research /faculty

ELLIOT ANDERSON: EQUIVALENTS

DANM faculty member Elliot Anderson's new body of work, “Equivalents,” follows the direction set by Anderson’s “Averaged Landscapes,” shown at the deYoung Museum in 2007.

In this new work, Anderson questions the notions set forth by Alfred Stieglitz in his 1921 “Equivalents” series. By emphasizing abstract fields of light and clouds, Stieglitz evoked equivalents of subjective thoughts and emotions. Andy Grundberg said “The Equivalents" remain photography's most radical demonstration of faith in the existence of a reality behind and beyond that offered by the world of appearances.”

Anderson uses the Internet, the repository for all digital snapshots, as his source material. “Inspired by Stieglitz’ work I began collecting snapshots of clouds and skies gathered from the web-searches on the Internet. Using software I designed I averaged together a selection of these images. Averaging is an algorithmic process that merges a series of images into one, creating a final image that is a composite of all those submitted to the software. Another influence on this work is the aesthetic of the sky from Hudson River School paintings. The Hudson River School was a loosely affiliated group of 19th century painters who lived and worked in the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York. These artists were the first to truly represent the American Landscape. The vocabulary of their work included luminous and at time ominous skies through which they sought to evoke an emotional response to an idealized American wilderness.”

SHOW: February 20 - March 27, 2009 at GALLERY 16, San Francisco
501 Third Street @ Bryant, San Francisco, CA 94107
415.626.7495
http://www.gallery16.com

Jennifer Parker and Barney Haynes: SonicSENSE

sonicSENSE is a collaborative interactive platform for artists to develop and exhibit work. SonicSENSE uses the creative diversity of computational media and traditional visual art practices to cultivate space for sharing, questioning, and exploring cross-disciplinary frameworks, methodologies and experiences. The platform consists of a complex series of robotic sound sculptures and video projections that employ the viewer’s vital signs and breath as one of the interface systems. This interactivity intermittently produces a wide range of audioscapes, data projections and mechanical noises that build collect and distribute media into the exhibition space. The number of interactions with the sculptural nodes increases collectively with the number of components, allowing for many new and subtle types of behavior to emerge.

sonicSENSE website

Story from March 3, 2009 edition of Currents Online

Warren Sack's Conversation Map at SF MoMA

	DANM faculty member Warren Sack's Conversation Map is an online exhibit in "The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now" curated by Rudolf Frieling, showing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art November 8, 2008 through February 2009. The graphical user interface and video were created by DANM student Laila Shereen Sakr. You can see the interactive installation in San Francisco or participate online at http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/ConversationMap.

DANM faculty member Warren Sack's Conversation Map is an online exhibit in "The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now" curated by Rudolf Frieling, showing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art November 8, 2008 through February 2009. The graphical user interface and video were created by DANM student Laila Shereen Sakr. You can see the interactive installation in San Francisco or participate online at

http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/ConversationMap.

Barry Sinervo's "Models of Density-Dependent Genic Selection and a New Rock-Paper-Scissors Social System"

	Biology professor and DANM faculty member Barry Sinervo was the lead author of a research paper published in the November 2007 issue of American Naturalist and mentioned in New York Times Magazine's 2007 "Year In Ideas" cover story, excerpted below. "ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS IS UNIVERSAL The children's game rock-paper-scissors has a simple yet elegant structure: rock beats scissors; scissors beats paper; paper beats rock. Of the three possible moves, each defeats one, only to be defeated by the other. It's almost karmic. Indeed, it's a kind of equilibrium that scientists now say may govern conflict throughout the universe. ... The pattern is 'quite deep,' Sinervo says. 'I think it's a philosophical point. You have 'take by force,' deception and cooperation. Each beats one but not the other. It's the way the very fabric of social systems is structured.'"

http://danm.ucsc.edu/media/research/sinervo_rock_paper_scissors.pdf

Biology professor and DANM faculty member Barry Sinervo was the lead author of a research paper published in the November 2007 issue of American Naturalist and mentioned in New York Times Magazine's 2007 "Year In Ideas" cover story, excerpted below.

"ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS IS UNIVERSAL The children's game rock-paper-scissors has a simple yet elegant structure: rock beats scissors; scissors beats paper; paper beats rock. Of the three possible moves, each defeats one, only to be defeated by the other. It's almost karmic. Indeed, it's a kind of equilibrium that scientists now say may govern conflict throughout the universe. ...

