|
Media Arts and Technology |
Speaker: Jürg Lehni, Visiting Professor, Design & Media Arts, UCLA
Time: Tuesday, May 28, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Artist and designer Jürg Lehni presents a mixture of historical anecdotes and tangents, along with an overview of his own collaborative works, with the aim to shed light on the hidden poetic potential of technological processes and devices, their impact on aesthetics when applied within the arts, their potential as platforms for making and as vehicles for thoughts and expression, and the need for a general openness towards technology.
Bio:
Jürg Lehni works collaboratively across disciplines, dealing with the nuances between technology, tools and the human condition. He studied electronic engineering at ETH Zurich (1998 – 1999), post-industrial design at HyperWerk Basel (1999 – 2001) and visual communication at ECAL Lausanne (2001 – 2004), Switzerland.
His self-initiated works often take on the form of platforms and scenarios for production, such as the drawing machines Hektor, Rita and Viktor, as well as software-based structures and frameworks, for example Vectorama.org, Scriptographer.org, Paperjs.org.
Lehni has shown work internationally in group and solo shows at MoMA New York, Walker Art Center, Hammer Museum, Centre Pompidou, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Design Museum London, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Museum of Design Zurich, etc.
Before accepting the one year guest teaching appointment as Professor at UCLA, he has lectured and conducted workshops at Yale School of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design, The Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, The Royal College of Art in London, ECAL in Lausanne, ZHDK Zurich and HEAD in Geneva. From 2008 to 2011 he was in charge of the research project Scriptographer.org at ECAL in Lausanne. In 2006, he completed a research residency at the Sony SET Laboratory in Tokyo.
Lehni is the recipient of the Swiss Federal Competition of Design Award in 2000, 2003 and 2006, and a work grant of the City and Canton of Lucerne in 2000. His works were featured in Eye Magazine 60, 69 and 81, IDEA magazine 302, 329 and 340, Frieze Magazine November 2007, Grafik Magazine 188, Wired Magazine December 2005, I.D. Magazine 2004, etc.
Lehni has written texts for various publications, such as "Typeface as Programme" published by ECAL and JRP in 2009 and available online at http://tptq.com/articles/typeface_as_programme, Perspecta 40 "Monster" published by The Yale Architectural Journal, and the Most Beautiful Swiss Books "The Future Issue", 2009.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Tom Leeser, Artist and Director of the Center for Integrated Media and the Program in Art and Technology at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
Time: Monday, May 20, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Elings Hall, room 1601
Abstract:
"The mechanics of a tool may be complicated but is always 'intrinsically simple', while a work of art may appear simple yet hold the most complex set of thoughts".
-George Kubler
An interactive lecture in three acts, fragmented into multiple views of a life’s work and creative research. A personal history, tracking one’s influences while raising the question of a "specific practice". I will show recent examples of my work derived from living in a hybrid, unstable condition of media culture, technology and "indiscipline".
Bio:
Tom Leeser is the Director of the Center for Integrated Media at CalArts and is a digital media artist based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Tom has been involved with digital image making since the early 1980′s, His recent work has been shown at MassMoca, Santa Monica Museum of Art, The Knitting Factory, Tonic, and film and video festivals worldwide.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
"Shadows in Space"
Thursday, May 23
Reviews (open to the public) 10am - 5pm
Reception 6 - 9pm
Elings Hall
Please join us for our annual display of Master’s and Doctoral student work in Media Arts and Technology. Come experience the Allosphere, interactive installations, live audio-visual performances and screenings.
Time: Saturday, May 18, 7pm
Location: Lotte Lehman Concert Hall
Admission is free
This concert features an evening of electronic music from all over the Golden State. This year’s installment of the exchange will feature music from CalArts, Mills College, and UCSD. The concert will feature a diverse collection of works including fixed media and live electronic music.
Time: Friday, May 17, 5pm
Location: Experimental Visualization Laboratory, Elings Hall, room 2611
Robert Henke is taking a close look at the conception and realization of some of his recent works, including his laser installation 'Fragile Territories'. Henke is reflecting the role of technology for his art, and discusses the potential benefits and risks of being able to create his own tools from scratch. The talk also focuses on the differences and overlaps between Henke's compositional approach, his concerts and installations.
Robert Henke builds and operates machines to produce art. He writes and lectures about sound and the creative use of computers, and holds a Professorship in Sound Design at the Berlin University of Arts.
