Former MFA Candidate

John Landry

MFA Graduate, 2001

Natt Mintrasak

EVL Faculty, emeritus Associate Professor, School of Art &amp; Design

Drew Browning

MFA Graduate, 1997

Alan Millman

EVL Faculty Associate Professor Emeritus, Computer Science

Tom Moher

MFA Graduate, 1985

Joe Reitzer

MFA Graduate, 2002

Jeffrey Brooks

Misha Caylor

MFA Graduate, 2003

Ya Lu Lin

MFA Graduate, 2005

Josephine Lipuma

Joseph Tremonti

MFA Graduate, 1996

Tom Coffin

PhD Graduate, 1994

Sumit Das

MFA Graduate

Daniel Davidson

Former EVL MFA Graduate Candidate

Jeremy Hollister

MS Graduate, 1999

Carlos Orrego

Associate Director (retired) MFA Graduate, 1991

Maggie Rawlings

MS &amp; MFA Graduate, 1997

Marcus Thiebaux

Geoffrey Allen Baum

Petra Gemeinboeck

Fernando Orellana

former EVL Faculty

Franz Fischnaller

Former Undergraduate REU, Web Development

Elisa Green

MFA Graduate, 2006

Helen-Nicole Kostis

Chip Collier

Corbin Frame

MFA Graduate, 2009

Paige Treebridge

MFA Graduate, 2010

Julio Obelleiro

Tesia Kosmalski

PhD Graduate, 2012

Yiwen Sun

Benjamin Thorp

Undergrad Student, Web REU

Brad Phillips

Alejandro Borsani

Research Specialist, 2011-2013 MFA Graduate, 2011

JD Pirtle

MFA Graduate, 2011

Brittany Ransom

MFA Graduate, 2012

Jon Chambers

BS, 2014

Mark Blewett

Undergraduate Student, 2013-2015

James Pinkl

Research Experience Undergraduate, 2013-2015

Bryan Dalle Molle

The fourth in a series of Electronic Visualization Events (EVEs) organized by the students, staff and faculty of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory. The first three were held April 1975, April 1976, and May 1978 in Chicago, and were a series of live performances in which images were computer generated and color processed in real time with musical accompaniment. 

EVE 4, held at UIC&rsquo;s Gallery 400 and at EVL, marked the 20th anniversary of the first EVE event. EVE 4 featured CAVE-based virtual-reality displays, interactive installations, prints, Web-based galleries, and a video theater.

EVE 4 - Electronic Visualization Event 4

The National Computational Science Alliance <a href="http://access.ncsa.uiuc.edu/index.alliance.html">(Alliance)</a> is a partnership among computational scientists, computer scientists, and professionals in education, outreach, and training at more than 50 U.S. universities
and research institutions working to prototype the computational and information infrastructure of the next
century. 

EVL, as a partner of the National Computational Science Alliance, participated in its annual meeting held at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Assembly Hall. The meeting&rsquo;s research exhibition included demonstrations run on ten ImmersaDesks. Andy Johnson and Jason Leigh gave a tutorial on <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/cavern">CAVERN</a>. 

EVL&rsquo;s VR demonstrations included: 
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;PartnerBall&rdquo; - A Dual View ImmersaDesk (Duodesk) Application (2 simultaneously tracked participants)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~cave5d/homepage.html">Cave5D</a> using CAVERNsoft networking</li>
<li>Networked <a href="http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/VR/grants">Virtual Director</a></li>
<li>Tele-Immersive Design Review with General Motors</li>
<li>Caterpillar&rsquo;s Industrial Design Review networked to EVL / Chicago</li>
</ul>

Assembly Hall, UIUC

Alliance &rsquo;98

The MASS Ensemble will present new work in a site-specific environment in their home neighborhood of Pilsen east. MASS members Close, Sanchez, Harvey, Quinn, Rothschild, and Pullman will be joined by guest artists Blanche Blacke, <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/reitzer/">Joe Rietzer</a> (Vibra Floor), and Taylor Pierce (paintings). 

April 16 - 18, 22 - 24, 8 pm 

312.243.2366 

Donation: $12, $8 for students, $5 Pilsen residence

MASS Ensemble Performance

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory is proud to welcome <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&amp;type=5&amp;indi=203">Franz Fischnaller</a> as an associated faculty member of EVL and Professor of the School of Art and Design. Franz joins Dan Sandin and Drew Browning, bringing a wealth of teaching and professional experience in interactive, multimedia and virtual reality art / design to the electronic visualization (EV) program. Franz represents the first addition to the art EV faculty since the MFA inception in 1980.

Franz Fischnaller Joins EVL Faculty

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory presents &lsquo;Alive on the Grid&rsquo;. This piece was originally exhibited at the <a href="http://www.aec.at">Ars Electronica Festival 2001</a>. It is a collection of ten virtual worlds. This tele-collaborative piece will be networked to Indiana University during the show. 

The collection consists of the following works: 
<ul>
<li>Looking for Water - Dan Sandin</li>
<li>Dreambox - Beth Cerny, Alex Hill, Ya Lu Lin, Brenda Lopez Silva, Todd Margolis</li>
<li>Through the Looking Glass of Josephine Lipuma - Josephine Lipuma</li>
<li>Excavation - Joseph Tremonti, Petra Gemeinboeck</li>
<li>Home - Drew Browning, Annette Barbier</li>
<li>PAAPAB - Josephine Anstey, Dave Pape, Dan Neveu</li>
<li>Super Spectacular - Tim Portlock</li>
<li>syn.aesthetic - Geoffrey Allen Baum, Keith Miller</li>
<li>Infinite Studio - Todd Margolis</li>
<li>Beat Box - Margaret Dolinsky, Edward J. Dambik</li>
<li>Confluxus - Todd Margolis</li>
</ul>

Confluxus

Alternate Currents

signal-to-noise ratio: [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers in a generalization of its technical meaning. &lsquo;Signal&rsquo; refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and &lsquo;noise&rsquo; to anything else on that medium. 

This exhibition by <a href="http://www.sine.org">sine::apsis experiments</a> explores a contemporary fascination with the virtues of noise and the validity of signal. We live in an era where people are tuned into an infinitely splintering array of frequencies (e.g. visual, auditory, pure data, etc.). Science, human curiosity, and cheap digital technology press us into an obsessive recording of every modulation of our life experience. Between those persons monitoring seismic activity to those recording data flows across the Internet to even those at home with a video camera, there is a mind-boggling quantity of raw data generated each minute of the day. And, thanks to digital technology, all of it may be easily stored for reproduction and mining at any time. 

This exhibition focuses on current tendencies in how we put a value to this data. How much of the data we generate is true signal and how much of it is pure noise? All told, this exhibition shows how one person&rsquo;s signal can be another person&rsquo;s noise and vice versa. Appropriately, the works included in this exhibition explore this valuation phenomenon from many different angles. Some art works point to our society&rsquo;s dogged quest for signal as a shortsighted endeavor. The word signal here could be substituted by either meaning or truth - in other words, data with a tangible commodity value. 

Sabrina Raaf&rsquo;s &ldquo;Saturday&rdquo; forms a uniquely intimate portrait of the community of Humboldt Park, Chicago, through a composite presentation of conversations stolen on Saturdays in the park. Todd Margolis&rsquo;s piece entitled &ldquo;Please Adjust&rdquo; allows participants to manipulate images on a television monitor to create their own aesthetic ranging from minimal &lsquo;signal&rsquo; to chaotic &lsquo;noise&rsquo;. 

This exhibition runs concurrently at Artswatch: plugANDplay, June 28th-August 3rd. 

sine::apsis experiments members: Kevin Heisner, Daniel Miller, Fernando Orellana, Amy Youngs, Valerie Fuchs, Sabrina Raaf, Andrea Polli, Todd Margolis 
 
Invited artists include: Ben Chang, Thomas DeLisle, Russel Hulsey, Keenan Lawler, Jamie Tittle,Trevor Paglen, Silvia Ruzanka, Chris Sorg, Dmitry Stakovsky 

text courtesy Artswatch, in partnership with Swanson Cralle

Signal to Noise

&ldquo;plugANDplay&rdquo; is an exhibition which pushes the limits and vagaries of an electronically overwhelmed culture. Each piece is to be simply plugged in and played. 

EVLers and <a href="http://www.sine.org">sine::apsis experiments</a> members Todd Margolis and Fernando Orellana showcase their work in this exhibition, which runs concurrently at Swanson Cralle: S:N (signal to noise), June 28th-August 10th. 

Todd Margolis 
man+machine, (3) 8.5&rsquo; x 11&rsquo; light boxes 
A series of ImmersaGrams that explore the potentialities of incorporating machine technology into the human body. These images appear similar to 3D X-Rays and present the viewer with a cyborg / human entity. 

Fernando Orellana 
S.R.A v. 1.0 - 1.5 (superfluously redundant analysis) 15&rsquo; x 15&rsquo; 

sine::apsis experiments members: Kevin Heisner, Daniel Miller, Fernando Orellana, Amy Youngs, Valerie Fuchs, Sabrina Raaf, Andrea Polli, Todd Margolis 

Invited artists include: Ben Chang, Thomas DeLisle, Russel Hulsey, Keenan Lawler, Jamie Tittle, Trevor Paglen, Silvia Ruzanka, Chris Sorg, Dmitry Stakovsky

plugANDplay

EVLers, Todd Margolis, Tim Portlock, Geoffrey Allen Baum, and Keith Miller (Applied Interactives, N.F.P.) showcase their collective / collaborative virtual reality artwork &ldquo;Shared Spaces&rdquo;, in the Version>02 exhibition at the <a href="http://www.mcachicago.org">Museum of Contemporary Art</a> April 2002. 

The Shared Spaces Project is a collaborative virtual reality experience on a <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/research/template_res_project.php3?indi=228">VR Portal</a> installation system. Participants will be able to join into the virtual world through the VR Portal. Through the passage of time, the space evolves into a collective expression of the participants&rsquo; intentions. The virtual objects and activities in the space begin as pre-determined constructs by the artists and develop gradually based on user-input.

Version>02

EVLer&rsquo;s and Applied Interactives, N.F.P mebmers - Todd Margolis, Tim Portlaock, Geoffrey Allen Baum and Keith Miller present their virtual reality artwork via the VR Portal at the Who? Exhibition in Indianapolis, IN.