The pattern is 'quite deep,' Sinervo says. 'I think it's a philosophical point. You have 'take by force,' deception and cooperation. Each beats one but not the other. It's the way the very fabric of social systems is structured.'"

Ralph Abraham's Kepler Project

	The Kepler Project is an ongoing joint project with Pablo Viotti and Ralph Abraham to sonify and visualize Kepler's idea of "the harmony of the world." The work in progress has been shown at the San Francisco Art institute.

Elliot Anderson's Average Landscapes

	See images from Elliot Anderson's recent solo exhibition entitled "Average Landscapes" at the M.H. de Young Museum of Art in SF.

Elliot Anderson's Hudson River Bonsai

	Hudson River Bonsai In collaboration with DANM Project Group Unnatural Selection Hudson River Bonsai explores our desire to manipulate nature aesthetically to match an ideal conception of the natural world. The piece is a computer controlled sound, video, and robotic installation. Branches of a common fichus benjamina tree are strung with wires that are attached to computer-controlled motors. Behind the tree is a video projection of a landscape painting by a selected Hudson River School painter. This image is analyzed by an algorithm, which selects a tree within the image and locates coordinates for the location of its branches and shape in a database. These coordinates are sent to the motors that move the branches of the fichus tree. The system bends the physical tree to mirror a tree selected from the painting. Sound from the motors is amplified and mixed with recorded sounds from nature.

http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/eanderson/bonsai/index.html

Hudson River Bonsai In collaboration with DANM Project Group Unnatural Selection

Hudson River Bonsai explores our desire to manipulate nature aesthetically to match an ideal conception of the natural world. The piece is a computer controlled sound, video, and robotic installation. Branches of a common fichus benjamina tree are strung with wires that are attached to computer-controlled motors. Behind the tree is a video projection of a landscape painting by a selected Hudson River School painter. This image is analyzed by an algorithm, which selects a tree within the image and locates coordinates for the location of its branches and shape in a database. These coordinates are sent to the motors that move the branches of the fichus tree. The system bends the physical tree to mirror a tree selected from the painting. Sound from the motors is amplified and mixed with recorded sounds from nature.

Elliot Anderson's Rituel III

	Rituel III and Rituel III sketches Collaborative dance and new music performance with composer Hi Kyung Kim (USA), dancer Ae Ju Lee (Korea) and media artist Elliot Anderson (USA). Rituel III is a multi-media collaboration between composer Hi Kyung Kim, dancer Ae Ju Lee, and multi-media artist Elliot Anderson. The themes of this work are transformation and transcendence represented through the progression of seasons beginning with summer and ending with spring. These themes are expressed visually through the use video images of landscape and nature that are made ethereal through the interaction of the dancer. The sets for the performance are comprised large screen video projection created by combining in a computer live video feed of the dancer from a camera on stage and digital video clips in real-time. The computer transforms the dancer’s image into clouds of color and movement, which is then combined with video of landscape to create a painterly image. The sets dynamically change throughout the performance following the text of the music and movement of the dancer creating narrative reflecting the change of season.

http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/eanderson/rituel/index.html

Rituel III and Rituel III sketches

Collaborative dance and new music performance with composer Hi Kyung Kim (USA), dancer Ae Ju Lee (Korea) and media artist Elliot Anderson (USA).

Rituel III is a multi-media collaboration between composer Hi Kyung Kim, dancer Ae Ju Lee, and multi-media artist Elliot Anderson. The themes of this work are transformation and transcendence represented through the progression of seasons beginning with summer and ending with spring. These themes are expressed visually through the use video images of landscape and nature that are made ethereal through the interaction of the dancer. The sets for the performance are comprised large screen video projection created by combining in a computer live video feed of the dancer from a camera on stage and digital video clips in real-time. The computer transforms the dancer’s image into clouds of color and movement, which is then combined with video of landscape to create a painterly image. The sets dynamically change throughout the performance following the text of the music and movement of the dancer creating narrative reflecting the change of season.