Amazed and inspired by the constantly expanding possibilities of applied computer science and technology, Henke explores new territories between musical composition, performance and installation. Alongside diving deeply into aesthetic concepts, the creation of his own instruments and tools is an important and integral part of his artistic process. His works are concerned with volume, power and impact, the tension between silence and noise, darkness and light, and about the exploration and manipulation of real and virtual spaces. They expose carefully shaped details and gradual changes of repeating structures in different time scales. Henke is a pioneer of multichannel sound, using methods and systems like wave field synthesis and ambisonics to create situations of total immersion, expanding the sonic experience of his performances beyond of what can be reproduced at home. During the last decade, Henke's artistic explorations more and more expanded from his initial focus on music towards the field of installation, both sound based and audio-visual. His installations, internet based audiovisual performances and concerts have been presented at Tate Modern London, the Centre Pompidou Paris, Le Lieu Unique Nantes, PS-1 New York, MUDAM Luxembourg, MAK Vienna and on countless festivals.
Henke’s interest in the combination of art and technology is also evident in his contributions to the development of the music software Ableton Live. Since Ableton’s founding in 1999, he has been central to the development of Live, which became the standard tool for electronic music production and completely redefined the performance practice of electronic music.
Speaker: Miwa Matreyek, animator, designer, multi-media artist
Time: Monday, May 13, 5:45pm - 7:00pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Miwa Matreyek approaches media-based performance work from her background in animation and collage, as well as mixing in ideas of puppetry, toy theater, and installation. In her own work as well as her group work with Cloud Eye Control, the presence of a body is the focus that media is built around. Part of the intention is to highlight the moments of connection and disconnect between the body/space/objects with the virtual/media. How do these intersect? How does one transform the other? How does making choices about using low-fi materials (paper, fur, bodies) transform technology?
Bio:
A graduate from CalArt’s Experimental Animation program (MFA 2007), Miwa Matreyek is an animator, designer, and multi-media artist working in Los Angeles. She creates animated short films as well as works that integrate animation and live performance/installation via projection. Matreyek is interested in how animation transforms when it is combined with body and space (and vice-versa) and takes on a more physical and present quality, while body and space take on a more fantastical quality.
On one hand, Matreyek’s performance can be viewed as a cinematic experience taking place on a screen. On the other hand, what is seen on the screen is a collapsed product of multiple layers of animation, objects and body, rhythmically unfolding. Her work exists in a juxtaposition of illusion and non-illusion.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Thursday, May 2, 5-7pm
Location: Buchanan Hall, room 1910
Bio:
Ken Rinaldo is an artist and theorist who creates interactive multimedia installations that blur the boundaries between the organic and inorganic. He has been working at the intersection of art and biology for over two decades working in the catagories of interactive robotics, biological art, artificial life, interspecies communication, rapid prototyping and digital imaging.
His works have been commissioned and displayed nationally and internationally at museums, galleries and festivals such as: The Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth Australia, Exit Festival France, Transmediale Berlin, Germany, ARCO Arts Festival Madrid, Spain, The OK Center for Contemporary Art, ARS ELECTRONICA, Austria; The Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland; The Australian Center for Photograhy; The Chicago Art Institute, Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Northern Illinois University Art Museum, Chicago; The Home Show, Seoul, Korea; V2 Dutch Electronica Arts Festival, Rotterdam, Holland; Image Du Future, Montreal, Canada; Siggraph, Los Angeles; The Exploratorium, San Francisco.
He was the recipient of first prize for Vida 3.0 an international competition on Artificial life, an Award of Distinction from Ars Electronica in 2004 for the work Augmented Fish Reality, an Honorable Mention in 2001 at Ars Electronica Austria for Autopoiesis and has received numerous grants and awards including an Ohio Arts Council Grant, and 3 Battelle Endowment for Technology and Human Affaires grants.
Rinaldo's work has been reviewed and edited in numerous publications and books including: Digital Art by Christiane Paul, Contemporary, ArtByte, NY; Art Press, Paris; Tema Celeste Contemporary Art, Italy; Circa Magazine, Ireland; Information Arts: Intersections of Art Science and Technology by Steve Wilson; The New York Arts Magazine; Virtualities: Television Media Art and Cyberculture by Margaret Morse; Leonardo Digital Salon, SF; Artweek, SF; Wired Magazine, SF; International Design, NY; Intercommunication # 7, a Critical Anthology of Interactive Artists, Japan; Artificial Intelligence Magazine, SF, Superdesigning Number 5, Japan and A minima Portugal.
