Apect: The Chronicles of New Media Party

Last night I was lucky enough to attend Aspect Art release party for their 13th volume focusing on public art and its relation to technology and the human experience.
Aspect Art is a bi-annual DVD publication whose mission is to distribute and archive works of time-based art. Each issue highlights artists working in new or experimental media, whose works are best documented in video or sound.

The 13th issue presents nine works positioned within the civic space, engaging diverse audiences and expanding the notion of public art and its relation to technology and history.

V.13: Public features works by Nelé Azevedo, John Osorio Buck & Matthew Ward, Heather Clark & Matthew Mazzotta, Robert Ladislas Derr, Suzanne Hagood, Nina Katchadourian, Thorsten Knaub, Brian Knep, and the Spectres of Liberty (Olivia Robinson, Josh MacPhee, & Dara Greenwald).

Virtual Color Organ

The virtual color organ is an ongoing project between artist Jack Ox a Research Scholar at the University of New Mexico and graphics programmer and architect
Dave Britt. The team creates visual maps of the deep structures of music.
Take a look at the project here: http://virtualcolororgan.com/index.html or view it here:



Ox describes this project as a "self-authored system for translating extant compositions into visual performance involving Information theory with a complex layering of systems."

The art works which have emerged from this process have embodied principles of Intermedia, a combination of structural elements which come from more than one medium but are combined into one, basically the theory that describes the intersection of art and technology.

Volcanic Dance Beats

DANTE, the provider of high speed research and education networks in partnership with CityDance Ensemble, a Washington-based modern dance company joined forces to create a dance concert in order to raise awareness of climate change.The dance titled The Mountain, choreographed by Jason Garcia Ignacio, is based on the structure of melodies created out of seismic waves recorded from four volcanoes across three continents: Mount Etna in Italy, Mount Tungurahua in Ecuador, and the Mountains Pinatubo and Mayon in the Philippines. The waves were transformed into audible sound waves using a volcano sonification technique developed by DANTE engineer Domenico Vicinanza, who also composed the music used in the dance performance. The technique is currently being used in research to translate the patterns in a volcano's behaviour into sound waves to help predict volcanic eruptions.

Taking these seismic waves and applying them to the arts was a natural step for Vicinanza to help raise awareness of climate change. This project is a testament to how technology can bring a multitude of disciplines together to facilitate creative collaboration.

Dots and Thoughts

I came into the office today to find the design studio covered in a wall to wall pointillism like mural of Bert from Sesame Street and couldn't help to laugh at it. When I asked one of the talented designers who works in our studio where it came from they led me to this site: http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

Deep rooted in the digital art revolution the Rasterbator is a tool that creates huge, pixelated images from any picture. You can upload an image, crop/stretch it to the desired size, the tool will tell you how many pages you need to print the resulting multi-page pdf file then you can assemble the pages into extremely cool looking poster up to 20 meters in size.

Art/Work: the ins and outs of all things legal in the art world

In line with the ethical and legal issues surrounding art lately and raised by the digital age, Cool Hunting just blogged about a new book Art/Work by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber. Both have a background which includes representing artists, Bhandari as the director at NYC's Mixed Greens Gallery and Melber representing artists at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

The book (available in print and conveniently in digital form) is a comprehensive guide for any artist wanting to succeed in the cutthroat art world.

Nam June Paik: Live Feed, 1972-1994

South Korean-born American artist Nam Jun Paik left a hole in the video art world with his passing in 2006. Considered to be the first video artist and a pioneer of the space by many, his work foreshadowed contemporary video art as both a communicative and artistic medium. He even went so far as to asserted in 1965 that the television cathode-ray tube would someday replace the canvas. While video has by no means replaced canvas, you can see some of his influential work at the James Cohan Gallery.

Beginning April 14 and running through May 30, the James Cohan Gallery features a collection of Paik's important works including sculptures from his robot series, which incorporate video monitors and surveillance cameras with sculptural forms in order to allowing the audience to engage with the work.

Digital Lenses

Minority Report has become reality with the development of DigiLens by SBG Labs Inc. This new optical device technology makes it possible to seamlessly layer virtual information over physical reality.

I don't quite understand all of the science behind how this really works but all I can this technology is pretty radical enabling us to enhance our world by seeing images: art or other in the context of what we see everyday.