherrywolmark are Eleanor Gates-Stuart, Jean Cherry, and Jenny Wolmark.

The members of gatescherrywolmark are Eleanor Gates-Stuart, Jean Cherry, and Jenny Wolmark.

If to Save Face centers on our fear of humiliation and reputation, then our instinct may be to change face, hide face, to become faceless. Yet, if we were to be fearless, would our strength be to protect our face, our visual identity, to confront matters face on and without concern that our human image will be harmed? Save Face, a stark photographic portrait, almost non-human in appearance yet distinctively of the artist herself and that of her partner, both captured in a performance of physical endurance. As we ask ourselves “How to survive?” “How to communicate?” whilst asking others to “Talk to me… what do you want?” Trusting fellow humans in sharing our innermost thoughts, shy in that our facial expressions may reveal emotional truth, even the rush of color as our face flushes with embarrassment… a glow, Save Face is saved through the outer face.

Save Face is a digital portrait of my work concerning human mapping. The work stems from a body of work looking at plant systems as a means to characterize organic shape and form over soil-based heads in classifying ‘human likenesses.” The documentation and results are often recycled into various outputs, having used a range of technologies to facilitate the direction of artworks. This includes 3D scanning and experiments in VR. Save Face research extends from Eleanor Gates-Stuart’s research, ‘Growing Likeness’, where human characteristics are defined via plant growth systems. These ‘portraits’ were grown as human casts design to withhold human shape form whilst being capable of intake of water irrigation and seed development. ‘Growing Likeness’, the project enabled collaboration with plant scientist Sergio Moroni at Charles Sturt University in comparing root growth development in canola plants. ‘Save Face’ places the human inside the cast as the notion of identity becomes one of new facial reconstruction.

It is important to me philosophically to be able to make a personal thing with an impersonal machine or system: I like to use tools. I have made pictures with pens, pencils, brushes, needles and knives, and I enjoy the process of making an image. With a computer and a graphics tablet or light pen I use my hands and head and the hands and head of the computer and software writer …. I believe strongly in the peaceful and creative use of technology and in the sharing of information.

Obliged to fill in a border-transit form to enter a particular country, a female-appearing, humanoid robot wonders what it will do. What are its ambitions, possibilities, likelihoods, dreams? Occupation ponders numerous robot roles in society, taking into account what we already know about the societal roles and occupations of women and immigrants. The robot ‘imagines’ and then announces a litany of occupations it might take up once it passes the physical border. The screenplay draws from the existing online knowledge network: the occupations (with a couple of exceptions) were gleaned from the Australian Department of Immigration’s website. The robot shares booth-space with a creature of nature, the common fly, and it follows the insect’s trajectory with jerky, robotic head movements as it tries to pass as human, or as integrated into a humanized landscape. The android can certainly watch the fly, and have a relationship to the fly, and follow the fly’s line of flight with its camera-eyes, its computer-driven eyeballs, and its roto-head. Nevertheless, it cannot really (or, yet) ‘act naturally’ like the fly. It performs its ontology as a stranger. This young stranger, a machine-woman of the future, considers what to write on her immigration form: can a being be reduced to its functional identity? Thus the video revels in the disinclination of the imagination, and even the internet, to be reduced to fields on an administrative form.

Studies have found that institutional hiring policies, and also the general public, adopt particular gender stereotypes toward many occupational roles. The backlash effect, wherein people who violate occupational stereotypes are evaluated as less advantageous workers, extends into the field of human-robot interaction via humanoids produced to do certain tasks. For instance, a 2013 study in Singapore by Tiong et al. found that people perceived a security robot with matching gender-role stereotypes (male) as being more useful and acceptable than a “mismatched” security robot (female).