Rinaldo's work has been featured on TV and radio in Austria, Italy, Spain, Singapore, England, France, Sweden, Germany, Japan. Portugal and Finnish Public TV, as well as featured onThe Knowzone a Syndicated television show on the Arts and Sciences, National Public Radio, BBC TV and Radio, CNET television coverage of "Delicate Balance", 1994 and a one half hour special on "The Flock" for The Future, Canadian Broadcasting Corporaration; 1994.
Sponsered by Media Arts and Technology, the Art Department, and the College of Creative Studies.
Link:
Time: Monday, May 6, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Bio:
Megan May Daalder earned a BA from UCLA’s Design Media Arts Department. She co-produced, shot, and co-wrote a documentary feature about the Internet Generation called "The Terrestrials", which premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Her experimental video performance Painting the Town has been exhibited internationally and screened on Los Angeles city busses for Freewaves’ Out the Window project. Her "Mirrorbox" installation recently received international attention in Paris and Poland, winning top prize (ex-aequo) at the 14th WRO Media Art Biennale. She has also curated several "technology-inspired" performance exhibitions in Los Angeles, and performed her Tribute to Karl Sims internationally. She is currently working on a semi-fictional internet documentary based on the drowning island of Tuvalu, and an experimental performance/dinner party between "The Four Pillars of Civilization".
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Philip Beesley, Sculptor, Architect, University of Waterloo
Time: Tuesday, May 7, 5:30pm - 7:00pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 1001
Abstract:
Philip Beesley will join with his collaborator Philippe Baylaucq in presenting recent projects from the Hylozoic Series and in discussing underlying concepts and next stages of development in the work.
Might architecture be envisioned as a kind of radiant, diffusive soil? New projects from the Hylozoic Series explore fertile, diffusive systems. The deeply fissured forms of snowflakes and flowers demonstrate effective energy exchanges that are based on maximunm interaction with their surroundings. If buildings were designed for diffusion and interwoven relationships, perhaps forms akin to forests and soils might result. A variety of types of next-generation architectural materials are discussed, e.g. active liquid cells (protocells, organic power cells, scent-lures, etc.)
Several different kinds of active liquid cells are integrated within masses of suspended glass flasks within current building assemblies in development.
Next generations of this work are pursuing subtle phenomena in thermal exchanges. A film project entitled Sylva is now in development with filmmaker Philippe Baylaucq, featuring three-dimensional thermal cinematography that reveals subtle phenomena within the vapour environment that surrounds the physical components of Beesley’s sculpture. Baylaucq’s acclaimed previous work ORA provides potent examples of thermal photography that will be extended within the new series. ORA will be screened as part of the presentation.
Bio:
Philip Beesley is a professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo. A practitioner of architecture and digital media art, he was educated in visual art at Queen’s University, in technology at Humber College, and in architecture at the University of Toronto. Beesley’s work is widely cited in the rapidly expanding technology of responsive architecture. He has authored and edited eight books and appeared on the cover of Artificial Life (MIT), LEONARDO and AD journals. Features include national CBC news, Casa Vogue, WIRED, and a series of TED talks. His work was selected to represent Canada at the 2010 Venice Biennale for Architecture, and he has been recognized by the Prix de Rome in Architecture, VIDA 11.0, FEIDAD, two Governor General’s Awards and as a Katerva finalist. Recent projects include installations for The City Gallery (Wellington, New Zealand), The Dutch Electronic Art Festival (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Fundación Telefónica (Madrid, Spain), ALIVE/EN VIE at the Espace Fondation EDF (Paris, France) and the 2012 Sydney Biennale. Beesley also collaborates with fashion designer Iris van Herpen, most recently developing textiles for her 2013 Spring Summer collection, "Voltage Haute Couture" at Paris Fashion week.
Link:
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speakers: Ava Ansari and Molly Kleiman, The Back Room
Time: Monday, April 29, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Site Unseen: A conversation with the Back Room on remote curatorial practice and contemporary experiments in new media and performance in Iran.
How can we employ digital technology to collaboratively develop, enact, and distribute performances? How can we circumvent pervasive censorship laws and travel restrictions that impede many emerging artists living under oppressive regimes? How may new media be used not only to facilitate international exchange but as the material and site for collaboration?