Shared Spaces Debuts at the Who? Exhibition

The Northwestern Univerisity&rsquo;s Center for Art &amp; Technology hosts the Second Annual Symposium: Art, Technology and Spirituality which features exhibitions, concerts, screenings and presentations by artists, musicians, and scholars. 

Included in this year&rsquo;s event is Shared Spaces, a collaborative virtual reality installation designed to bring participants together in a mutually meaningful convergence. Participants will be able to meet in the architectural portal called Confluxus. This is the beginning point from which participants are encouraged to move to one of the three virtual project rooms, each created by different artists: Infinite Studio by Todd Margolis, Super Spectacular by Tim Portlock, and Syn.aesthetic by Geoffrey Baum and Keith Miller.

Shared Spaces Exhibited at NWU&rsquo;s 2nd Annual Art &amp; Technology Symposium

.:/dev/liquidon/show 

info::{ 
produced by::joseph tremonti 
date::wednesday july 10, 2002 
reception::8:30 pm 
performance::9:00 pm 
duration::1.0 hrs} 

venue::{ 
Peter Jones Gallery 
1806 W. Cuyler 
Chicago, IL 60613 
773.472.6725} 

description::{ 
liquidon is an immersive, realtime, audio-visual composition that explores the field of itc. itc, an acronym for instrumental transcommunication, is a field of research pertaining to the use of technological apparatus to facilitate communication with the dead. liquidon incorporates stereoscopic projection and an interactive, multi-channel soundscape.} 

bio::{ 
Joseph Tremonti is an artist working in the field of virtual reality. He received a BFA in 3D computer animation from the University of Georgia in 1999 and is currently pursuing his MFA at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago. His work deals with realtime computer generated environments, tele-immersion, and spatialized audio. His virtual reality environments have been exhibited internationally, including the NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo, Japan, Ars Electronica Center Linz, Austria, and the C3 Center for Culture &amp; Communication, Budapest, Hungary.}

liquidon 458

liquidon

Beyond Prototypes presents new virtual reality artworks from the &ldquo;Immersive Environments&rdquo; graduate seminar at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Gallery visitors are invited to explore virtual worlds ranging from the poetic to the bizarre, using cutting-edge technology including body tracking and stereoscopic video projection. Projects include architectural and sculptural visualizations, interactive narratives and experiments in hypertextual synaesthesia. 

Immersive Environments is a research seminar drawing students from a wide variety of disciplines, including video, sound, sculpture, architecture, writing, and computer programming. Students are introduced to advanced Virtual Reality development environments and asked to critique concepts ranging from animation and special effects to video games and cyber-porn. We explore the evolution of immersive technologies and discuss their primary benefits and detractions. Students develop their own digital aesthetics through exploring previous examples of work, contemporary theory and experimental research. Artists include Dima Al Srouri, Luke Bartels, Diane Figueredo, Paula Gilovich, Flora McGarrell, HyunJoo Oh, and Noah Sh. Seminar Instructors are Ben Chang and Todd Margolis. 

The exhibit opens Friday, November 22, and continues through Sunday, November 24 , at the 1926 Exhibition Studies Space, 1926 N. Halsted. The opening reception is Friday, November 22, from 5 to 8 p.m. Exhibition hours are Wednesday through Friday from 3 to 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m. 

Throughout the academic year, The School of the Art Institute 1926 Exhibition Studies Space offers events and exhibitions that are free and open to the public.

Todd Margolis Organizes Exhibition of New VR Works

EVL exhibits a number of virtual reality artworks at Version>03 both at the Museum of Contemporary Art, using EVL&rsquo;s developed C-Wall system and at EVL&rsquo;s CAVE facility (schedule posted below). 

Version>03 explores technotopian and technopocalyptic visions of the present and future through discussion, symposia, workshops, performance, installations, video screenings, and exhibitions. 

Thursday March 27, 12-8PM Interactive Virtual Reality Exhibition 
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 
<ul>
<li>Animagina by Julieta Aguilera, Seung Kang, Damin Keenan, Eleni Kostis, Tina Shah, Daria Tsoupikova (technical consultants Geoffrey Allen Baum, and Alex Hill; project supervisor Franz Fischnaller)</li>
<li>id llusion by Ya Lu Lin</li>
<li>Maya-Veil of Illusion by Petra Gemeinboeck</li>
<li>MIgraph (Multi-modal Interactive Graphical display) by Brenda Lopez-Silva</li>
<li>Poverty Island with Video Skies by Dan Sandin</li>
</ul> 

Friday March 28, 12-8PM Interactive Virtual Reality Exhibition 
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 
<ul>
<li>Animagina by Julieta Aguilera, Seung Kang, Damin Keenan, Eleni Kostis, Tina Shah, Daria Tsoupikova (technical consultants Geoffrey Allen Baum, and Alex Hill; project supervisor Franz Fischnaller)</li>
<li>id llusion by Ya Lu Lin</li>
<li>MIgraph (Multi-modal Interactive Graphical display) by Brenda Lopez-Silva</li>
<li>Poverty Island with Video Skies by Dan Sandin</li>
</ul> 

Friday March 28, 1-4 PM CAVE&reg; Virtual Reality Exhibition 
University of Illinois at Chicago 
842 W. Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 
<ul>
<li>Animagina by Julieta Aguilera, Seung Kang, Damin Keenan, Eleni Kostis, Tina Shah, Daria Tsoupikova (technical consultants Geoffrey Allen Baum, and Alex Hill; project supervisor Franz Fischnaller)</li>
<li>id llusion by Ya Lu Lin</li>
<li>Poverty Island with Video Skies by Dan Sandin</li>
</ul> 

Friday March 28, 5-9 PM Tele-Immersive Virtual Reality Event 
University of Illinois at Chicago 
<ul>
<li>Maya-Veil of Illusion by Petra Gemeinboeck</li>
</ul> 

Saturday March 29, 12-8 PM Interactive Virtual Reality Exhibition 
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 
<ul>
<li>Animagina by Julieta Aguilera, Seung Kang, Damin Keenan, Eleni Kostis, Tina Shah, Daria Tsoupikova (technical consultants Geoffrey Allen Baum, and Alex Hill; project supervisor Franz Fischnaller)</li>
<li>id llusion by Ya Lu Lin</li>
<li>Liquidon by Joseph Tremonti</li>
<li>Maya-Veil of Illusion by Petra Gemeinboeck</li>
<li>MIgraph (Multi-modal Interactive Graphical display) by Brenda Lopez-Silva</li>
<li>Poverty Island with Video Skies by Dan Sandin</li>
</ul> 

Saturday March 29, 2-5 PM CAVE Virtual Reality Exhibition 
University of Illinois at Chicago 
<ul>
<li>Animagina by Julieta Aguilera, Seung Kang, Damin Keenan, Eleni Kostis, Tina Shah, Daria Tsoupikova (technical consultants Geoffrey Allen Baum, and Alex Hill; project supervisor Franz Fischnaller)</li>
<li>id llusion by Ya Lu Lin</li>
<li>Poverty Island with Video Skies by Dan Sandin</li>
</ul> 

<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/info/map.html">Directions to Electronic Visualization Laboratory</a>

Version>03 Virtual Reality Exhibition

Opening Reception &amp; Public Exhibition 
Friday, March 28th, 2003 
5:00 - 9:00pm 

Virtual Reality Installation Networked with Germany: 5:00 - 7:00pm 
Application Running Locally: 7:00 - 9:00pm 

EVLer, Petra Gemeinboeck presents her virtual reality Master of Fine Arts thesis work, <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/activity/template_act_project.php3?indi=199">Maya - Veil of Illusion</a> in conjunction with the Musueum of Contemporary Art, Chicago&rsquo;s <a href="http://http://www.evl.uic.edu/beta/maya.html">Version>03 Festival</a>. The installation will be on exhibit at both the EVL CAVE and MCA beginning Thursday, March 27th through Saturday, March 29th. 

&ldquo;In Hindu-Buddhist concept, Maya stands for the constant movement of the universe, so powerfully masking the essence of all matter that the phenomenal world of reality can only be perceived behind a &lsquo;veil of illusion&rsquo;.&rdquo; 

During the opening reception at the EVL CAVE, participants in Chicago and Germany will interact with eachother creating and interplay of communication - separated only by the virtual &lsquo;veil&rsquo;.

Maya

Maya - Veil of Illusion :: MFA Thesis Exhibition

EVL Associate Professor, Jason Leigh introduces video game design and programming to the UIC Computer Science curriculum Fall 2003 semester. The course will focus upon the theory and practice of one of the most challenging disciplines in Computer Science, combining in real-time - computer graphics, human computer interaction, networking, artificial intelligence, computer-aided instruction, computer architecture, and databases; all forming the foundation for video games and their development. Computer science majors and artists alike are encouraged to take part in this exciting learning experience.

Introduction to Video Game Design and Programming

Thread:CyberCulture 

The Academic Computing Department at Columbia College is pleased to announce Steve Jones, social historian, and editor of _Digital Formations_ and _New Media Cultures_, will present a lecture entitled &ldquo;Internet Research and Everyday Life&rdquo; as part of the Department of Academic Computing&rsquo;s Thread:Print:Online:Salon show, Friday, May 2, 2003, at 5:30pm at <a href="http://www.colum.edu/">Columbia College</a>. The presentation will address matters of community connectedness and belonging as they pertain to social relations online and offline. The most recent findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project will be presented. Help us welcome this distinguished speaker, concurrent with the Salon:On.Line:Print party and art exhibition taking place on our floor that evening. 

Steve Jones is author / editor of numerous books, including _Doing Internet Research_, _CyberSociety_, _Virtual Culture_, and _Pop Music and the Press_. He is editor-in-chief of _The Encyclopedia of New Media_. A social historian of communication technology, his books have earned him critical acclaim and interviews for stories in Time, the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsweek and numerous other newspapers and magazines. Jones serves as Senior Research Fellow for the Pew Internet &amp; American Life Project and is co-founder of the Association of Internet Researchers, serving as its president from 1999 to 2003. 

Date: Friday, May 2, 2003 
Time: 5:30 - 6:30pm 
Location: Academic Computing, 4th Floor, 623 S. Wabash 

This lecture is part of the Department of Academic Computing&rsquo;s Thread:Print:On.Line:Salon art exhibition, Friday, May 2, 2003.

