Chelsea Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of
CONVERGENCE: THE COLLISION OF PHYSICAL & VIRTUAL SPACE IN DIGITAL ART
AN EXHIBITION CURATED BY JAMES TUNICK, STUDIO IMC
PRESENTING ARTISTS FROM
STUDIO IMC, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY’S INTERACTIVE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM (ITP), AND YALE UNIVERSITY
JUNE 3 - JUNE 19, 2004
IN THE PROJECT ROOM at CHELSEA ART MUSEUM
EXHIBITION INCLUDES TWO EVENTS:
THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 6:00 - 9:00 PM- OPENING PUBLIC RECEPTION, FEATURING ELECTRONIC MUSIC PERFORMANCES & REFRESHMENTS.
SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1-2PM- ‘INTRODUCTIONS’ WORKSHOP PRESENTING EXHIBITING ARTISTS FROM STUDIO IMC, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY’S ITP, AND YALE UNIVERSITY WHO WILL DISCUSS THEIR WORK AND MEET MUSEUM VISITORS.
"This group of artists uses the power of media and computing technology to enhance
the human need for communication and expression."
-Red Burns, Chair of the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
New York, NY - Convergence: The Collision of Physical and Virtual Space in Digital Art, is a pioneering collaborative exhibition of cutting-edge artists curated by Studio IMC, a new media design and artist management studio. The show opens Thursday, June 3 with a reception from 6-9pm and runs through June 19. Museum visitors can “meet the artists” in an informal discussion of their work on Saturday, June 5, 1-2pm.
Convergence is an exhibition where new media art and communications technology challenge traditional concepts of portraiture, art, and gallery space. Convergence tells of a new role for technology in contemporary art, one where the boundaries are blurred between old and new media and between digital and physical realms.
In the traditional museum and gallery setting the visitor is an observer who is physically separated from the artworks. Convergence invites Museum visitors to touch and manipulate the works which brings them to life. In this way, the artworks foretell a future in which more democratic and powerful modes of communication will allow a greater multiplicity of people to express themselves and share ideas freely.
The exhibition features the innovations of nine visionary artists, designers, engineers, programmers, and musicians from the U.S. and Europe, reflecting a rich diversity of cultural perspectives, and representing a new breed of international artist who is skilled in wide variety of disciplines. Many of
these artists are also teachers and researchers at NYU Tisch Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), Yale University, and Eyebeam. Among those exhibiting are Jean-Marc Gauthier, a professor in the NYU ITP, and Daniel Shiffman artist, mathematician, programmer, and ITP researcher. Mr. Shiffman will be showing his well-known interactive work, Swarm, recently featured in the New York Times. Other new media designers include Liubo Borisov, James Clar, Konrad Kaczmarek, Dana Karwas, Miro Kirov, James Tunick, and Gabriel Winer.
Convergence is being produced in conjunction with the current exhibition at the Chelsea Art Museum, Surface Tension, curated by Manon Slome, which addresses the influence of technology on contemporary painting. Slome, Chief Curator of the museum, states that “the power of much of contemporary painting is that it has absorbed the technological into its vocabulary and extended the range of painting… creating a transparent space where images accumulate, distort, overlap and intersect.” As an extension, the works in Convergence further reflect the symbiosis between traditional artistic mediums and the emerging vocabulary of new media art.
The exhibition is part of the Project Room program series and ‘Introductions’ workshops in the arts and technology produced by Nina Colosi with Electronic Music Foundation. These programs are made possible by a grant from the Roland Corporation and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.
WHERE: Chelsea Art Museum is at 556 West 22nd Street, at the corner of 11th Avenue. Take the E or 1,9 or 6 to 23rd Street. Cross town bus to 11th Ave. Walk south one block.
Chelsea Art Museum is open Tues.-Sat., Noon - 6 PM. Thurs until 8pm
TICKETS: Museum admission: $5 for adults/ $2 students and seniors; Thursdays, 6-8pm
FREE. Reception Thursday June 3, 6-9pm FREE. “Introductions: Workshops in arts and Technology”, Saturday, June 3, FREE with museum admission.
CONTACT: For information on Chelsea Art Museum: www.chelseaartmuseum.org.
212-255-0719
For further information or to arrange a private press tour please contact James Tunick at JTunick@StudioIMC.com or 203-645-0695
www.Studio IMC.com
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Artworks:
Infinite City: 2004, James Tunick, Jean-Marc Gauthier, and Miro Kirov.
Infinite City is an immersive audio visual environment where audience members establish control of their surroundings through ultrasonic sensors, live video feeds, and lasers,making the immersive environment a malleable, dynamic space that can be altered in real-time. The futuristic environment is influenced by the pop-cultural iconography of the gesture interface imagined in the Stephen Spielberg film, Minority Report, engaging the audience with all-surrounding hyper-realistic 3D graphics and spatialized multi-channel sound which they can control by simply waving their hands in the air. Intelligent Sensor Nets interface as the bridge between the physical and digital worlds, allowing audience members to control the artworks and gallery space with their bodies.
See-Through Wall: 2004, Gabe Winer and Dana Karwas,
See-Through Wall is an interactive video art work that redefines of space by blending the real architecture of the gallery space with virtual architecture, giving viewers “x-ray” vision to see through the walls of the gallery and out into a virtual urban landscape.
3D Cube: 2003, James Clar
The 3D Display Cube is a low resolution three-dimensional television. Just as users can address pixels on a monitor screen to create images, they can also address any pixel within the display region of the 3D Cube to create spatial imagery.Unique in its design, the current embodiment of the Cube was hand made and consists of a free-standing array of 1000 LEDs in a cube display with a lower base that houses the microcontroller.
Swarm: 2003, Daniel Shiffman
Swarm is an interactive video installation that implements the pattern of flocking birds (using Craig Reynold's “Boids” model) as a constantly moving brush stroke. Taking inspiration from Jackson Pollack’s “drip and splash” technique of pouring a continuous stream of paint onto a canvas, Swarm smears colors captured from live video input, producing an organic painterly effect in real-time.
Multi-Channel Sound Installation: 2004, Konrad Kaczmarek
This sound installation subtly transforms fragments of the participant’s conversations and mixes them in real time into a pre-composed ambient backdrop. The participants’ voices are captured as they approach and interact with each other in the space defined by the eight surrounding speakers. These recordings are then spliced, transformed in various ways, and then diffused throughout the space to create a coherent counterpoint to the existing texture. The piece plays on the concept of sonic intimacy and space by reversing the roles of commonly intimate or location-specific sounds and sounds that are often more distant or ambiophonic.
Studio IMC
Founded in 2000 by its current President, James A. Tunick, Studio IMC is a new media design studio and artist management agency that specializes in the development of interactive visual displays for the arts, entertainment, education, fashion, and retail. Tunick and other Studio IMC executives and designers have worked on projects with Vogue Magazine, The Museum of Modern Art PS1, MTV, Playboy, Hennessy, Diesel, Guess, Prada, Armani Exchange, French Connection UK, Banana Republic, Kenneth Cole, Bebe, and other institutions, companies, and individuals.
Visit StudioIMC.com for more information about the Chelsea Art Museum show and about the design studio.
http://www.studioimc.com
