Drew Browning
Drew Browning is an electronic artist/designer whose work began with the video art movement of the early '70s, including interactive video installations and video performances, and who now focuses on interactive digital media and virtual reality. His work is about creating dialog around issues of difference, about using the power of technology to challenge viewer perspective, and about calling attention to what makes us human. He is involved in research and development of technology for persons with disabilities and universal design. Browning is an Emeritus Professor of Electronic Visualization and Industrial Design and founder of the Design Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Selected
work:
“Approach” ©2012
(computer animation)
Video of computer animation; Browning, Barbier; Created using the same source data as sculpture below to be projected large scale on buildings in three cities in Brazil. Video Guerrilha 2012, San Paolo, Rio, Brasilia, November 22-24, 2012.
Chicago projection works curated by Mat
Rappaport. http://v1b3.com/?page_id=733
“Expose, Intervene,
Occupy: Re-interpreting Public Space” ©2012
(video documentation)
unreal-estates
and v1b3 have produced an augmented reality application for internet enabled
mobile devices that interrogates the meaning of public space using models,
images, text, and movies overlaid on locations in Chicago’s Loop. http://expose-ar.com/
“Approach” ©2012
(video documentation)
Sculptural installation; Browning, Barbier; Created while in residence at Prairie Center of the Arts in Peoria, Illinois, Approach uses motion data of two people, one in a wheelchair and one ambulating, coming together. This life size installation resides on a 75 foot fence adjacent to the Center’s building. With the giant processing plant Archer Daniels Midland in the background, it reminds us of human scale and presence in a highly industrialized environment. And it also speaks to the traces we leave behind us in our passage through life, knowingly or not. documentation-of-approach
“Puff”
©2011 (video documentation)
Interactive installation; Browning, Barbier; Puffing on a wind sensor, the participant sees delightful responses in their self-image or video clips. Exhibited at IDMAa IDEAS, International Digital Media Arts Association Conference, October 13-15th, 2011. http://www.idmaa.org/idmaa2011/
Video - length: 5 min.; Browning, Barbier; Winds of Change addresses the housing boom and bust as seen through a metaphorical window in a formerly modest neighborhood. Includes computer animation driven by statistical data and sound. Exhibited at IDMAa IDEAS (International Digital Media Arts Association Conference), October 13-15th, 2011. http://www.idmaa.org/idmaa2011/
Synthesis:
Processing and Collaboration 2011
Exhibition curated by Dan Sandin featuring early image processing videos from the
1970s including works by Drew Browning and Annette Barbier. University of California, San Diego,
gallery@calit2, Jan 14 - Mar 11, 2011
Video - length: 4 min.; Browning; A wryly (and sometimes darkly) humorous investigation of this most private and contemplative of spaces and its metaphorical significance as vessel of life. From swimming in the primordial sea (or womb) to contemplating the generations through portraits in the mirror; from emerging through the pipes and from the faucet to meditating on memories found in the tiles, this work follows both an individual life and those elements of consciousness, growth and change common to all human beings.
Video - length: 2 min.; Browning, Barbier; "The American Dream" was projected on the Emily Carr University of Art + Design building. In this typical suburban neighborhood, each house has a secret, and each comment on our way of life: our desire for privacy, the difficulty of finding balance, the fragile nature of our illusions, and ultimately the undermining of the American dream. Exhibited at v1b3 (Video in the Built Environment) FALL 2010 SHELTER, IDMAA (International Digital Media Arts Association Conference), November 4-6th, 2010. Shelter: Fall2010 Vancouver, BC
Site-specific Installation; Browning, Barbier; "Elevator Music", a commissioned audio installation installed in an elevator at the Chicago Cultural Center, grapples with the difference between two distinctly different views of disability: the medical model, which promotes the idea of cure and the political model, which accepts and celebrates disability as an identity. It replaces the traditional easy-listening music with commentary and analysis using writings, interviews and documentary sounds of disabled rights activists and the medical, media and fundraising communities. So the elevator, a place of passage particularly adapted to the needs of the disabled, also becomes a site for the movement from definition by others to self-definition. Site Unseen Performance
Site-specific Installation; Browning, Barbier; Exhibition of "Search Terms", an interactive installation that critiques ubiquitous surveillance, tracking visitors' movements as they explore "dangerous" and "suspicious" book listings and including surreptitious views of gallery visitors projected on the gallery floor. Group show “Echelon: who is watching you?,” Polvo, August 3 - September 1, 2007
“You
Are Here” ©2006
Site-specific Installation; Browning, Barbier; Koscielak Gallery; "You Are Here" was projected onto the
facade of the gallery building taking live image information from the nearby
expressway to create an abstracted meditation on our frenetic pace of travel.
The title of the work plays on the common kiosk guide map dot and familiar
spiritual phrase "Be Here Now" (Ram Dass),
reflecting on the pace of our existence and gently questioning whether our
obsession with speed is really getting us anywhere. Viewed from the Kennedy
Expressway (I-94) at North Ave, Chicago.
“Stream-ing” ©2006
Interactive installation; Browning, Barbier, Ferolo; “Stream-ing" is about
the interdependent relationship of people and the environment. The Illinois
Waterway from Chicago through Peoria, which includes the Chicago and Illinois
rivers, is the metaphor for this interconnectedness. Exhibited at the Fifth
Annual Discovery Forum, Peoria, IL, and WTVP, Central Illinois's public
television station. Produced as Slane Scholar in
Residence at Bradley University, Peoria, IL.
“Preserving
Disorder” ©2005
Flanked by the former Chicago Police Headquarters at 11th and State and the
anti war protests at Michigan Ave, "Preserving
Disorder", an interactive sidewalk installation at 11th and Wabash, recalls the
images and dynamics of the summer of '68 in Chicago. University Film and Video
Association Conference (UFVA) August 2005.