Steve Jones Lectures at Columbia College

It was like a page from history. One could imagine seeing Alexander Graham Bell speaking, for the first time, through a strange black device to his assistant Watson, &ldquo;Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.&rdquo; In a recent and similar experiment, Charles Nichols, Professor of Music at the University of Montana, Missoula, sits in front of his desktop computer and tells Many Ayromlou, Research Engineer at Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, CA, who is sitting at the MIDI control keyboard, to play high C. He presses the key in Toronto and the sound jumps out in Missoula. 

This is just a small example of some of the exciting preparations in process for Another Language&rsquo;s latest excursion into the fascinating merger of art and technology. Another Language celebrates its 20th Anniversary with its newest production of InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box. This InterPlay is a multi-faceted telematic event that consists of six simultaneous performances that occur in six states throughout North America. The performances incorporate theater, text, music, performance art, virtual reality, and motion capture and are concurrently captured, mixed, digitized, encoded and streamed onto the network. 

Loose Minds in a Box is a collaborative work that explores the basic concept of the &ldquo;box&rdquo;. The box is a metaphor for the physical, social, political or psychological constraints that we and/or others place upon us. The box also represents a sense of place in the realm of the virtual as well as in our sub-conscience. With the aid of performance artists, electro-acoustic musicians/composers, virtual reality and motion capture artists / technologists and others, we look at many of the numerous representations the &ldquo;box&rdquo; encompasses. In Utah, Another Language&rsquo;s Artistic Director, Beth Miklavcic, will perform in a closet, investigating how our personalities are bounded by the clothes we wear. Sculptor, Eric Brown, will slowly construct an enclosure around himself depicting how we encase ourselves in a social fortress. It either protects us from unwanted human contact or keeps us from interacting with the outside world. 

In Maryland, Nadja Masura plays with the box that we live in. Using video processing techniques, Nadja will place remote performers into different rooms of her favorite doll house. Nicholas Bartoli and Brian Buck will dance within the constraining characteristics of the video box as well as augmenting Beth Miklavcic&rsquo;s &ldquo;clothes encounter&rdquo; by changing their personalities with new fashions. 

A team of artists in Indiana include Dioselin Gonzalez (VR designer), T. J. Rogers (motion performance), Carol Cunningham (choreographer), David Sigman (graphic designer) and Joe Hayes (dancer). They will delve into the virtual box where a performer transmits him self through a bazaar world of unique characters and environments, created by Miho Aoki in Alaska and David Sigman. At times, Joe Hayes will remotely control, through movement, electro-acoustic music in Montana. 

The concept of confinement will be explored by artists Tina Shah and Helen-Nicole Kostis in Chicago, Illinois. The audience will participate by imprisoning the performer and witnessing the physical effects of isolation while at the same time viewing the metamorphosis of the performer&rsquo;s psyche in a VR world. 

Charles Nichols, composer and violinist in Missoula Montana, will probe the musical possibilities of the &ldquo;black box&rdquo;. Scott Deal, composer and percussionist in Fairbanks Alaska will toy with numerous box icons such as a music box and Pandora&rsquo;s box. The music is transmitted to all sites in real time, providing the entire work with piercing percussion and wild melodies. 

Back in Utah, Director Jimmy Miklavcic, will wrangle more than twenty video streams from all six sites, mix and process them for the local Utah audience and then stream the processed videos back onto the Internet for audiences at the other five sites. Local audiences at all sites will experience the local performance with the infusion of live multimedia and video events. 

Additional technical support is provide by Paul Mercer and Bill Brody (Alaska), Dwight McKay and Mike Bass (Purdue), Sam Liston (Utah), Chris Rosenthal and Gideon Goldman (Illinois), Robert Wachtel (Montana) and David McNabb (Maryland). 

Another Language, in collaboration with all the participating artists and technologists, is forging a new performance form not yet experienced here in Utah. InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box is the most innovative merging of Internet technology with the performing arts to date. The form brings together artists from unique backgrounds and geographical locations that would normally never occur under traditional collaborative processes. The power of the Internet and video conference technology enables and empowers this consortium of artists to expand their ideas of artistic creativity. The performance can be viewed on the Access Grid at the new ArtGrid virtual venue in the Theater and through QuickTime at <a href="http://www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay">www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay</a>. 

Loose Minds in a Box is supported in part by the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, University of Montana, the University of Illinois, Chicago, Purdue University, the University of Maryland, the Zoo, Arts and Parks Program, the Utah Arts Council and the Salt Lake City Arts Council and contributing members of Another Language.

Loose Minds in a Box

Spring 2005 is here and the AD 508 Seminar Series is well under way! 

This semester Franz Fischnaller will be leading the class into discussions about ten technologies that have dramatically changed the American lifestyle. Paul Boutin believes that from all the new technologies that have appeared in the past half century, ten high-tech breakthroughs have stood the test of time because of their revolutionizing effect on the way of American life. These ten are: 
<ul>
<li>Digital Media</li>
<li>Electronic Funds Transfer</li>
<li>Genetic Engineering</li>
<li>Mobile Phones</li>
<li>Nuclear Power</li>
<li>Organ Transplants</li>
<li>Personal Computers</li><li>Robots and Artificial Intelligence</li>
<li>Space Flights</li>
<li>The Internet</li>
</ul> 

Students participating in the AD 508 Seminar will be presenting on one of these topics each week. 

By the end of the semester, the participants of the AD 508 Seminar will benefit from discussions on these topics and also others that include electronic media, visualization, and artistic concepts.

Spring 2005 Seminar Series

I have had an interest in the moving image and sound ever since my father brought home one of the first consumer video camera systems in the early eighties. By the age of 12 my friends and I had figured out basic editing, audio dubbing and primitive special effects, and my interest led to enrollment in the University of Texas film school. Not finding satisfaction there, I moved to Chicago and began studies at the School of the Art Institute and primarily focused on digital imaging, multi-media and sound. I have used computers for visual work for about ten years and nearly that long for audio work (I do have to admit to being a huge analog synthesizer fan though). After completing my degree I got involved with various local and international musicians and artists which resulted in collaborations and performances in numerous locations in Europe and North America (see linked CV). Recently, my attention has turned towards the creation of high-performance tools for real-time audio and video that use the open-source model of distribution to enable wider access to the software. 

Presentation: 
The presentation will consist of an overview of graphics technologies and the relevant features of modern 2d and 3d imaging software and hardware. I will demonstrate the possibilities of using current consumer computers to do 2D image manipulation including live video capture and processing, and also show some of the uses of 3D GPUs for live performance. I plan on setting up a live camera feed and show techniques of background removal and keying and possible uses for installations. The 3D demos will consist of approaches to texture mapping live video and film clips, using 3D hardware to manipulate textured images, and a preview of some forthcoming vertex_array manipulation objects (perhaps even a look at shaders as well). For those interested in developing software, I can also discuss techniques of optimizing software and using hardware APIs for maximum benefit. 

I will also bring a few examples of my work including a rare clip of a performance I did with Derek Bailey and Casey Rice and the patch I used with Takemura.

Presentation by Chris Clepper

Paul Klein has been an art dealer and gallery owner for over twenty years. 

About himself he says: 
&ldquo;Raised in Chicago suburbs and San Francisco Bay Area. Educated in the mountains. I like to push the edges. The perpetual dilemma is how to pursue what resonates while finding a way to make or have money to pursue what resonates. I think that&rsquo;s what I want to talk about too. The bigger picture. Which voice do you listen to? The money voice or the art voice? Can that be one voice? Which one are you: follow the trend, set the trend, miss the trend? Does the trend even matter? At any rate, that&rsquo;s where I usually end up, the relationship between what one cares about and what one does (I like to see people come from themselves to fulfill their potential, not someone else&rsquo;s).&rdquo; 

About Klein Art Works he says: 
&ldquo;We present art we believe in, art that is stimulating, art that not only brings pleasure and satisfaction to your world, but art that generates growth, fosters change, and encourages creativity. The art we exhibit is not about answers. It isn&rsquo;t even really about agreement. We like to think it asks questions, questions that don&rsquo;t have specific answers. As a result, you the viewer participate in the aesthetic experience and complete the dialogue that has been begun by the artist. Without you the artwork is not complete.&rdquo; 

The Chicago Tribune said (excerpt - September 5, 2003): 
&ldquo;Tough times put art galleries in experimental mood&rdquo; Paul Klein, who runs Klein Art Works, is poised to take perhaps the biggest leap of all. Having represented local and international painters and sculptors for 30 years, Klein decided earlier this year to add artists working in new media, namely digital and computer-generated art. He is looking to sell his West Loop gallery, complete with large sculpture garden and skylights, in favor of a space more conducive to showing digital art. He has formed a relationship with Sony, which has agreed to supply him with equipment in exchange for help in developing their digital business. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not forsaking paint and sculpture,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m adding digital and computer works. I&rsquo;m thinking that one can integrate.&rdquo;

Paul Klein

Presentation by Paul Klein

Presentation Structure: 
1.) Ellen Sandor: Introduction to (art)n, tour of gallery 
2.) Keith Miller: Technical demo of phscologram process 
3.) AI: Introduction to AI, discussion of AI projects 
4.) AI: Demo of Special Treatment (work in progress) 
5.) Keith Miller: Demo of thesis (work in progress, time permitting) 

Related URLs: 
<a href="http://www.artn.com">www.artn.com</a> 
<a href="http://www.appliedinteractives.com">www.appliedinteractives.com</a> 

(art)n 
(art)n was formed by Ellen Sandor in 1983 with her peers from The School of the Art Institute. The original group included sculptors, a fashion photographer, holographers and video artists, and continued to evolve over the past 20 years to include digital artists. The (art)n group has also collaborated with scientists from the Scripps Research Institute, NASA, the U.S. Army, as well as animators, architects, painters, virtual reality pioneers and the Chicago Imagists. The PHSCologram term, coined in 1983 by Ellen Sandor, is an acronym for photography, holography, sculpture and computer graphics (pronounced skol-o-gram). The PHSCologram medium inspired new ideas in multimedia circles, and influenced three decades of (art)n&rsquo;s collaborative portfolio, unsurpassed for its prolific range of content and innovation in digital photography. 