In this session, Ava Ansari and Molly Kleiman, co-directors of the Back Room, will discuss the creative, technical, and political challenges of remote curatorial practice and the development of telepresent artist workshops and collaborations between artists in Iran and the US. Among the case studies to be discussed is a collaboration between Ansari and Andrew Quitmeyer, Subway: an android app which allows participants to re-stage a dance frame by frame, in public spaces throughout Iran, as well as offer their own positions. While dancing is forbidden in Iran, striking a still pose for a snapshot is possible. Subway subverts an oppressive law, pointing to its capriciousness and absurdity. Ansari and Kleiman will discuss future incarnations of the Subway project and other works in progress.
Bios:
About the Back Room: The Back Room is a pedagogical and curatorial project developed in collaboration with artists, curators, and writers in Iran and the United States. Founded in 2011, we’ve organized arts workshops, public programs, and exhibitions between the two countries, with hubs in NYC and Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Shiraz.
Past projects have included: telepresent arts workshops and public conversations with Wafaa Bilal, Richard Schechner, Shirin Neshat, and Shirana Shahbazi; and A Call, a performance by Wafaa Bilal, enacted between Tehran and NYC. We collaborate with numerous art spaces, including Sazmanab Project, Silk Road Gallery, and Aaran Gallery, in Tehran; and CultureHub, White Box, and Eyebeam, in New York City.
Ava Ansari, co‐director - Ava Ansari is an artist and curator. She has previously worked in curatorial positions at Basement Gallery, Dubai, and Silk Road Gallery, Tehran. She currently works at Aperture. As an artist, she has presented work at Dixon Place, La Mama, Eyebeam, the AC Institute, among others. Her recent work, Subway, a collaboration with programmer Andrew Quitmeyer, is an interactive Android app through which individuals in Iran can document gestures and poses, turning them into a collaborative dance. The piece has been selected from several festivals, including ISEA 2013, the international festival of electronic art and ideas.
Molly Kleiman, co-director - Molly Kleiman is a writer, editor, and curator. She is a deputy editor of Triple Canopy, an editorial collective and magazine (www.canopycanopycanopy.com). She is also the coordinator of the Writing Program at NYU’s Gallatin School, where she mentors students on art and literary publications, and founded and developed Confluence, an online platform for student writing, art, and research.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Lisa Jevbratt, Professor, MAT and Art, University of California, Santa Barbara
Time: Monday, April 22, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
ZooMorph is a software-art project in development consisting of image and video filters that create simulations of how a large selection of non-human animals see; generating pictures that help us experience the world through the eyes of another species. The algorithms are developed with the assistance of scientists in the field of animal vision as well as “para-scientific” experts on animal vision such as animal communicators and indigenous spiritual practitioners. The project was initially conceived to be a little piece of software thrown together in a few days using data widely accessible and easily understood. Several years later, the project’s first incarnation, an iPad/iPhone app, is getting ready to be released. However, there are now plenty more questions to sort out, and many sidetracks to follow.
The MAT PhD graduate Javier Villegas and current PhD candidate Charlie Roberts have been instrumental in developing the algorithms and realizing the soon to be released app. MAT students who are interested in working on simulation algorithms, app development or the para-scientific aspects of the project are very welcomed to join the team.
Bio:
Lisa Jevbratt is a Swedish born artist currently a professor in the Art Department and in the Media Art Technology program at University of California, Santa Barbara. For more than a decade she explored the expressions and exchanges created by the protocols and languages of the Internet and the Web, often manifesting as visualization software. She is now applying her understanding of these unintentional collaborations onto exchanges with animals of other species and their experiences of the world around them. In her ongoing endeavor “Interspecies Collaboration” she invites students to collaborate with individuals of other species and her current software-art project Zoomorph is software generating simulations of how a large range of non-human animals see.
Jevbratt’s work has been exhibited extensively in venues such as The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), The New Museum (New York), The Swedish National Public Art Council (Stockholm, Sweden), and the Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York); and it is discussed in numerous books, for example “Internet Art” by Rachel Greene, “Digital Art” by Christiane Paul and “Art + Science Now” by Stephen Wilson (all Thames and Hudson). Jevbratt also publishes texts on topics related to her projects and research, for example “Inquiries in Infomics”, a chapter in the anthology “Network Art – Practices and Positions” ed. Tom Corby (Routledge) and “Interspecies Collaboration, Making Art Together with Nonhuman Animals” in Tierstudien [Animal Studies] Issue 1 (Neofelis Verlag, Berlin, Germany). Her current project ZooMorph ¬is supported by an emerging fields grant from Creative Capital.