Bitter Wind adapts the ancient Greek mythos, Agamemnon, for Microsoft’s spatial computing HoloLens headset. This mythos tells the story of Agamemnon, an arrogant king who helped Greece win the Trojan War. The day Agamemnon arrives home from the war, his wife Clytemnestra murders him in his bathtub. The murder is revenge for Agamemnon sacrificing their teenage daughter Iphigenia ten years earlier, so the Greek ships would have enough wind to sail to Troy. The moment Agamemnon sails away, Clytemnestra devises a plan to murder him. She sets up a relay system of torches stretching from her palace to Troy, so she will be first to know when Troy falls and Agamemnon is headed home. Then, for ten years, she paces about her house, looking out the windows for her torches to light. During those ten years checking out her window, she is where her daughter grew up. For 2500 years, Clytemnestra has been written off as one of the most enraged, power-hungry, and lustful characters in Greek mythology. To show that Clytemnestra’s grief drives her actions just as much as rage and power-hungriness, Bitter Wind was given a guide—a sad girl hologram who speaks mournfully to the user and points to the next triggers. Users curious enough to read about the mythos will realize the girl is Iphigenia, the daughter Agamemnon sacrificed.

A Decade of Grief: Greek Tragedy in Spatial Computing – Through the HoloLens’ multiple affordances and a set of 3D-printed puzzle pieces, an individual user slowly “unlocks” a series of interactive holograms that reveal the mythos’ key elements and the user’s role as Clytemnestra. Bitter Wind’s experience design uses spatial trigger boxes, spatial sound, directional gaze, first-generation air tap, and object recognition to place users in Clytemnestra’s embodied point-of-view as she paces, besieged by memories of her slaughtered daughter. The HoloLens is used to emphasize a crucial element of Clytemnestra’s ignored story.

Bitter Wind TEAM CREDITS:

Elizabeth Hunter, Project Director and Designer.
Nick Segreti, Project Manager and Programming
Don Herweg, Lead Programmer
Paul Sullivan, Technical Artist
Diana Kogan, Additional Art
Andrew M. Edwards, Music and Sound Design

Regarde le Ciel, a WordPress blog (2016-2019), began as a fluke, an experiment, a self-imposed challenge. At the suggestion of a colleague, I started a “newsletter” and reluctantly began writing out ideas, thoughts, musing, and questions on the process of producing a performance that was messy and confusing at the time. I sent these writings to an audience of about a hundred friends and art community acquaintances on a weekly basis as email.  Eventually, an image accompanied the text.  These were generally photos I had taken which on occasion illustrated the language.  Others were intuitive juxtapositions.  Over several months, I began to enjoy this regular writing exercise. I put no pressure on myself. My inexperience as a writer granted me permission to generate the writing quickly and share it without self-censor or judgment.  This was radically different from my regular artistic practice and it felt liberating. My audience grew and began responding with images, texts or often words of encouragement and appreciation. This was a lovely and unexpected consequence.

In October of 2017, I began a series of sequential posts labeled “Woman #1 – #100” which ran until September 2019.  Initially inspired by my research and subsequent VR project, “Rockhaven Creepers Trilogy”, shot at the Rockhaven Sanitarium, these posts are short stories or poems of female characters who were institutionalized. Ultimately the “100 Women” stories broadened in scope to include autobiographical moments woven into imagined characters, female identities I had read about, seen in films or instants from the lives of women I know or have observed. The language ranges from descriptive – textures, objects, and colors, to fragile internal dialogues and expressions of biting anger. Naturally, the one hundred accounts reference a range of emotional and psychological states.  There are stories about violent acts, isolation, despair, and calm resolve.  The complex women I write illustrate the rich and powerful state of female strength and resilience.

The aim of this piece is to immerse the viewer in an environment that expresses altered sensory perception. It is full of colour and movement, the viewer feels disorientated by dizzying video projections as they weave their way in between harsh geometric shapes. The two films represent different types of environments (urban and natural) and my experience of them in the early stages of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome where movement through the world produced a feeling of sensory overload.The urban films were processed using scientific software (MATLAB), employing optic flow algorithms to isolate the movement and plot it out as ‘flow fields’ (arrows indicating the main directions of perceived motion) which were overlaid on the original footage. The flow fields added to the disorienting nature of the films. While the urban film is flooded with fast moving arrows, the natural film is gentler reflecting my greater tolerance of natural environments. The sculptural shapes serve as surfaces to break up the video over multiple planes. The arrangement puts the two films in conflict, but as they develop they begin to physically overlap suggesting the beginnings of resolution and recovery as my greater tolerance of natural environments begins to invade the urban.