Applied Interactives 
Applied Interactives is a collaborative group of artists and technologists dedicated to the development and use of interactive and immersive technologies as an accessible and affordable creative visualization medium. We are a resource for virtual reality hardware systems and applications development and a source of education regarding these technologies within the community. Applied Interactives was founded in 2001 to fulfill the desire to propogate virtual reality and interactive mediums and technologies out of the lab and into the spaces of the gallery and museums and the hands of individual artists. Additionally, Applied Interactives hopes to better facilitate their use by individuals, institutions and businesses by being uniquely qualified to offer solutions which address technologies, applications, training and content at the same time.

Field Trip to art(n)

Director of the ARS Electronica Center - Museum of the Future, Linz, Austria; Graduate of the Institute for Telecommunication Engineering and Electronics in Graz. Since 1990, he has been working as an independent artist. In 1991, he founded X-Space, a team for the realization of interdisciplinary projects. In this framework numerous installations and performance projects have been carried out in the field of interaction, robotics and telecommunication. Stocker was also responsible for the concept of various radio and network projects and the organization of the worldwide radio and network project horizontal radio. 1992/93 he was responsible for the program of &ldquo;Steirische Kulturinitiative&rdquo;. Since 1995 Stocker has been the artistic director of the Ars Electronica Festival and the managing director of the ARS Electronica Center Linz. 

Ars Electronica 
The continuity Ars Electronica has displayed since 1979 has made it into an internationally unique platform for media art consisting of four divisions: 
<ul>
<li>Ars Electronica - Festival for Art, Technology, and Society</li>
<li>Prix Ars Electronica - International Competition for Cyberarts</li>
<li>Ars Electronica Center - Museum of the Future</li>
<li>Ars Electronica Futurelab - Laboratory for Future Innovations</li>
</ul> 

An interdisciplinary approach and the open encounter of international experts from the arts and sciences with a highly diversified audience characterize Ars Electronica. 

Ars Electronica Festival - Festival for Art, Technology, and Society 
Once a year, Linz is the center of computer culture. The Ars Electronica Festival, established in 1979 to provide an open meeting-place for artists and researchers, has since developed into a world-famous forum for the arts, technology, and society. From the beginning, Ars Electronica has been characterized by its accessibility and its rejection of artificial frontiers. Jointly with the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) Upper Austria Regional Studio, it organizes symposiums, exhibitions, concerts, events, and a wealth of arts projects, and puts the latest trends and developments in the field of digital media on public display. 

Prix Ars Electronica - International Competition for Cyberarts 
Since 1987 the Prix Ars Electronica is an interdisciplinary platform for all who use the computer as a universal design medium in their artistic endeavour. It has been awarded annually by the Ars Electronica Center and the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) Upper Austrian Studio in the framework of the Ars Electronica Festival, and is one of the most important prizes for the application of creativeness and the pioneering spirit in the field of digital media. The competition is divided into four categories: Net Vision / Net Excellence, Interactive Art, Computer Animation / Visual Effects, and Digital Music. A record 2,714 submissions from 85 countries in 2003 have further enhanced the Prix Ars Electronica&rsquo;s reputation as the internationally representative competition honoring outstanding work in the cyberarts. With an annual prize of more than 100.000, - Euro, it is the biggest award for computer art in the world. 

Ars Electronica Center - Museum of the Future 
Since 1996, permanent exhibition areas on five levels of the Ars Electronica Center have been showcasing creative technologies and the innovative ideas of the 21st century to enable visitors to get acquainted with the technology of the future, gain hands-on experience with it and customize it to their needs, and interactively learn in a way that is fun, user-friendly, and designed with all visitors in mind, no matter what their level of computer experience. The facility&rsquo;s hardware and software, its presentation and seminar rooms, as well as the know-how of its staff make it a fascinating interface for art, business and research. Robotic planting and watering in the TeleGarden or a fantastic journey through virtual worlds in the CAVE are just a couple of the possibilities in store for visitors. 

Ars Electronica Futurelab - Laboratory for Future Innovations 
Strongly committed to an interdisciplinary approach, the Ars Electronica Futurelab was created in 1996 and carries out R&amp;D projects that call for state-of-the-art design and highly innovative thinking. Since its very inception, Ars Electronica&rsquo;s focus has been on the tension and interplay at the nexus of art, technology and society. Formulating and implementing the future manifestations of this interaction is the chosen mission of the Ars Electronica Futurelab. 

Topics 
<ul>
<li>Gerfried Stocker: The passage from being an artist to becoming a curator and director of a museum</li>
<li>Electronic-net-art&hellip; Virtual Reality art&hellip; Necessary ingredients of a &ldquo;quality&rdquo; piece?</li>
<li>Vision of The Ars Electronica Center toward networking and Virtual Reality Art.</li>
<li>What type of Virtual Art, does the Ars Electronica Center exhibit&hellip; and why?</li>
<li>What is for you a visionary artist in the electronic field?</li>
<li>In your opinion what is the most ultimate innovative tendencies in the art field at present?</li>
<li>What is the borderline between art, science technology if there is any? What do you consider art and what is technology / science?</li>
<li>Concept and vision of Ars Electronic Festival 2004</li>
<li>What opportunities for exhibits your organization can provide to artists working with Virtual Reality</li>
</ul>

Netmeeting with Artistic Director of the ARS Electronica Center

<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&amp;type=1&amp;indi=286">synthecology</a> combines the possibilities of tele-immersive collaboration with a new architecture for virtual reality sound immersion to create a environment where musicians from all locations can interactively perform and create sonic environments. 

COLLABORATORS 
synthecology is being created as a collaboration of students and faculty from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Columbia College Chicago, through the Applied Interactives organization. 

ABOUT APPLIED INTERACTIVES 
The purpose of <a href="http://www.appliedinteractives.com">Applied Interactives</a>, NFP is to educate the art and science community about the medium of Virtual Reality as an interactive, computer-generated, immersive computer graphics environment. Applied Interactives, NFP plans to advance the medium through research and experimentation as well as provide a bridge to bring the technology out of institutional labs and into more publicly accessible arenas. Applied Interactives, NFP intends to propagate the medium by providing support and direct access to the resources necessary for artists and scientists to exhibit and develop works in the medium.

Synthecology shore view

synthecology at WIRED NEXTFEST 2005

EVL&rsquo;s Drew Browning and collaborator Annette Barbier will be exhibiting several new works at the 59th Annual UFVA (University Film and Video Association) conference (August 2 - 6, 2005). The conference schedule promises a stimulating selection of screenings, readings, discussions, installations, and demonstrations - all against the backdrop of one of the country&rsquo;s most beautiful and diverse cities. 

Browning and Barbier have had a busy and exciting summer as they developed their new interactive work, &ldquo;Path of the Dragon&rdquo;. The river journey is the form of this installation in which a participant is a traveler in a mythic voyage through the ages of a nation, Vietnam. Beginning at dawn, the participant navigates through three levels: a past lived close to nature, a time of horrific upheaval and violence, and a time of adapting and rebuilding. 

Visit the artists&rsquo; efforts in Photon Flow: UFVA 2005 New Media Exhibition at the Glass Curtain Gallery. This installation is based on the media performance Browning and Barbier showcased last summer, River of Many Sides. 

Photon Flow: UFVA 2005 New Media Exhibition 
1104 S. Wabash Ave., 1st Floor 
August 2 - August 19, 2005 
Opening Reception: Tuesday, August 2, 5:30-6:30 pm 
<a href="http://www.colum.edu/Student_Life/DEPS/glass-curtain-gallery/index.php">www.colum.edu/Student_Life/DEPS/glass-curtain-gallery/index.php</a>

UFVA conference

59th Annual University Film and Video Association Conference

Drew Browning and collaborator Annette Barbier have individual works in a site specific venue associated with the conference called VIBE: Video in the Built Environment. V.I.B.E. is an artist-led project that explores the impact of media in the built environment through curated site-specific interventions, presentations and published documentation. 

Browning&rsquo;s video piece, &ldquo;Homeland Insecurity&rdquo;, will show in the windows of 600 S. Michigan, as will Barbier&rsquo;s &ldquo;Homeland Security Advice&rdquo;. Both these pieces are responses to the current threatening climate we all live in. VIBE is collaborating with Cornerhouse Gallery in Manchester, UK to exchange video collections and screen them in public venues in Chicago, Manchester and Liverpool U.K. 

Also part of VIBE are several experimental outdoor works showing at the intersection of 11th Avenue and Wabash. These pieces will only be up on August 2nd, 8:30 - 10:00pm, when Browning will be showing, &ldquo;Preserving Disorder&rdquo;, an interactive sidewalk projection, recalling the images and dynamics of the summer of &rsquo;68 in Chicago. Barbier will also have an outdoor projected piece called, &ldquo;Escape&rdquo;, on a building in the same area. 

VIBE SUMMER05::02-14 August 2005 Chicago-US, Liverpool-UK, Manchester-UK 
<a href="http://v1b3.com/">v1b3.com</a> 

Drew Browning and Annette Barbier will be talking about their work in this show on Aug. 5, at Columbia College, as part of the ()pen node Chicago new media discussion group. <a href="http://open-node.com">open-node.com</a> 

()PEN NODE August meeting: 
Friday, Aug. 5, Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College, 11th and Wabash (SW corner) 

Work will be available to view until 6:30, we will then adjourn to another room in the building. Work on view includes that of Mat Rappaport, Drew Browning and Annette Barbier. Conrad Gleber will also participate with discussion of VIBE (video in the built environment), on exhibit Aug. 2, 8:30 - 10:00pm, in and around 11th and Wabash as well as in the windows of 624 S. Michigan.

Homeland Insecurity

VIBE: Video in the Built Environment

Six universities and research laboratories present InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box at the Supercomputing Global 2005 Conference in Seattle Washington on November 17 at 11:15am PST. This InterPlay is a multi-faceted telematic event that consists of six simultaneous performances that occur in six states throughout North America. The sites include the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing in partnership with Another Language Performing Arts Company, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, the University of Montana, Missoula, Envision Center for Data Perceptualization at Purdue University, the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois, Chicago and the University of Maryland, College Park. The distributed performances incorporate theater, text, music, performance art, virtual reality, and motion capture and are concurrently mixed, encoded and streamed onto Internet 2. 