Links:
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speakers: Four Eyes Lab research group
Time: Monday, April 15, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 1001
Background:
The UCSB Four Eyes Lab, in the Computer Science Department and the Media Arts and Technology Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will present a summary of ongoing research in the lab. The research focus is on the "four I’s" of Imaging, Interaction, and Innovative Interfaces. The lab is directed by Professors Matthew Turk and Tobias Höllerer, and includes several graduate and undergraduate students, postdocs and visitors.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Wednesday, March 13, 4-6pm
Location: Elings Hall, room 1605
Abstract:
To date information and scientific visualizations have evolved into two sub disciplines of visualization that are quite distinct from each other. A separation between these fields was justified because of significant differences in the type of data sets and corresponding problems tackled by each. This separation led to a gap between the software tools, hardware technologies and visual languages adopted. However, available graphics and visualization techniques regardless of their intended purpose can be applied advantageously to both types of data sets. In this context, 3D graphics rendering methods, which are readily adopted for scientific visualizations, can be used to enhance 2D Information Visualization techniques. Similarly, certain scientific data sets can be better visualized with 2D Information Visualization approaches to support a range of tasks such as comparison and detection of patterns.
The goal of this thesis is to develop scientific and information visualizations with the following motivations: 1) dimensionality should be defined and addressed not as a binary distinction between 2D and 3D, but rather as a continuum such that visualizations can have intermediary dimensionality, 2) dimensionality of a visualization should be determined by the task at hand rather than the spatial properties of the data or the conventions of the respective visualization fields.
This thesis will present examples that support the aforementioned posits. It will discuss two case studies; Stereoscopic Highlighting and Contour Maps, that illustrate how 3D elements can be used to enhance 2D visualizations of abstract data. The benefits of reducing dimensions will be explored via Linesets and Weighted Graph Comparisons for Brain Connectivity Analysis studies.
Date: Thursday, March 14
Time: 11:50am
Location: Systemics Lab, room 2810, Elings Hall
Abstract:
"Standing Waves" is an audio-visual installation designed for the Allosphere, an immersive multimedia environment being built at UCSB. The piece presents an interactive visualization of two-dimensional wave propagation projected in three dimensions around the surface of a sphere. This visualization is then sonified through a variation of additive synthesis and spectral decomposition, and the resulting audio is spatialized around the perimeter of the performance space.
Users are able to interact and control the combined audio-visual synthesizer through a motion-capture interface and gestural mapping system. The piece's form is structured through a series of modules that can run while being guided by user input, as well as in a semi-autonomous "installation mode" when limited or no user interaction is detected.
This presentation will discuss the artistic and technical components used to create the piece, while focusing specifically on aspects of tracker-based motion-capture interfaces and their expressive potential in media art. The technique of “density plot synthesis” will be introduced and described in terms of its implementation here. Previous installations and works created by the author will be shown briefly with examples of how elements from each were combined and used in the final composition. The following issues will be addressed in relation to their role within this piece and multimedia composition more generally:
Speaker: Sharon Kanach, co-vice president, Centre Iannis Xenakis
Time: Monday, March 4, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Ever wonder what happens when a world-famous composer sets one of his students, then barely 20 years old and in a foreign country, to an improbable and seemingly impossible task? Sharon Kanach, Series Editor of the Iannis Xenakis Series at Pendragon Press, will discuss her longtime collaboration with the composer on his writings and present her newest collective release Xenakis Matters.
Bio:
The American musician Sharon Kanach has lived in France for over thirty years. She originally went to Paris as a student to study with Nadia Boulanger but her path diverted radically when she met Iannis Xenakis (1922 – 2001), with whom she collaborated closely for the last twenty years of his life, especially on his extensive writings. Originally as translator than later as General Editor of the "Iannis Xenakis Series" at Pendragon Press, Kanach has published six Xenakis-related books. Since June 2007, Kanach is co-vice-president of the newly reestablished Centre Iannis Xenakis (formerly CCMIX and Ateliers UPIC originally created by Xenakis in 1985 in Paris), now based at the Université de Rouen. In January 2009, Sharon Kanach became the founding director of the Xenakis Project of the Americas, under the prestigious auspices of the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation at the Graduate Center of CUNY, NYC.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Date: Friday, March 1st, 10am
Location: transLAB, room 2615, Elings Hall
An installation by RJ Duran, Sterling Crispin and Timothy Wood.
Speaker: Dean Hovey
Time: Monday, February 25, 5:30pm - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Typewriters, Punch cards, Terminals, Word processors, Personal Computers. With Apple, personal started with color… Mr. Hovey, a native of Silicon Valley, was fortunate to be in the right place at an incredible time to participate in one of mankind’s great transformations. Moore’s law forecasts the exponential advance of semiconductor efficiency and many attribute our technological advances to these dramatic cost, speed and miniaturization curves. Dean will build the case that interface and design played the hero’s role in our societies transformation, and will continue to do so.