Faculty and students from the University of Arizona have teamed up with the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans (CEDO) to promote conservation and sustainable use of Puerto Peñasco’s six major estuaries. This multifaceted conservation project, spearheaded by CEDO conservationist Alejandro Castillo López, brings together art, architecture, graphic design, ecology, land use planning, micro-business, technology, and ecotourism. The tourism industry in Puerto Peñasco is growing at an unprecedented rate. Currently, there are plans to build an international airport, a coastal highway, nine golf courses, over 15,000 new rental units, and a marina in each estuary. One of CEDO’s strategies to protect the estuaries from environmentally-damaging tourism development is to support sustainable micro-businesses and ecotourism in the wetlands areas. One of these projects, funded by Global Greengrant, was to build a small building to serve as an indoor kitchen and seating area for Sociedad Cooperativea Única de Mujeres, a collective of oyster farmers in Morua Estuary. At CEDO’s request, University of Arizona students created a mural on the new building, illustrating indigenous plants and animals, to serve as an informative starting point for CEDO-led and self-guided tours of the estuary. Other projects include: a visual identity system for NaturArte by faculty Ellen McMahon and Kelly Leslie; a mural for a Kayak ecotour business in Morua Estuary by Puerto Peñasco high school students, University of Arizona undergraduate students, and alumnus Mike Buffington; La Cholla Museum of Natural and Cultural History, a virtual museum for Cholla Bay and Estuary by graduate students Heather Green and Jeff Case; a web site and documentary video by graduate student Ben Kirkby; an interactive DVD by Kelly Leslie and Ben Kirkby; and interpretive kiosks by architecture faculty member Erin Moore and her students.

Increased use of sensor technologies, big data, algorithms, surveillance, monitoring and tracking question what it means to be human in terms of privacy, individuality, authority, and the State. Using robotized voices, enhanced visual processing developed by MIT’s CSAIL Lab, and haunting imagery issues of surveillance are explored in a dialogue between law enforcement and a single individual. A siddhi is mystical clairaudience and clairvoyance, powers now enabled due to enhanced technologies.

(art)n: Virtual Visions
In the 21st century, artists are using everything from natural materials to electronic media to make art, revealing new metaphors in the meaning of the work and the process by which it was created. In the past 100 years alone, artists have explored humanity through the different kinds of materials they have used to make art. And within every new material lies the critical quest to invent new techniques, new forms, new approaches, new meanings, new theories, and continued dialogues with art history.

After more than four decades since the first works of digital art were created, one of the most intriguing directions has been the reinvention of collaboration as an artistic process. Throughout history, collaboration has existed by necessity to facilitate the massive scale of a project or the technological challenges of working in a new medium. Artists today are increasingly working in groups to respond to a variety of options that are available to them, revealing provocative changes in the behind-the-scenes look at how art is being made.

(art)n’s approach to making art in the 21st century includes a broad spectrum of disciplines and views that have inspired new concepts of what art is, what it can be, and how it can be made. These developments have emerged from working in collaboration with peers from other disciplines, combined with the invention of the group’s unique digital-imaging processes. Over the past three decades, (art)n has witnessed the transformation from the physical to the virtual, producing a compelling body of work that reveals an elegant portrait of the digital landscape.

The art of our times exists as singular objects authored by singular artists, and it is evolving as a rich collection of ideas produced with multiple media by multiple authors in multiple locations at different moments in time. The greatest reward in producing art under these condition s is creating a shared language for embedding meaning into the unknown outcome of each experimentation.

(art)n ‘s collaborations address subjects that place the most current issues of art, science, and technology into the public arena. (art)n continues to manifest its concern with social issues such as disease, warfare, urban poverty, and remembrance. It is the group’s mission to continue to create works that will influence, inspire, and preserve a cultural heritage that combines the old and the new for all generations.

