Where Technology and Creative Expression Intersect - Bonnie Mitchell

Where Technology and Creative Expression Intersect – Bonnie Mitchell

The Siggraph 2006 Art Gallery, “Intersections” is one of the world’s most unique digital art exhibitions, featuring an extensive collection of works that merge innovative computer graphics and interactive techniques with artistic practice. The gallery includes works from 132 different artists, researchers and technologists from 16 countries.
The exhibition includes 84 wall-hung pieces that range from digital paintings and collages to new forms of art including motion painting, animated algorithmic images, LED optical art, robotics, electronic fiber art and 3D animated lenticular prints.
The gallery also showcases interactive art and audio installations. These interactive environments allow visitors to use their body to control various aspects of the work. People are encouraged to step on virtual puddles to cause flowers to grow, use their heart rate to control the movement of virtual people and use Internet chat sessions to control the growth of a robotic plant.
Interactive audio installations allow participants to create music by moving objects on a light table, enter an environment where thousands of chirping elements can detect human presence and communicate messages and submerse themselves in a sound field that converges to form complex sound patterns. Not only are the interactive installations technically very interesting, but they also investigate thought-provoking concepts.
With experimental web art and interactive artistic computer programs, artists push the boundaries of what is possible using the Internet and computer programming. The works include a web mosaic created by people from around the world calling in to the site using the telephone and an abstract animated image that is manipulated by typing various words.
The Art Gallery also features sculptures created using digital processes. The sculptures range from abstract to representational and from static to dynamic. Some sculptures began as mathematical models and others as artistic ideas. One sculpture is triggered by sound to create moving spikes of liquid metal that climb up and down a spiral cone. Other sculptures are the result of 3D computer models that are output on 3D stereo lithography printers.
“Intersections” also includes artistic computer animations from seven countries. The works range from abstract art to experimental narrative to creative music videos to metaphorical stories. Regardless of approach, the animations are expressively different from traditional animation and exemplify some of the most creative work being done in the field of art animation today.
Another unique aspect of the exhibition will be electronically mediated performances that take place on the Art Gallery performance stage. The performers use technology to create multi-sensory experiences that amaze and amuse as well as dazzle the audience on multiple levels. Performances include dancers that interact and affect the outcome of video images, a flutist that collaboratively creates music with a computer, a robotic drummer that learns from human drummers then improvises to the beat, two computer programmers that create music real-time as the write computer code and VJs that merge experimental narrative with live and computer generated music.
However, performances will not be confined to gallery space. There will be three performances that will take place around the city of Boston including a geeked-out car that drives around projecting a walking figure on buildings, a fleet of cars that project images on the rear window of the cars and play digitally created music from sampled Boston sounds and an artist that digitally projects the analyzed movements of graffiti artists onto to public buildings. Within the Boston Convention Center a group of artists will walk around wearing LED vests that display animated signs of inner thoughts and emotions.
Along with the diverse array of works in and around the “Intersections” art exhibition, Siggraph 2006 and the Ohio State University are co-sponsoring the first extensive retrospect of Charles A. Csuri’s artwork. The “Beyond Boundaries: Charles A. Csuri (1963-present)” show includes more than 75 images and animations from throughout his career. The work includes plotter, large format and 3d lenticular prints as well as interactive and 3D real-time animations.
As a means of contextualize the past, present and future of digital art, “Intersections” will host four panels of internationally renowned theorists that will discuss topics such as generative art, interactive spaces and pervasive computer and art. There will be seven theoretical paper presentations that explore issues such as web animation, curation of interactive art, spatial representation, digital painting and new forms of media. Throughout the week, there will also be artist talks, called Sketches, which focus on the concept behind the work and the processes used in creating digital artwork.
Overall, the Siggraph 2006 “Intersections” art exhibition will be an exciting event that challenges and expands the boundaries of what art truly can be. Through the use of technology, creativity, craftsmanship and thought-provoking concepts, the Siggraph 2006 artists, animators, presenters and performers define a brave new direction for art.
Siggraph 2006 will bring an estimated 25,000 computer graphics and interactive technology professionals from six continents to Boston for the industry’s most respected technical and creative programs focusing on research, entertainment, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, education and the web from 30th July to 3rd August 2006. Siggraph 2006 also includes a three-day exhibition of products and services from the computer graphics and interactive marketplace from the 1st to the 3rd of August, 2006. More than 250 international exhibiting companies are expected. Registration for the conference and exhibition is open to the public.