Loose Minds in a Box, first performed on April 15 - 17, 2005, is a collaborative work that explores the basic concept of the &ldquo;box&rdquo;. The box is a metaphor for the physical, social, political or psychological constraints that we and/or others place upon us. The box also represents a sense of place in the realm of the virtual as well as in our sub-conscience. With the aid of performance artists, electro-acoustic musicians / composers, virtual reality and motion capture artists / technologists and others; we look at many of the numerous representations the &ldquo;box&rdquo; encompasses. 

In Seattle, Another Language&rsquo;s Artistic Director, Beth Miklavcic, as display operator, will manipulate / maneuver the InterPlay experience with creative choreography of the video streams across thirty-six feet of projection screen surface while her recorded performance of her work, Dressers, investigates how the clothes we wear bind our personalities. Sculptor, Erik Brown, will construct an enclosure around himself depicting how we encase ourselves in a social fortress. It either protects us from unwanted human contact or keeps us from interacting with the outside world. 

In Maryland, Nadja Masura, Moira Jackson and Peter Rogers perform within the constraining characteristics of the video box as well as augmenting Beth Miklavcic&rsquo;s &ldquo;clothes encounter&rdquo; by changing their personalities with new fashions. 

A team of artists in Indiana include Dioselin Gonzalez (VR designer), T. J. Rogers (motion performance), Carol Cunningham (choreographer), David Sigman (graphic designer) and Joe Hayes (dancer). They will delve into the virtual box where a performer transmits him self through a bazaar world of unique characters and environments, created by Miho Aoki in Alaska and David Sigman. At times, Joe Hayes will remotely control, through movement, electro-acoustic music in Montana. 

Artists Tina Shah and Helen-Nicole Kostis in Chicago, Illinois will explore the concept of isolated confinement, while at the same time exposing the metamorphosis of the performer&rsquo;s psyche in a VR world. 

Charles Nichols, composer and violinist in Missoula Montana, will probe the musical possibilities of the &ldquo;black box&rdquo;. Scott Deal, composer and percussionist in Fairbanks Alaska will toy with numerous box icons such as Pandora&rsquo;s Box. The music is transmitted to all sites in real time, encompassing the entire work with piercing percussion and wild melodies. 

In the Washington State Conference Center, director Jimmy Miklavcic, will wrangle more than twenty video streams from all six sites, mix and process them for the local Seattle audience and then stream the processed videos back onto Internet2 for audiences at the five participating sites and other Access Grid sites. 

Technical support is provided by David Krnavek, Donavan Keinenberger and Eric Peterson (Alaska), Nancy Cope (Purdue), Sam Liston (Utah), Chris Rosenthal, Jonathan Rosenthal and Gideon Goldman (Illinois), Robert Wachtel (Montana) and Paul Jackson (Maryland), Cindy Seivers, Jeff Schwab and Jim Miller (Seattle). 

Another Language, in collaboration with all the participating artists and technologists, is forging a new performance form. InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box is the most innovative merging of Internet technology with the performing arts to date. The form brings together artists from unique backgrounds and geographical locations that would normally never occur under traditional collaborative processes. The power of the Internet and videoconference technology enables and empowers this consortium of artists to expand their ideas of artistic creativity. The performance can be viewed through either QuickTime or Windows Media at <a href="http://www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay">www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay</a> or <a href="http://artgrid.chpc.utah.edu">artgrid.chpc.utah.edu</a>. 

Loose Minds in a Box is supported in part by the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Artic Region Supercomputing Center, University of Montana, the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois, Chicago, the Envision Center for Data Perceptualization at Purdue University, the University of Maryland, the Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Parks Program, the Utah Arts Council and the Salt Lake City Arts Council and contributing members of Another Language.

Interplay, Loose Minds in a Box still from the main mix

Interplay: Loose Minds in a Boxat SC05

DRAWING CURRENT is the first large group MFA thesis exhibitions featurning a broad range of electronic visualization mediated artwork by six graduating EVL MFAs! 

OPENING RECEPTION: May 12, 5-9PM 
EXHIBIT: May 13-15, noon-6pm 

FEATURED ARTISTS / WORK: 

skin, by Helen-Nicole Kostis 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/eleni/thesis">www.evl.uic.edu/eleni/thesis</a> 
An interactive, skin-derived media installation that explores the intersection of the body as landscape / mindscape and the body&rsquo;s own traces of touch. 

Omniuum, by Hyeyun Park 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/milg/omniuum">www.evl.uic.edu/milg/omniuum</a> 
Human being is, regardless of time and space over the history, destined to be a creature that exists in the circumstances where interactions with one another and the rest of the world are essential. In Omniuum, the relationship among human beings lived based on mutuality will be visualized by blurring the boundaries of time and space to represent the nature of a space-time continuum of the universe. 

[Un] Limited Edition - Fragments on Consumerism, by Poliana Tassini 
[Un] Limited Edition - Fragments on Consumerism, is a CG animation whose unconventional narrative unfolds around key concepts connected to the phenomenon of consumerism. Comprised of 9 animated fragments, the piece is designed to portray the many facets of consumerism, dealing with the multidimensionality of consuming experience, within which consumers feel constrained and controlled, yet liberated and sovereign. Developed in Alias Maya software, the piece attempts to portray the interminable and controversial discussion about consumption, consumerism and what it means to be human within the madness, irrationality and hysteria of a materialist consumer society. 

[pan], by Sangyoon Lee 
[pan] is a Korean word invoking several different meanings, such as: plate, disk, place, stage. By interacting with three forms of interface, the visual installation computers render tabletops as newly generative organic aesthetics. 

Cue, by Tina Shah 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/tinas/cue">www.evl.uic.edu/tinas/cue</a> 
In all of us we have stored away memories that can be conjured up with the slightest trigger. Cue is an abstraction on the visual processing experienced during moments of recollection. By exploring relationships between the artist&rsquo;s past episodes and images captured in the exhibition space, a unique perspective is created on the connections we share with our own memories.

DRAWING CURRENT - MFA Thesis Exhibition

Another Language Performing Arts Company performed InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box, an unprecedented real-time national collaboration, at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the world renown ACM SIGGRPAH 2005 computer graphics conference on August 3 &amp; 4, 2005. Another Language was invited to be a part of the Access Grid&rsquo;s introduction into the Emerging Technologies program at SIGGRAPH as a result of its pioneering performances. 

Another Language had the unique opportunity to be among many of today&rsquo;s foremost authorities in telematic, collaborative, multimedia and computer arts, such as Roy Ascott, Margaret Dolinsky and Don Forresta. We performed on Wednesday, August 3 at 9:30 A.M. and Thursday, August 4 at 1:00 P.M. Each performance was streamed over Internet 2 for Windows Media Player. 

Coming together again to perform InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box from their respective states were Scott Deal (Alaska), Charles Nichols (Montana), Tina Shah, Helen Kostis, (Illinois), T.J. Rogers, Joe Hayes, Carol Cunningham (Indiana), Nadja Masura and Peter Rogers (Maryland), and Erik Brown (Utah). Performing locally in the Los Angeles Convention Center were Beth Miklavcic, Jimmy Miklavcic (Utah), Miho Aoki (Alaska) and Dioselin Gonzalez (Indiana).

LMIB Video Still

Interplay: Loose Minds in a Box at Siggraph

On behalf of the Peoria Civic Federation, Peoria NEXT, and the ArtsPartners of Central Illinois, &ldquo;Interplay: Loose Minds in a Box&rdquo; has been chosen as one of the Distinguished Semifinalists for the 2006 Peoria Prize for Creativity. 

The honor of being a Semifinalist for the Peoria Prize is made all the more so by the high quality and creativity of the many projects from throughout the country submitted this year by teams of world-class collaborators. A panel of seven anonymous judges from all walks of the creative class - artists, scientists, educators, entrepreneurs, and government leaders - picked the ten Semifinalists that included &ldquo;Loose Minds in a Box&rdquo;, which embodied the spirit of creative collaboration that is the Peoria Prize.

Loose Minds in a Box video still from the main mix

Loose Minds in a Box - Peoria Prize Semifinalists!

September, 2006, e-Art&hellip; Art&hellip; Net&hellip; Technology&hellip; Society&hellip; Democracy? 

&hellip;book by Franz Fischnaller will be published by Editori Riuniti in paperback in Italian and accompanying cd-room in English. 

e-Art will be in the main Italian bookstores from 5 November 2006. Presentations will be organized in several cities of Italy including Rome, Turin, Milan, Bologna, Genoa, Naples, Salerno, Siena, Venice, etc. 

The first presentation of e-Art will take place at 4:30 PM, November 15, 2006 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome [MACRO]. 

e-Art&hellip; approaches on several topics from various viewpoints, such as: remote arts, electronic art, transgenic art, mobile media, networking, superbroad band, telecommunications, tele-presence, biogenetics, robotics, virtual reality, electronic, nanotechnology, augmented reality, digital media, music, synesthesia, neuroscience, multisensory processes, research, digital technology, communication, human-networking interfaces, cultural heritage, interactivity, democracy, ecology, human rights, philosophy, politics, knowledge, information, sociology and economy. 

e-Art also investigates the primacy of intangibility in many new art forms, in new artistic languages and the different paths toward creativity, interactivity, edemocracy, ecology, information, and post-realistic experiences. In this book Art, creativity and the net assume cohesive roles as vital elements and interdisciplinary realities inherent to Art and our society, emphasizing ART as a proactive tool and a behavioral new media rather than ART as a scholastic-winner tech subject. e-Art brings together forty eclectic authors of diverse provenance and specialties: theoreticians, writers, artists, students, journalists, producers, poets, gurus and visionaries who operate in the scientific, electronic, artistic, cultural, ecological, industrial, social and political ambit like: Mauro Annunziato [Italy] | Kapil Arora [India] | Annette Barbier [USA] | Massimo Bertoncini [Italy] | Mary Ann Breeze [Australia] | Maxine Brown [USA] | Drew Browning [USA] | Pier Luigi Capucci [Italy] |, Tomas DeFanti [USA] | Sara Diamond [Canada] Steve Dietz [USA] | Manuel Gllardo [Venezuela] | Petra Gemeinboeck [Austria] | Eduardo Kac [Brazil] | Jaron Lanier [USA] | Jason Leigh [USA] | Golan Levin [USA] | Brenda Lopez [Mexico] | Bernhard Losch [Italy] | Ya Lu Lin [China] | Roger Malina [USA] | Paul Marino [USA] | Rigoberta Mench&uacute;, premio Nobel per la pace [Guatemala] | Marcello Napoli [Italy] | Francesco Saverio Nucci [Italy] | Blanca Helena Pantin [Venezuela] | Howard Rheingold [USA] | Alfredo Ronchi [Italy] | Alejandro Sacristan [Spain] | Daniel Sandin [USA] | Paul Sermon [UK] | Stelarc [Australia] | Robert Stone [UK] | Nadia Thalman [Switzerland] | Rosa Truijllo [Venezuela] | Yesi Maharaj Singh [Venezuela] | Unesco | Manuel Vi&ntilde;as Limonchi [Spain] | Daniela Voto [Italy] | Stephen Wilson [USA]. 