Eggdrop is (art)n’s third collaboration with Chicago imagist painter, Karl Wirsum. The piece features a whimsical virtual portrait of Karl’s fantasy characters performing in cyberspace. (art)n has also worked with Ed Paschke, Mr. Imagination, and the Roger Brown Study Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These special works have been shown in galleries and museums worldwide, and have introduced Chicago imagists to future generations of artists.

Gene therapy, bio-engineering, and cloning have captured the concerned attention of scientists, scholars, and artists alike. These fascinating issues are precursors to monumental debates that advances in DNA therapy will soon unleash. What is this cutting-edge DNA research about? In one word: immortality.

Currently, genetic researchers are focusing on one discrete area at the end of the human chromosome strand, where telomeres are located. These gene-free DNA sequences are fractionated with each cell division. While loss of telomere material causes cellular aging, telomeres do not always degrade and can be regenerated by the telomerase enzyme. If scientists succeed in controlling the regenerating telomerase enzyme, they will have not only the remarkable power to neutralize cancer and revive the immune systems of AIDS victims, but also the potential to make individuals immortal on a cellular level, initially doubling the average human lifespan. Within 15 years, researchers expect to be testing a life-prolonging pill or injection that will indefinitely freeze age and health, and possibly even reverse the aging process.

Though this may seem radically futuristic, it is tangible, invaluable, and ethically dubious. Who will receive and control distribution? Will longevity become a basic human right, and should the Everliving procreate? Meticulous reverse-engineering seems reasonably justified to cure fatal disease and human suffering. But can wrinkling and aging be considered causes of unnecessary suffering? Why is immortality desirable, and how would it effect our consciousness?

(art)n’s Telomeres Project On Imminent Immortality contains interpretive sounds of a genetic environment engaged by contact from participants: footsteps on the floormats surrounding its base. Illuminated from within, eight PHSColograms evoke the feel of an imagined regenerative laboratory in the form of an octagonal sculpture.

Rotated computer-interleaved Duratrans and Kodalith films, plexiglas, fluorescent bulbs, ambient sound. GenConAD and AudioMegaTablet by Sky Boy Productions, Inc.

These mixed-media prints are derived from an interactive animation titled “Harmonic.” Conceptually, the project is an expression of harmony among humans, nature, and technology, and an argument for the power of computer-based art to engage and inspire through its behavioral life in addition to its audiovisual aesthetic.

The prints represent a merging of the digital and physical worlds in a process that integrates the computer as both tool and collaborator. Birds are drawn by hand, then digitally scanned and programmed to come alive with flocking behaviors based on Craig Reynolds’ Boids. As users interact with Harmonic, they make music and guide the flocks through space; background color changes with each touch.

Each image is derived from a flock in motion – a truly unique moment in time. Screenshots of the interactive animation in progress are captured digitally, printed on transparent film, mounted on plexiglas, and finished by hand. While the creative process starts (drawing birds) and ends (sanding surfaces) directly with the hand, it comes alive in the computer.

Aesthetic imagery is designed for simplicity, with an eye toward integrating the respective strengths of digital and physical media. These prints intentionally avoid the distraction of hyper-reality by offering a simple, semi-abstract, organic look and feel.

Finally, these prints directly address the question of the original in digital art. Is the original the idea? Is it the code? Is it the hand-drawn bird or the finished mixed-media piece? Each print is a single moment in interactive experience in progress. Randomness implicit in the behavioral code combined with variances in human behavior dictate that each screenshot is, essentially, unique. Finally, variations in the hand-finishing process yield a different piece each time.

The computer has much to offer art, beyond the realignment of existing material. At the core of this potential is an exploration of the fundamental forms and patterns replicated across organic entities of all kinds. Furthermore, these representations are most powerful when they move beyond the screen with a sense of space, dimension, and physicality.

The elusive horizon between the physical universe and the digital universe promises something sublime, whether you call it art, science, or entertainment. Harmonic is a simple gesture toward that promise.

“Grotesques” is a new series of video installations inspired by a deep study of the Alessandro Allori frescoes on the ceiling of the artist’s corridor in the Uffizi Museum, Florence, and in the Roman Fourth period paintings on which they are based, found throughout archeological sites in Italy. I am interested in the symmetry, formal order, and decorative language of these paintings as they warehouse categories of beauty, possession, human frailty, exploits, and monsters. They tell stories: Grotesques is a set of vignettes around feminist themes of death rebirth, spousal relations and child bearing.