“Path
of the Dragon” ©2005
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. University Film and Video Association Conference (UFVA) August 2005
and Gosia Koscielak
Gallery April/May,.2006.
“Wave Harmonies” ©2005
Interactive Installation; Browning, Barbier. "Wave
Harmonies", an interactive installation that represents the visual world in
terms of waveforms, "International Digital Media and Arts Association Conference
2005", Orlando, FL, Juried exhibition March 16-19, 2005; AWARDED Second
Place. Also presented at The Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Chicago, November 10, 2005 - November 13, 2005. For more information: Wave
Harmonies.htm.
“River
of Many Sides” ©2004
Interactive, multimedia performance; Browning, Barbier, Krinkle, Minh Ngoc,
Quoc Thao. Commissioned by United States Vietnam Arts
Program (USVAP formerly ArtSynergy), River of
Many Sides addresses issues of violence and its effects. In June of 2003, five
artists embarked on a journey of collaboration and understanding that began
with travels to one another's countries and that culminated in the performance:
River of Many Sides. Each of the
artists has profound personal and cultural associations to our countries'
intertwined histories. For more information http://iam.colum.edu/abarbier/ROMSwebdoc/ROMSprospectus.htm.
“Waiting
in Line” ©2003
Interactive Installation; Browning, Barbier.
Commissioned by the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago, "Waiting In Line" is an interactive computer installation of
visually rich, graphical representations of waveforms.
The exhibit encouraged those waiting in line for tickets in the Great
Hall to participate in creating a series of Lissajous figures, a pattern of lines which may be
familiar from science fiction movies of the 1950's.
The images were displayed on a large-scale screen.
Guests used sheets of colored paper to control the horizontal and
vertical frequencies of the complex, changing patterns. For more information: http://www.msichicago.org/scrapbook/scrapbook_events/experiments/.
“Homeland
Insecurity” ©2003
Interactive web3D; Browning. This suite of works addresses our national paranoia
inspired by the events of 9/11. The
pieces collectively respond to our need for security and our fear of exposure in
a threatening climate. The touch
screen (installation mode) allows the viewer to put his finger on the source of
our discomfort; the act of touching makes the viewer complicit in creating our
collective malaise. Installed at the University Film and Video Conference
(UFVA) 2003, University of South Carolina. For the complete interactive web3D
work visit http://www.evl.uic.edu/drew/HI
“HOME”
©2001
Interactive web3D; Browning, Barbier. Home is an
interactive work-in-progress which explores various concepts of home by
allowing the viewer to move through a virtual building created in the computer.
The action of moving through the space calls up images, stories, movies,
animations and sounds contributed by writers and artists in music, film, and
graphic art on the meaning and nature of home. Since 1999 HOME has been
installed in over a dozen exhibitions.
“Disability
Perspective #1” ©1997
Interactive web3D; Browning. The newly built Franklin Delano Roosevelt National
Monument serves as a focal point for this immersive experience which addresses
issues germane to the disabled community and to representation of minorities in
general. Virtual Spaces exhibited at ISEA Inter-Society for the Electronic
Arts 1997
“Disability
Activism” ©1991
Video - length: 12 min.; Browning; Documentary in style, this videotape covers
an eight year span of personal activism in the
Disability Rights Movement. Significant to the approach was a desire to look at
the Movement from inside. At times this perspective proved to be at odds with
my participation as an activist while at other times it proved to be a tool for
empowerment, changing the course of events.
“Louis
Sullivan: The Function of Ornament” ©1986
Video - length: 7 min.; Barbier, Browning; Produced for the Chicago Historical
Society. Promoting the exhibit "Louis Sullivan: The Function of Ornament" at the
Chicago Historical Society, this tape shows some of Sullivan's themes and
sources, using computer graphics to clarify some of his basic concepts.
“Now
or Later” ©1984
Video - length: 5 min., Co-produced with Barbier,
Moyemont, and Skura. A
series of video dance/performance "sketches" leading to the production of "Chase
Scene," the performance.
“So
To Speak” ©1981
Video - length: 16 min.; Co-produced with Barbier,
Moyemont, and Kast. Based on the video/dance
performance "So To Speak." This videotape combines
the elements of the original videotape created for the performance with the live
dance into a new multi-layered entity using digital and analog effects to
achieve a synthesis.
“Stereopticon
III” ©1979
Video - length: 20 min.; Co-produced with Barbier,
Moyemont, Fahrenwald,
and Gerber. Improvisational Video/Dance works which are sometimes dark and
spare, sometimes spacious and soaring. Produced live, involving two camera
people, two musicians, a video artist, and a dancer all with a common focus --
the video monitor. BEST VIDEOTAPE AND HONORS AWARD Eighth
Annual Dance Video and Film Festival; New York, June, 1979.
“SRAM
Rap” ©1979
Video - length: 20 min.; Co-produced with Barbier.
Documentation of a childrens' video play produced
for the Chicago Artists in Residence Program featuring live video effects on
stage as a character in the play. Performed throughout the summer of 1979 at:
Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, Chicago, and Walt Disney Magnet School,
Chicago.
“Trilogy”
©1978
Video - length: 8 min.; Co-produced with Barbier.
Early Video/Dance works produced live, exploring movement of a dancer in
counterpart with movement created by video and computer graphic technology.
ONE OF TEN PRIZE-WINNING VIDEOTAPES Videotape: The Meaning is
the Use; Bergman Gallery, University of Chicago, Chicago, May, 1978
“Nancy
Drew Patch” ©1974
A pioneering work in Video/Dance performed in real
time. One of the first works produced in color on the Sandin Image Processor.