Rituel III was performed in Australia and the United States, including at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Ed Osborn's Installation Harvester

	Former UCSC DANM faculty member Ed Osborn's Harvester employs sound, kinetic elements, and interactivity to create a shifting audio field from a system of controlled feedback. The sounds heard are derived from the piece itself: a set of feedback tones that arise naturally from the electronic components. These tones are a monitor of the status of the piece as it moves and changes: all sounds are generated in real time, none are prerecorded. The feedback sounds are filtered so that they become a set of evolving, resonant low and mid-range tones that can be listened to for an extended period of time. Visitors moving through Harvester affect its behavior by their physical presence in the path of the sound. This interaction allows participation in a kind of living system, a system that is both a metaphor for the myriad ways that electronic and physical acoustic spaces are mapped onto one another and an example of exactly such a space.

http://www.roving.net/installations/harvester.html

Former UCSC DANM faculty member Ed Osborn's Harvester employs sound, kinetic elements, and interactivity to create a shifting audio field from a system of controlled feedback. The sounds heard are derived from the piece itself: a set of feedback tones that arise naturally from the electronic components. These tones are a monitor of the status of the piece as it moves and changes: all sounds are generated in real time, none are prerecorded. The feedback sounds are filtered so that they become a set of evolving, resonant low and mid-range tones that can be listened to for an extended period of time.

Visitors moving through Harvester affect its behavior by their physical presence in the path of the sound. This interaction allows participation in a kind of living system, a system that is both a metaphor for the myriad ways that electronic and physical acoustic spaces are mapped onto one another and an example of exactly such a space.

Warren Sack's Agonistics

	Agonistics: Produced by the Social Computing Lab agonistics: a language game : The images and actions used as metaphors by Chantal Mouffe and other theorists of "agonistic democracy" can be instantiated as interactive, graphical objects and dynamics. this "literal" instantiation will then be a computer game that can played by posting messages to a public, online discussion forum. The "game" is actually an interface that can be used to visualize the dynamics of online discussions.

http://artport.whitney.org/gatepages/artists/sack

Agonistics: Produced by the Social Computing Lab

agonistics: a language game : The images and actions used as metaphors by Chantal Mouffe and other theorists of "agonistic democracy" can be instantiated as interactive, graphical objects and dynamics. this "literal" instantiation will then be a computer game that can played by posting messages to a public, online discussion forum.

The "game" is actually an interface that can be used to visualize the dynamics of online discussions.

Catherine M. Soussloff's new book: The Subject in Art: Portraiture and the Birth of the Modern.

	In her latest book, published by Duke University Press, 2006, “Professor Soussloff has managed, in her philosophical and art historical reflections on the portrait in modernity, to bring important insights to our understanding of the relation between the individual and history. In focusing on the ‘subject’ in the individual as revealed and hidden in modern portraiture, Soussloff exposes many of the open secrets of modernist historical consciousness as well.” Hayden White, Presidential Professor of Historical Studies Emeritus, UCSC; Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University

http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/soussloff/publications.html

In her latest book, published by Duke University Press, 2006, “Professor Soussloff has managed, in her philosophical and art historical reflections on the portrait in modernity, to bring important insights to our understanding of the relation between the individual and history. In focusing on the ‘subject’ in the individual as revealed and hidden in modern portraiture, Soussloff exposes many of the open secrets of modernist historical consciousness as well.” Hayden White, Presidential Professor of Historical Studies Emeritus, UCSC; Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University

Ted Warburton and Telematica: Lubricious Transfer

Telematica: Lubricious Transfer

Telematics is the convergence of computers, digital media, and telecommunications systems. Theater Telematica is the place where artists meet digerati to create multi-site, simultaneous performances in the aesthetic space between real life and virtual reality.

Using the Internet 2 (I2), performing and digital artists can now interact across multiple sites, and present a real-time shared multimedia experience for audiences at remote locations.

Ted Warburton's "Terra Nova"

	The New Yorker magazine called Terra Nova "...a bright and brave new world of dance invention." The New York Times (excerpt): "In a new work, "Terra Nova," he sets the fast, difficult beaten steps known as petit allegro in ballet to a dreamily slow song by Bjork. The effect is both odd and perfect in its place...."Terra Nova" employs motion-capture technique (used in movies and video games) to create the attractive images of water, clouds and abstract patterns (by Peter Birdsall, Ted Warburton and Timothy Jordan) that form its backdrop." http://people.ucsc.edu/~tedw/Terra_Nova.html

http://people.ucsc.edu/~tedw/Terra_Nova.html

The New Yorker magazine called Terra Nova "...a bright and brave new world of dance invention."

The New York Times (excerpt): "In a new work, "Terra Nova," he sets the fast, difficult beaten steps known as petit allegro in ballet to a dreamily slow song by Bjork. The effect is both odd and perfect in its place...."Terra Nova" employs motion-capture technique (used in movies and video games) to create the attractive images of water, clouds and abstract patterns (by Peter Birdsall, Ted Warburton and Timothy Jordan) that form its backdrop."

http://people.ucsc.edu/~tedw/Terra_Nova.html