I am deeply interested in monsters, not the terrifying kind, but an undiscovered sort of fantastic fauna. Rather than manipulating once-living creatures, I prefer to play these issues out digitally and with traditional sculpture materials. I am also interested in skeletal anatomy as the formal and practical problem of line, levers, and hinges, and blood vessels as signal-bearing audio and electrical cables.

This is a set of drawings and sculptures that explore my ideas of fantastic fauna. This is my way of being Dr. Moreau or Dr. Frankenstein without the corpses or the smell. Bicephalous Intonare is a two-headed creature wired with speakers that moan and breathe. Spina llluminatio is made of similar materials, but it illuminates according to available light (or, actually, lack thereof). These characters are mounted under plexiglass in hand-built, wall-mounted, display cabinets. The installation also includes two drawings: Quadrafin and Monstrum Thyrsus.

Lit Tree invites viewers with a choreographed cloud of light that can respond to visitors’ motions. By applying a superficial layer of immediate interaction to the tree, people can better appreciate the long term invisible interaction that they share with it. Kimchi and Chips proposes an alternative to media facades, where designers and advertisers use LED and projection technology to display graphics through the built environment. They suggest the use of media facades can lead to an asymptote of confusion and visual pollution. Instead, they ask if an unscripted entity within our environment can also be visually celebrated. If the use of trees can be promoted as outdoor visual media, then cities can be planned to balance between nature and our continuing desire for large scale outdoor visual media. Since the color temperature of light produced by a video projector’s bulb is similar to the surface of the sun (5800K), the tree naturally reacts to the light that is projected onto it. In this way we can speak to the tree in the medium it can react to most immediately, light. We listen to the tree’s reaction by the means of the detailed 3D scans of its shape that are produced by the projection system. This type of photosynthesis allows for the tree to self-optimize for projection. Leaves which are in shadow move out to find the projector’s light. Light wasted inside the tree is absorbed by photosynthesis, converting local carbon dioxide to oxygen

“Excerpts from EYE SLING SHOT LIONS” is an interactive digital composition conceived and constructed around the Quicklime Media Layer, Max2, and Supercard technologies. During live performance, a mélange of typography, sound, video fragments, interactive digital video, simulated live performance, short films, and pop music is controlled via MIDI and interwoven with live poetry, sub-urban hip-hop, and spoken-word texts. Custom built interface elements link Elliott to computer-controlled video and typography, through extensive use of piezoelectric elements. Utilizing CD-ROM and LCD projection, “Excerpts from EYE SLING SHOT LIONS” is programmed to be modal. Not only is it a performance, it’s a product … a shiny disc full of ones and zeros ready to be taken home the night of the performance and put into your Walkman2 or your Mac. “EYE SLING SHOT LIONS” is the follow up to Elliott’s critically acclaimed CD Plus “Throwing apples at the Sun.”

There are two types of witnesses: one who has direct experience, and another who chooses to stand and witness, to remember and remind others. Although I do not always feel comfortable with the concept of “bearing witness” because of its religious overtones and the response it evokes in others, as a book artist I see my current books as intimate witnesses, testimonies of history and human behavior. I have focused on issues of war and genocide since 1999 and have attempted to explore different methods of presenting information to the reader to initiate a personal examination of what has happened, what may happen, and the responsibility to confront injustice, no matter where it occurs. Although we have many examples of how history has taught us nothing, it is my hope to present history in such a way so it does teach something. In What if it happened here? I have manipulated personal and family photographs to remind the reader that not too long ago, the West virtually ignored the plight of Yugoslavians as their country became embroiled in nationalistic conflicts. The United Nations, Europe, and the United States failed to confront the problems of ethnic cleansing, the g-word (genocide), the conflict of a foreign policy of self-interest vs. a major humanitarian crisis. How many must die before action is taken? Why is timing everything? Who should we believe? I rarely create work to be framed, and so I have translated what could be a book into a series of framed two-page spreads housed in hinged double picture frames, just like the ones we put on our desks and mantles. Although these are “massaged” images, some of the originals have been presented in such frames. Some of the images would never be presented in such an intimate manner, but perhaps they should be, to keep us sensitized to the problem. To maintain a connection between my work and the book format, these picture frames can be left open or closed to remove the uncomfortable material from one’s sight. This nine-spread series is a sampling of what is a larger text.