During the first presentation of e-Art on 15 November 2006 at 4.30 p.m. at Museum of Contemporary Art in Roma [MACRO] will take place a panel open to the participation of the public to share experiences, discussions, opinions in relation to the different fields of interests of the book. With the partecipation of Dr Danilo Eccher, Director of MACRO of Roma, of Dr Ricca, Director of Editori Riuniti, Prof. Franz Fischnaller, author of e-Art and special guests as: Prof. Alberto Abruzzese, Dr. Mauro Annunziato, Dr. Valerio Eletti, Dr. Michele Emmer, Dr Maurizio Forte, Prof. Mario Morcellini, Dr Renato Parascandolo, Prof. Domenico Parisi, Dr. Lorenzo Maria Pupillo, Prof. Lorenzo Taiuti. 

Prof. Alberto Abruzzese. Professor of the Sociology of Mass Communications at the &ldquo;La Sapienza&rdquo; University of Rome. He carries out research activities in the field of mass communications and organizes conventions and seminars Author of numerous essays on communications and the media. He also contributes regularly to a number of newspapers and reviews with articles on expressive strategies and the cultural politics of the cinema, television and information. 

Dr. Mauro Annunziato. Mauro Annunziato founded the media art-science group PLANCTON in &rsquo;94 with Piero Pierucci focusing the research on the creative and aesthetical potentialities of chaos and artificial life, the relation between art and science, mind and society, communication and interaction. 

Dr. Valerio Eletti. Journalist, editor , expert in areas of the e-learning system and multimedia. Professor at the Department of Science of the Communication, at the &ldquo;La Sapienza&rdquo; University of Rome. 

Dr. Michele Emmer. Professor of mathematics at the University of Rome &ldquo;La Sapienza&rdquo;, Dipartimento di Matematica. President of the Italian associations for scientific media, part of the European association &ldquo;Media in Science&rdquo;. Member of the editorial board of Leonardo, of the American Mathematical Society, of the American Ass. for Aesthetics, of the European Math ass., etc. Reviewer for journal of mathematics and journals of art. president of the scientific journal &ldquo;Galileo&rdquo;. 

Dr Maurizio Forte. Senior Scientist at the National Research Council, Institute of Technologies Applied to the Cultural Heritage (Rome) director of the <a href="http://www.itabc.cnr.it/VHLab/">Virtual Heritage Lab</a>, Vice President of the Virtual Heritage Network, professor of Multimedia archiving of archaeological data at the Second University of Naples. 

Prof. Mario Morcellini. Professor of the Sociology of Communication and cocoordinator of the graduate course in the Science of Communication at the &ldquo;La Sapienza&rdquo; University in Rome. He has been a member of the Ministerial Commission for the reform of the graduate course in Sociology and of the Ministerial Commission of the graduate course in Science of Communication. 

Dr Renato Parascandolo. Assistant of the General Director of Rai Radiotelevisione Ialiana. Fields of specialization: mass media communication, education, journalism, human science and digital media applied to cultural heritage. 

Prof. Domenico Parisi. Director at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the National Research Council in Rome, where he is part of the research group Laboratory of Artificial Life and Robotics. He is the Director of the review &lsquo;Sistemi Intelligenti&rsquo;. 

Dr. Lorenzo Maria Pupillo. Executive Director at Telecom Italia for Strategy, Innovation and Development. Adviser to the Information for Development Program in the Global Information and Communication Technologies Department of the World Bank. 

Prof. Lorenzo Taiuti. Author of video, installations in collaboration with experimental musicians for audiovisual productions. Professor in mass media, visual arts, multimedia and new technology at Department of Architecture Valle Giulia, University La Sapienza, Rome. 

Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Roma [MACRO] 
via Reggio Emilia, 54 - 00198 Roma 
MACRO AL MATTATOIO 
Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4 - 00153 Roma 
Centralino +39 06 6710 70400 
fax +39 06 855 4090 
<a href="http://www.macro.roma.museum/">www.macro.roma.museum/</a> 

Credits: 
Author: Prof. Franz Fischnaller 
Editor: Editori Riuniti,Rome,Italy 
Project Coordinator: Daniela Voto, F.A.B.R.I.CATORS 
Development of the cd-room: Manuel Vi&ntilde;as Limonchi 
With the contribution of: Engineering - Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A., Rome / Italy 

eArt web: 
<a href="http://www.fabricat.com/eART.htm">www.fabricat.com/eART.htm</a> 
<a href="http://www.fabricat.com/eART_Tcontent.htm">www.fabricat.com/eART_Tcontent.htm</a> 
<a href="http://www.fabricat.com/PDF_FILES/e_Art_FischnallerpressRelease_english.pdf">www.fabricat.com/PDF_FILES/e_Art_FischnallerpressRelease_english.pdf</a> 
Editori Riuniti: <a href="http://www.editoririuniti.it">www.editoririuniti.it</a> 
Franz Fischnaller: <a href="http://www.fabricat.com/FF_home.htm">www.fabricat.com/FF_home.htm</a> 

Contact: support@fabricat.com / daniela@fabricat.com

e-Art&hellip; Art&hellip; Net&hellip; Technology&hellip; Society&hellip; Democracy&hellip;

F. Fischnaller, Chief Design, Project &amp; Production Manager, F.A.B.R.I.CATORS

UIC alumni, students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the annual UIC MFA Open Studio on Friday, October 13th from 5:30-9pm. 

Tour the facilities and meet the faculty and students of the School of Art and Design&rsquo;s MFA programs, including electronic visualization, graphic design, industrial design, moving image, photography, and studio arts. 

5:30pm Introductions and refreshments in the School of Art and Design&rsquo;s Great Space 
6:00pm UIC MFA Open Studio 
6:30pm Faciltieis Tour 
9:00pm Studios Close 

University of Illinois at Chicago 
College of Architecture and the Arts 
School of Art and Design

Annual UIC MFA Open Studio

Sangyoon Lee&rsquo;s (MFA &rsquo;06) thesis work Pan was awarded the Digital Art Awards 2006 (<a href="http://daa.sfc.keio.ac.jp/2006/index.html">DAA 2006</a>) honorable mention in the interactive category. 

Presented by Keio Research Institute at SFC, DAA 2006 is designed to encourage, support, and promote digital content produced by creative students. Those students recognized by the DAA 2006 were presented awards at the Open Research Forum (ORF) held at the Marunouchi Building, Tokyo, Japan on November 22-23, 2006.

Sangyoon Lee Receives Award at DAA 2006

Chicago Tribune 
INSIDE TECHNOLOGY 

UIC Working on Making Virtual Chats a Reality 
By Jon Van 

June 4, 2007 

In five or six years, you probably will be able to chat face-to-face with your favorite actor, musician or politician whenever you feel like it. 

The technology for such virtual, three-dimensional visits mostly exists or is being developed by video game companies. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago are at work to apply this to virtual conversations. 

Working with colleagues at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, the computer scientists have a three-year, half-million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to do the job. 

Graphics technology is already good enough to create realistic-looking human avatars in 3-D, said Jason Leigh, director of UIC&rsquo;s Electronic Visualization Laboratory. Speech recognition is better than 90 percent accurate, and imaging-processing speeds by computers are close to real time.

Avatar of Alex Schwarzkopf (NSF)

UIC Working on Making Virtual Chats a Reality

EVL faculty Jason Leigh, Associate Professor of Computer Science and co-Director of EVL, and Daniel Sauter, Assistant Professor School of Art &amp; Design join Annette Valenta, Associate Dean for Health, Informatics anc Technology to participate in UIC&rsquo;s Fifth Brown Bag Interdisciplinary Lunch. Panelist with conduct informal presentations to engage an open group discussion with attendees focusing on visualization in arts, medicine, engineering and teaching. 

The event is sponsored by the Provost and the Vice Chancellor for Research in an effort to foster a more collaborative environment for interdisciplinary research at UIC. Topics for the Brown Bag Lunches are selected by the Research Advisory Council. 

For more information about the Brown Bag Lunches, please contact Emilie Sauvee at esauvee@uic.edu.

5th Brown Bag Interdisciplinary Lunch: Visualization

This year at the College Arts Association Conference (CAA) in Dallas, TX, Helen-Nicole Kostis and Tina Shah participated in the session, <a href="http://conference.collegeart.org/2008/">The Contemporary Collaborator in an Interdisciplinary World</a>. Kostis and Shah&rsquo;s paper presentation titled: Loose Minds in a Box: Many Minds Working in Many Different Ways, described the interdisciplinary and collaborative process for the development of <a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&amp;type=2&amp;indi=310">Loose Minds in a Box</a>, from the realization of a concept to the result of a distributed real-time telematic performance. 

Session information 
Saturday, February 23, 9:30 AM-12:30 PM 
Austin Ballroom 1, 2nd Floor, Adam&rsquo;s Mark Hotel 
Chairs: Brad Buckley, University of Sydney; John Conomos, University of Sydney 

Papers in the College Arts Association Conference are published in the form of audio recordings in a CD format.

EVL Alumni Present at CAA 2008

EVLer AnnMarie Cernoch exhibits her MFA thesis work Replication of System which explores the following artistic mediums: robotics, HD video and interactive electronic sculpture. 

Opening Reception: 
Thursday, May 22nd, 5:00 - 9:00 pm 

Exhibition: 
Friday, May 23rd 

University of Illinois at Chicago 
Art and Design Hall 
400 North Peoria Street 
5th floor, North Gallery 

MFA THESIS PROJECTS ON DISPLAY INCLUDE: 
<a href="http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&amp;type=2&amp;indi=380">Replication of System</a> 
AnnMarie Cernoch, Ratko Jagodic 
2008 

Replication of System is a computer-based interactive sculpture inspired by intercellular communication in the brain. Sound and vibration detected by cardioid and wall-mounted microphones in the sculpture&rsquo;s environment provide the stimuli for its movement and illumination. 

