While the question of what art is and what technology can offer the conceptualization and implementation of art will hopefully be topics of ongoing reflection and conversation—both in this program and in our lives—we wanted to share a few examples of of pieces of work which have both compelled us and taken unique advantage of some of the affordances that technology offers us.
We hope these will be evocativefor you as you consider projects you might want to tackle yourself, or perhaps simply the character of the experiences you want your projects to support.
While the question of what art is and what technology can offer the conceptualization and implementation of art will hopefully be topics of ongoing reflection and conversation—both in this program and in our lives—we wanted to share a few examples of pieces of work which have both compelled us and taken unique advantage of some of the affordances that technology offers.
We hope these will be evocative for you as you consider projects you might want to tackle yourself, or perhaps simply the character of the experiences you want your projects to support.
The narrative infographic "Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A visualization of drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004" [pitchinteractive.com] by Pitch Interactive illustrates the frequency and human impact of the drone attacks in Pakistan. Once a year Pitch Interactive takes time off from regular work to take on a project of which its members feel is important. Based on data maintained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) and the New America Foundation, the infographic emphasizes the casualties the drone attacks caused, and particular the skewed distribution of deaths in terms of civilians, children, "high profile" people and "other".
Over the years, artists have attempted to take back this public space and our attention, but the system remains full of ads. This is why we created NO AD, a mobile app available now for FREE on iOS and Android. NO AD uses augmented reality technology to replace ads with artwork in realtime through your mobile device. The app will work with dozens of common ads and will be updated regularly with new content. Try it with as many ads as possible to discover lots of new art! Turn your commute into a curated art experience with NO AD.
Parable of the Polygons is a tale about how small biases work in large groups of people, how this leads to segregations, and what we can do to make it better.
Patterned by Nature was commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for the newly built Nature Research Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. [...] 10 feet wide and 90 feet in length, this sculptural ribbon winds through the five story atrium of the museum and is made of 3600 tiles of LCD glass. [...] Animations are created by independently varying the transparency of each piece of glass. The content cycles through twenty programs, ranging from clouds to rain drops to colonies of bacteria to flocking birds to geese to cuttlefish skin to pulsating black holes. The animations were created through a combination of algorithmic software modeling of natural phenomena and compositing of actual footage.
We are fascinated by natural processes that produce complex forms from simple rule sets and local interactions. Our projects center around adapting the logic of these processes into computational tools; we do this by translating scientific theories and models of pattern formation into algorithms for design. We abstract a natural phenomenon into a set of rules that specifies discrete instructions for a computer to carry out. The design systems we encode are generative; they have no fixed outcome. Rather than thinking of them as mere tools, we consider them our medium. These systems are digital materials with inherent properties and behaviors. [...] “Growing Objects” is a series of kinetic sculptures that illustrate natural growth processes. Inspired by 19th century zoetropes, these interactive sculptures consist of 3D printed objects that when spun and illuminated animate the development of complex forms; when still, they allow the viewer to examine each step of the growth process.
An interactive short film by Chris Milk. Featuring "We Used To Wait" from Arcade Fire.
An interactive, modular sculpture by Alexander Green. The Sugar Cubes project is a continuously evolving exploration of light as an instrument, modular 3D sculpture, and structured improvisation.
The film documents an immersive art installation called Submergence. The project, made by digital arts group Squidsoup and first shown at Galleri ROM in Oslo, Norway, transforms physical space into a Mixed Reality environment where virtual and real worlds coincide. The result is an immersive walkthrough experience that uses light to alter our perceptions of space and presence.
The experience is akin to walking through an abstract virtual environment, where pixels on a screen are replaced by thousands of points of light floating in space. These points of light create evocations and atmospheres, presence.
“Mirrored Room” offers a little something for everyone. It is a reflection on death and the afterlife. It is a planetarium contained in a room the size of a large walk-in closet. Cosmic and intimate at the same time, it merges inner and outer space, science and mysticism, the personal and the impersonal.
A scattered array of fifty mirror balls reflect light from three projectors, filling a room completely with small reflections, casting patterns that fill the visitor’s peripheral vision. Creating a curious space that alternates between a meditative state, and an uneasy imbalance. An experiment in combining a found object with computer vision to create a profound and unusual experience.
A piece in which sound waves are interpreted and transformed into twists of blue light [...] Sixteen rotating vertical lightwires carry the patterns through the space as audio of blowing winds plays in the background.