This artwork is an installation that expresses the future in which users can manufacture designer’s babies themselves. You can design, customize, buy and manufacture your baby with your favorite gene on your laptop.

Today, with the spread of social media and e-commerce, it has become possible to purchase the products you love at a reasonable price instantly from all over the world. Furthermore, with the development of digital fabrication technology, the time will come for everyone to create custom-made products. This artwork is an installation that expresses the future in which users can manufacture designer’s babies themselves.

Now that human genome editing is possible, we face the ethical dilemma of designer baby. Technology makes it possible to control children’s health status, IQ, appearance, and etc. This artwork is questioning the morality of people when designer baby technology become a more casual and fashionable trend.

In this artwork, we conceptualize a society in which technologies such as digital fabrication, machine learning, biotechnology, and online shopping are highly developed.

We want to give users an opportunity to rethink ethics by reimagining the world of technology acceleration.

For that purpose, we developed a technology that expresses how the physical world and the virtual world switch. Furthermore, the image recognition technology is applied to incorporate expressions for designing fictional children.

Paper Town VR is an interactive art installation that immerses the user in a miniature 360° physical environment that can be experienced remotely through WebVR. The integral part of this project is a handcrafted artwork that adds a human touch to the experience. Utilizing a motorized camera as a scaled-down vantage point, the user can observe the scenery and goings-on of a tiny two-dimensional village as if it existed at a human scale. We created an even greater illusion of depth using warmer, more saturated colors to make objects come forward and cooler, more muted colors fade them back.

Inspired by the 1937 debut of the Disney Multi-Plane Camera, Paper Town VR enlists the effect of motion parallax to add spatial realism to the captured environment. This allows the viewer to use their natural perception of space to more intuitively understand the layout of the environment. Paper Town VR also opens up possibilities for a variety of hybrid and augmented realities, such as overlaying weather effects into the digital viewing space. Finally, since the video stream is live, it provides the opportunity to be used as a live set – objects or characters can be added to the set to appear to the viewer in real time.

Chirp is the result of a particle simulation frozen in time, created by mapping of the “chirp” sound of the gravitational waves to various physical forces that escalate into a vortex. It presents the unfiltered data to tell a story through the use of the familiar appearance of a ballpoint pen scribble. The spatially distributed regular pattern turns into a noise while it transforms memories throughout hidden structural symmetries. The previously interconnected pieces separate in order to align in a direction and finally form a cohesive purpose. Art has proven to be an extremely effective translator when it comes to communicating difficult concepts in an abstract way to trigger emotions. We often see a mark on the paper that could potentially become something else, such as a line, a drawing or a letter that has meaning. By constraining the marks to forces the unforgiving quality of the ballpoint pen leaves permanent memories on the paper and acts as a metaphor for stories from the past, describing not only the “what” but also the “how”. The concentric force is without an origin, symbolizing a black hole that we have limited knowledge of so far. Chirp was processed in two different versions, the “positive” and the “negative”, focusing on the sudden disconnection of scale and time by losing the familiar connection with the medium.

The project “Homeostasis” is a speculative, interactive visual experience. It is a metaphorical representation of human interference with data interpretations. The animated artwork is generated in real time, reflecting cumulative and dramatic changes in sea level for the world’s oceans for over the past 100 years. The viewer can manipulate the data through a unique, interactive vapor cloud that also modulates the generative process, providing a natural flow and rhythm to digital motion. During the interaction, the viewer disrupts the phenomenon that alters the abstraction as an “aftermath” effect.