BendyBots 
AnnMarie Cernoch, Ratko Jagodic 
2007-2008 

BendyBots is a collection of twenty animatronic objects inspired by oceanic plant life. An electroluminescent wire illuminates each object, made of plastic and monofilament fishing line. A flexinol&trade;-based pulley system makes the BendyBots sway gently in an invisible underwater current. 

Infinity Gliders High-definition video documentation 
AnnMarie Cernoch, Luc Renambot, Dmitry Svistula 
2007 

Infinity Gliders is a robotic installation. Small magnetic robots powered by micro Servomotors traverse an infinite landscape perpetuated by a two-way mirror and a glass mirror. The Infinity Gliders are hypothetical life forms that inhabit the void between the physical world and spatial infinity.

MFA Thesis Exhibition: Replication of System

Date: Thursday, December 11, 2009 
Time: Afternoon 

SPIKE is a collaborative network performance event by Andrew Oleksiuk at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Joe Reitzer at Argonne National Laboratory. The piece examines the beginnings of human communications, its evolution through speech, the dissemination of the written word, and enabling electronic media and network technologies. Using disparate elements to understand the codes, vocabularies, and grammars of cyberculture, the work examines the history of how culture is enabled and how to derive meaning from it. The performance event features a collaborative high-performance computing and communications (HPCC) infrastructure specifically using high-definition streaming audio, video, and 3D graphics to illustrate vignettes in communications and network history. The spoken word poetic aspect of the performance illustrates the primacy of oral communications, and recalls Artistotle who wrote of &ldquo;spectacular equipment&rdquo; in the theatre of his day.

SPIKE

SPIKE, a network performance event

Make Me an Offer is a themed gallery exhibition seeking to emphasize the growing ambiguity between commercial arts and fine arts. It seeks to emphasize the artificial nature of this distinction. 

Curated by EVL MFA candidate, Lindsay Grace and Nancy Lu, the exhibition showcases works from nine independent artists/technologist, include EVL MFA candidate Andrew Oleksiuk. 

For a review of the exhibition see <a href="http://art.newcity.com/2008/12/30/review-make-me-an-offergallery-350-illinois-institute-of-art">Newcity Art</a>. 

Gallery Hours: 
8:00 am - 5:00 pm (M-F) 
8:00 am - 12:00 pm (Saturday) 

Opening Reception: 
Thursday, December 11th, 5:00 - 7:30 pm

Variable

Make Me an Offer

Julio Obelleiro, EVL MFA Candidate will present his work Building Music at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music &amp; Arts 2009, University of Minnesota, February 17th - 22nd, 2009. The annual one week long Spark Festival brings together international new media arts creators and performers to showcase their work in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis / St. Paul (USA). This year&rsquo;s festival will showcase artists including STEIM (the studio for electroinstrumental music), Kanta Horio, Wafaa Bilal, Puzzleweasel, and Ray Lee among others. 

Obelleiro&rsquo;s Building Music was created in conjunction with Play the Magic - a large scale public interactive installation that explores the musicality of different architectural features. Participants move the light of a torch (flashlight) along the facade of a building to create musical compositions while lighting the windows. Each window hides a sound and a color for spectators to interact with from a distance. 

Building Music was created in collaboration with artists Alberto Garc&iacute;a, Jorge Cano and Pedro Enriquez. 

Also exhibited at: 
Urban Art Festival, Bucharest 9/08 

For more information see: <a href="http://www.playthemagic.com">www.playthemagic.com</a>

The Spark Festival of Electronic Music &amp; Arts

Julio Obelleiro Exhibits at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music &amp; Arts 2009

EVL MFA candidate, Julio Obelleiro and collaborator Alberto Garcia exhibit their interactive artwork The Magic Torch at The Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland in the Lightwave: Defy the Darkness exhibition. 

Created during Interactivos? 06 at Medialab-Prado, Spain - &ldquo;The Magic Torch&rdquo; was developed by Obelleiro and Garcia with support from Medialab organizers, instructors and participants. 

Tne Magic Torch is used to paint hundreds of small stars, planets, asteroids and unusual shapes through the torch&rsquo;s beam of light onto a large projection screen. Participants playfully interact with the surface to choreograph fantastical and magical spaces. 

Widely exhibited since its development in 2006, The Magic Torch is a part of the permanent collection of the CosmoCaixa Science Museum in Madrid. 

For more information on The Magic Torch and Play the Magic artists&rsquo; collective see <a href="http://www.playthemagic.com/themagictorch.html">www.playthemagic.com/themagictorch.html</a>

The Magic Torch displayed at The White Night (Madrid 07)

Lightwave: Defy the Darkness

To see the original on-line article see <a href="http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=125295">MEDILL Reports Chicago</a> 

by Kathryn Murphy 
Leonardo da Vinci, Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, Buckminster Fuller. There is no shortage of artists involved with science and scientists involved with art. 

So it comes as no surprise that a series of lectures on the connection between art and science has been included in Science Chicago, the year-long program of science events throughout the city of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. 

AnnMarie Cernoch, adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago and 3-D artist kicked off the series Tuesday at the Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery located in the Thompson Center. Cernoch focused the discussion on the kinetic sculptures that were part of her MFA work in the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

&ldquo;I think art and science have always had a relationship,&rdquo; Cernoch said. &ldquo;Even back to the impressionist painters, all oil paints use minerals to create paintable pigments. Artists have used their imaginations to create images of impossible feats, like M.C. Escher and walking on the ceiling, but the scientists make them possible, like anti-gravity chambers at NASA.&rdquo; 

While her materials were basic - a laptop, simple soundboard, table microphones, thousands of yards of jewelry wire to name a few - Cernoch said her work is about &ldquo;merging biological objects with technological advancements, a more geological cyborg of sorts.&rdquo; 

Cernoch&rsquo;s &ldquo;Replication of System&rdquo; sculpture mimics the flow of information of a brain cell, specifically a neuron. Neurons carry messages through the body via electrochemical reactions. Basically, an impulse is received by a part of the neuron called a dendrite. The message then travels to the cell body, or soma, and back out of the neuron through the axon, where it transmits that message to another neuron through a junction called a synapse. 

As Cernoch said, imagine the messages being sent &ldquo;along tree branches reaching out to other tree branches.&rdquo; 

For Cernoch&rsquo;s sculpture, audience voices and feet-stomping act as the impulses or input into the cell. Two types of microphones located on the appendages of the sculpture pick up sound and vibration, which travel along the yards of jewelry wire to the immense mound of mangled up wire serving as the cell body. The impulses get processed by a laptop, and the cell reacts in the form of LED lights. 

This biological metaphor is made possible with the technology of human-computer interaction, the programming for which Cernoch received help from Ratko Jagodic, a PhD student at the lab. 

&ldquo;This is huge right now,&rdquo; Cernoch said. &ldquo;Think iPhone and touch sensors, instead of just typing and mouse input. The laptop acts as the brain here, taking all the info in.&rdquo; 

Cernoch also discussed two of her sculptures that imitate life. Her blue, glowing &ldquo;Bendybots&rdquo; mimic ocean plant life swaying to a current as electronic pulses stimulate wire pulleys to drag the robots back and forth. 

&ldquo;Infinity Gliders,&rdquo; Cernoch&rsquo;s third sculpture, simulate an &ldquo;optical illusion of infinite space,&rdquo; with a set of mirrors and &ldquo;gravity-defying&rdquo; robots powered with small motors and magnets. 

With her sculptures, Cernoch simply explores the scientific concepts she finds most interesting. 

&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been fascinated by the concept of black holes,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This void we can&rsquo;t find the end of, grasping towards something that isn&rsquo;t there. We can&rsquo;t touch it, but we want to.&rdquo; 

Paul Catanese, a faculty member in interdisciplinary arts at Columbia College, said observing certain phenomenon and finding ways to translate that into creative output is part of this &ldquo;great movement to conflate art and science.&rdquo; 

&ldquo;When done right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;combining art and science results in both good art and good science. It&rsquo;s great to see a budding MFA follow that curious line.&rdquo; 

Jane Stevens, associate curator for the gallery, was surprised at how much science Cernoch accomplished with the materials she used. 

&ldquo;I love the fact that she works with such simple materials,&rdquo; Stevens said. &ldquo;I thought you needed so much money and funding to do all of that stuff, but if you use a little creativity, it&rsquo;s not necessary.&rdquo; 

For Nancy Vachon, a book and paper-making artist from Garfield Park, the science was a little beyond her, but she enjoyed the lecture nonetheless. 

&ldquo;Visually it&rsquo;s very stunning, but technically I&rsquo;m swimming,&rdquo; Vachon said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a digital person. I can see where she&rsquo;s going, but if given the parts, there&rsquo;s no way I could put them together.&rdquo; 

It is important not to get overawed by technology, according to Joan Truckenbrod, professor of art and technology at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

&ldquo;Technology has a powerful aura, a way of projecting itself as being all important and all powerful,&rdquo; Truckenbrod said. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s also a vehicle that allows us to do artistic work that we couldn&rsquo;t do with traditional materials.&rdquo;

AnnMarie Cernoch&rsquo;s

Smart art: when art imitates life

EVL MFA candidate, Heejoo Kim contributes a chapter to the Handbook of Research on Computational Arts and Creative Informatics exploring digital media and interactive communication. 

Abstract 
The human vision, the most ubiquitous receptor of the human senses, has been the prevailing sensory organ for a noticeable manifestation of visual arts. Nevertheless, in the aspect of new technology art, the embodied experience through senses dismantled and amalgamated in hybrid aspects. Explicitly, new media artists perceive that interactive technology is evolving rapidly in such a short period of time. Rather than engaging in technology more interactively, however, it seems they are scrutinizing the subsequent progression of the phenomenon in interactive art. Artistic experiments have predominantly been transferred through the human sensorium in interlaced approaches: touch, sight, smell and hearing have synesthetic qualities in their interactive connections in between works and viewers. Recently digital art performs in multi sensory forms of knowing and communicating. There are investigating perceptual and emotional mechanisms of involuntary synesthetic experiences. This artistic phenomenon is not only historically intriguing, but may also contribute to present synesthesia research. The functions and interrelations of the synesthetic approaches in new media arts and neurological researches are discussed separately. 