Extended Summary:

Emerging technologies are more than ever impacting human interactions, while public perception of automation, artificial intelligence, and human enhancement remains critical. In creative fields innovative ideas are often triggered by intersecting dissimilar phenomena filtered through aesthetic considerations. It can be argued that introducing Ai in artistic practice destroys spontaneity, intuition, and serendipity; consequently, the outcome is deliberate and premeditated. However, art is open to interpretations and through designing of unorthodox digital artifacts, interfaces, and experiences in contrast with main stream processes we can challenge existing beliefs and provoke new ideas to reach a better understanding of how our culture is affected by technology. The project “Homeostasis” is a speculative interactive visual experience. It connects a unique interface design with generative art and meaningful data to communicate an important topic. Shapes, colors, form, and timing is manipulated based on a set of design principles, while the pattern of a vapor cloud from an ultrasonic vaporizer is analyzed and processed in a machine learning model in real time. The variations of the vapor pattern enable infinite possibilities between the natural boundaries and provide exciting data through computer vision which is then driving the spatial and temporal attributes of the animation. The design is a biologically inspired and it attempts to create an illusion of cellular lifeforms in deep waters.

TRANSICONMORPHOSIS, the result of a theoretical reflection on the development of new forms of technological communication and their effects on human beings as well as their political impact, comprises a conventional chat service hosted in a computer interfaced with a series of electrodes connected to the face of the artist. The emoticon received through the chat translates into electrical impulses that force the artist’s facial features to mimic the expression of each emoticon.

The TRANSICONMORPHOSIS system translates emoticons into facial expressions. An interactive artwork, it proposes an ambiguous and experimental communication system for the near future, foreseen in part by Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti in the 1980s, when he wrote: “We know that the influence of a man on another is what determines incessant and fluctuating metamorphosis that occurs in gesture and facial expressions; when these are strictly prohibited, every metamorphosis becomes difficult and, in the end, impossible.” If, in the future, face-toface communication becomes less widely used and written communication becomes crystallized in a series of immutable forms, humans will lose the empathic abilities that today are, in part, reproduced by emoticons. If humanity fails to invent new metamorphoses, devices such as TRANSICONMORPHOSIS will be diffused worldwide.

Next Question is a group of three artists who have been collaborating since 1994: Emily Blair, Michelle Illuminato, and Phuong Nguyen. Next Question is committed to involving the audience directly in the art – both in its development and, through interactivity, in the piece itself. Summaries of our work can be found on our Website (nextquestion.org).

“Invisible Places,” our installation for SIGGRAPH’s N-Space, is part of a conceptual mapping project that took place in Buffalo, New York. Working in collaboration with women and girls in Buffalo, we examined the diverse ways in which women perceive and navigate urban space. Entitled “Two Degrees of Separation,” this project and accompanying installation were part of CEPA Gallery’s Unlimited Partnerships Series. “Two Degrees of Separation” included material from our earlier mapping project, the “South Side Atlas,” which took place in the South Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh. In symmetry with this previous work, we concentrated on the area of South Buffalo. Attention to these specific urban spaces allowed stories of women’s interactions with the city to emerge, yielding a mingling of narratives rather than essentializing generalizations. However, the project continually flowed beyond the borders of South Buffalo, as indeed had been the case in Pittsburgh.

For we strive to keep our approach as flexible as possible. The question of how women navigate space is admittedly a broad one; its ambiguity allowed many points of entry for collaboration. In Buffalo, we worked with the Urban Girls, a group of middle school and high school poets who conducted their own interviews and composed new poetry about urban space, which they read on opening night at CEPA Gallery. Three of the girls also created an audio tour of places important to them, which is included in Invisible Places.

The title “Two Degrees of Separation” reflects both the proximity between participants as well as that between Buffalo and Pittsburgh. It also describes the structure of the interactive installation, where specific stories were placed side by side. For the “Invisible Places” part of the project, we asked women and girls to talk about where they were most and least comfortable. By plugging headphones into jacks in a chalkboard, visitors can hear portions of the interviews and then add their own observations using chalk. For SIGGRAPH, we have added a computer component that allows visitors to share their thoughts regarding digital or online space. The narratives enhance, redirect, and contradict one another, yielding a variety of stories about how women experience space.