&ldquo;Technology is here to stay. It has shaped events in the past and will clearly continue to shape the future. Through this handbook we are addressing novel concepts from creation, interaction, communication, to the interpretation and emergence of art through various technological means and media.&rdquo; - James Braman, Towson University, USA 

Handbook of Research on Computational Arts and Creative Informatics 
Edited by: James Braman and Giovanni Vincenti, Towson University; and Goran Trajkovski, Laureate Education Inc.

Handbook on Research

Ambivalent Interplay

To read the complete article and see a related video visit the <a href="http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=134243">Medill webiste</a>. 

by Kathryn Murphy 
June 10, 2009 

Gamer&rsquo;s obsessions vary. It could be jacking an Escalade in Liberty City; creating a new avatar in a computer virtual world, or even pulling out an old school Nintendo to dominate in &ldquo;Paperboy.&rdquo; 

But learning how to create the newest obsession is a secondary part of the curriculum for students in game development and computer science. Instead, they are learning a different set of skills, one that mom&rsquo;s worldwide pull their hair out trying to teach their own children: how to work well with others. 

&ldquo;Talent is important, but it falls below several other qualities on the list: team player, accountability, showing up, and collaboration,&rdquo; said Howard Tullman, president and chief executive officer of Chicago-based Flashpoint: The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences. 

Leading a tour group of about 100 parents and potential students, Tullman repeatedly emphasized that attending Flashpoint is not a lackadaisical undertaking. The two years at the academy more closely resemble two years of work experience than a typical undergraduate education. Currently, 60 of the 275 students going into their second year at Flashpoint are game development students. 

&ldquo;We are interested in turning out people who are complete digital professionals,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They know how to work with a budget, they can communicate, read and write. The focus is having a job to go to at the end, developing a real world portfolio.&rdquo; 

A similar theme runs through the game development course at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The course is part of the four-year computer science program at the university and is co-taught through teleconferencing with instructors at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. 

Program director Jason Leigh assigns the 30 or so students into teams of four, with two members in each location to force the students into honing their collaboration skills. 

&ldquo;They learn that one of the most difficult challenges is maintaining awareness of what the other half of the team is doing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The teams that establish strong protocols for communication are usually ones that succeed. Interestingly, the teams that did the most poorly this semester were the ones that were entirely co-located.&rdquo;

TacTile at conference demonstration

Chicago programs teach collaboration as the newest trend in gaming

EVL MFA alumn, Paige Treebridge will chair a College Art Association 2010 (CAA 2010) New Media Caucus (NMA) panel, &ldquo;Limited Set: Generative Intersections of Theater and Artificial Life.&rdquo; Paige is joined by three other panels from a record number of proposals submitted to the NMA; they include Jane Marsching &amp; Andrea Polli (Far Field: Digital Culture, Climate Change, and the Poles), Jessica Walker (New Media / New Terrain: Pioneering a PhD in Creative Research), and Vagner Whitehead (Cybersex: What&rsquo;s Art got to do with it?). 

For the first time since 2001, Chicago will host the 98th CAA Annual Conference. The conference will consist of 120 planned sessions, Career Services, the Book and Trade Fair - receptions and special events.

CAA 2010 Chicago

The 2010 Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) exhibitions for Electronic Visualization (EV) students will be held co-jointly with Visual Art, Photography and Moving Image graduates at UIC&rsquo;s Gallery 400 and Great Space - Art &amp; Design Hall March 16th though April 17th. 

GALLERY 400 EXHIBITIONS 
(MFA EV Graduates are noted in bold) 
March 16 - 20 
Erin Leland, Michael Morris, Michael Sirianni, Jeremy Tubbs 
Opening reception: Wednesday, March 17, 5-8 pm 

March 30 - April 3 
Alejandro Borsani, Maria J&ouml;nsson, Orson Panetti, Raychael Stine 
Opening reception: Wednesday, March 31, 5-8 pm 

April 6 - 10 
Olivia Ciummo, Julio Obelleiro, Nicholas Wylie, Allison Yasukawa 
Opening reception: Wednesday, April 7, 5-8 pm 

April 13 - 17 
Rebecca Grady, Nick Harvey, Erik Peterson, Benjamin Thorp 
Opening reception: Wednesday, April 14, 5-8 pm 

GREAT SPACE EXHIBITIONS 
April 6 -13 
Joseph Baldwin, Heejoo Kim, Tesia Kosmalski, Andrew Oleksiuk, Arunan Rabindran 
Opening reception: Wednesday, April 7, 5-8pm 

Hours: 
Tuesday - Friday: 10-6 
Saturday: 12-6 

Art &amp; Design Hall 
400 South Peoria Street (at Van Buren) 
Chicago, IL 60607

2010 MFA Thesis Exhibitions

EVL MFA candidate Tesia Kosmalski showcases her wearable sound research incorporated into fashion designer Alma Weiser&rsquo;s unique garments at the Heaven Gallery located in Chicago&rsquo;s Wicker Park. This exhibition celebrates 101 years of Futurism with reconstructed vintage by Renovar. Inspired by Marinetti&rsquo;s art movement of the early 20th century, it intends borrow the positive from a point in history, recreate it and apply it to today. Also, presenting videography by Galina Shevchenko. 

Opening reception and fashion show: 
Saturday, April 24th 
7:00pm - 9:00 pm

The urban artist wearing a futurist garment

101 Years of Futurism: Fall 2011 Fashion Show

Building Music is a large-scale interactive audiovisual installation that explores the musicality of different architectural features. By moving the light of a flashlight along the facade of a building, the viewers create musical compositions while lighting architectural elements. 

Play the Magic, including EVL MFA graduate Julio Obelleiro is an art group focused on creating shifts and illusions in the perception of the viewers by means of interactive installations where the viewer creates the experience through interaction. 

Nominated for the 2010 FILE Prix Lux award votes for Building Music can be cast through June 25, 2010 at <a href="http://www.fileprixlux.org/vote-interactive-art.aspx">www.fileprixlux.org/vote-interactive-art.aspx</a>

Building Music

Building Music nominated for FILE Prix Lux Award 2010

The Fall Beyond Tomorrow&rsquo;s Life was shown as part of the show <a href="http://milwaukeeavenueartsfestival.org">Incomplete Sense for the 2011 Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival</a>. This exhibition set out to explore the spectrum of sensory input, and the impact is has on our understanding of reality. More specifically, how does the impairment, interference, or misunderstanding of a stream of sensory information affect a person&rsquo;s understanding of the world? Perception, cognition, and consciousness are intrinsically linked.

Participants interact with Pirtle&rsquo;s The Fall Beyond Tomorrow&rsquo;s Life

The Fall Beyond Tomorrow&rsquo;s Life at the 2011 Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival

The Audio Engineering Society is the professional society for audio technologists. With over 14,000 members world-wide, AES serves its community by hosting conventions and committees, publishing a scientific journal, and creating and maintaining international standards for related technologies and practices. 

Each year, two Conventions are held, one in Europe and one in the United States, that are the largest gatherings of audio professionals in the world. Each convention features workshops, tutorials, technical papers and a trade show floor. This year&rsquo;s 137th Convention will be held in Los Angeles from October 9th to the 12th. 

Electrical and Computer Engineering and Electronic Visualization Laboratory graduate student, Mark Blewett will present research on Dynamic Audio Imaging in the CAVE2&trade;. The Convention e-brief is authored by Blewett, James Pinkl and Bryan Dalle Molle.

Dynamic Audio Imaging in Radial Virtual Reality Environments

AES 137th Convention

Blewett Presents Audio Research in VR at the 137th AES Convention

EVL PhD candidate, John S. Novak III demonstrates his Audio Dilation research at the 2014 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing Adjunct Publication (UbiComp 2014 Adjunct), September 13-17, 2014 in Seattle, WA. 

Audio Dilation is a technique that slows down the tempo of audio signals without changing the pitch or otherwise distorting the sounds. Networked On-line Audio Dilation is an Android application that allows users to dilate audio while engaged in a full-duplex networked conversation. The capability can potentially be used to improve comprehension for hearing or cognitively impaired individuals, or for non-native speakers of foreign languages.

Networked On-line Audio Dilation Poster

Networked On-line audio Dilation Poster

Networked On-Line Audio Dilation

This is a survey of several pieces that showed in the Touchware Gallery at SIGGRAPH 98, and were put in the category of interactive installation. I&rsquo;m interested in discussing the issues and problems that these artists are dealing with by making, or because they make, interactive work, especially since I am in the process of making my own interactive art piece. The pieces were, Case Study 309, Tammy Knipp; Telematic Vision, Paul Sermon; WorldSkin, Maurice Benayoun; Items 1-2000, Paul Vanouse; The Bush Soul, Rebecca Allen and the Emergence Team; and Iconica, Troy Innocent. My piece is called The Thing Growing.

Are you Waving or Drowning? Art, Interaction, Manipulation and Complexity

The body that jacks into cyberspace is a sensory input / output device: the senses take in information from both the real world and simulated worlds, output from the senses control both real and virtual machinery. It is a techno-human hybrid, capable of linking directly into cyberspace and communicating with virtual beings it finds there. It is a farm for spare bio-parts. 

Contemporary electronic art practitioners are following this fantasy as they create cyber bodies. This paper will examine some of the technical and aesthetic strategies used in creating the electric body. It will check the work produced against the claims the artists are making in their attempt to realize the fantasy. Finally it will analyze the fantasy itself.

We Sing the Body Electric: Imagining the Body in Electronic Art

Many researcher have created systems, languages, and paradigms for creating sound with the aid of computers. In the past, the utility of these systems for real-time work has been limited to either using very simple algorithms or controlling special-purpose hardware. 

For many purposes, MIDI-compatible synthesizers suffice for the sound generation hardware. However, these devices tend to be limited, both in the range of sounds of any one unit, and especially in the area of interactive control. Only very recently has the computing power of general-purpose computers become equal to the task of producing reasonably complex sound with good fidelity, in real-time. 

Given hardware and software capable of generating the types of sounds desired, perhaps a more difficult problem is the organization and control of these sounds into the temporal sound structures we recognize as rhythm, melody, harmony, and musical form. Although these are musical terms, the same capabilities are needed if we are to encode information into sound in a way that the user of a system can comprehend.

Sound Art

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