Stories are drawn from Dean’s experiences include Apple’s mouse, modern dance, interfaces that whisper, and counter terror solutions. At Digifit, Mr. Hovey and team intend to once again tap the power of interface and design — this time to solve the omnivores dilemma.
Bio:
Dean Hovey joined Digifit, Inc. as its president and CEO in the fall of 2011. Digifit combines mobile personal technology with experience design to help people form lifelong healthy habits.
Over the past 30 years Dean helped start 12 technology-based companies. He has held senior executive team positions in two public companies. His personal experience spans retail, product design, entrepreneurship, business development, general management and venture capital.
During the early nineties Dean served as general partner of Avalon Ventures, a premier seed venture capital fund.
While attending Stanford University Mr. Hovey created a new medical instrument to improve differential white blood cell counts. He founded Hovey/Kelley Design to take the instrument from prototype to production design.
Website: www.ideo.com
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
This seminar features speakers who presented talks at the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 2012.
Time: Tuesday, February 19, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 1001
Speakers:
Abstracts:
Danny Bazo:
Danny will discuss his experiences at ISEA 2012, where he teamed up with artist Bruno Vianna to present a workshop as part of the Latin American forum. The workshop, entitled “Mapping with Balloons and Kites”, was a hands-on demonstration of the process of building DIY balloons and kites for aerial photography. From engineering constraints, to hardware and materials choices, to panorama-stitching software, the session covered all aspects of a successful aerial mapping launch.
Paul Jacobs:
People have been speaking to machines for hundreds of years, knowing quite well that the machine could never hear them. Emotional moments find us begging cars to start or swearing at elitist cell phones for preferring temporary death to the dishonor of a 3rd party charger. We speak, thus we imagine something listening, understanding, and perhaps – responding. In this talk, I’ll discuss the convergence of technology just now enabling man-machine conversation, my explorations in verbally interactive art, using speech recognition as a tool for artistic expression, and how the natural human desire to anthropomorphize can help.
Angus Forbes:
I will present technical and creative aspects of the various incarnations of the Fluid Automata project: the original single-user iPad application; a collaborative interactive environment installed at the IEEE VisWeek art show in 2011; and as a component of a multimedia installation presented in the AlloSphere in 2012.
Marco Pinter:
Debrief on ISEA 2012 Panel which featured Miwa Matreyek, Lisa Wymore, Danny Bazo and Marco Pinter. Much of new media work explores some interaction between the real and the virtual worlds. Some of this work may require the viewer to balance conflicting messages coming from different parts of the brain, and challenge the perception of what is real and what is virtual. Other works utilize virtual partners or dopplegangers, which both react to and create reactions in live performers, which may be dancers, actors or robotic structures. The panelists span the areas of dance performance, theatrical performance, robotic installation and interactive media installations, and will discuss how their work intersects these questions of technology and perception.
Bios:
Danny Bazo:
Danny Bazo is a multimedia artist and robotics engineer who builds interactive systems that explore the relationships between perception, intelligence, and embodiment. He holds a B.A. in Visual Arts from UC San Diego, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley, and an M.Sc. in Advanced Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bristol. He is currently a doctoral candidate and Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Fellow in the Media Arts and Technology graduate program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Paul Jacobs:
Paul Jacobs is a software / media artist who studies creativity by teaching computers to create. His past experiments in artificial creativity have been featured in several Los-Angeles-based gallery shows. Some of Paul’s experiments in applying speech recognition technology toward more artistic and less practical ends were presented at ISEA 2012. His other interests include user interface design, electromagnetic fields, beauty and its relationship to the definition of art, and high energy lasers. Paul has a B.S. in Computer Science from the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara, and is currently a graduate student with the Media Arts and Technology Program at UCSB, studying Visual and Spatial Art.
Angus Forbes:
Angus Forbes is an assistant professor in the interdisciplinary Science, Technology, and Arts program within the School of Informatics at the University of Arizona.Website: blog.angusforbes.com
Marco Pinter:
Marco Pinter creates artwork and performances which fuse physical kinetic form with live visualizations. He has degrees from Cornell University and University of California, and has served on the faculty of Bucknell University. He is a 2011 recipient of the Visual, Performing, Media Arts Award of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. A recent solo exhibition at the AC Institute gallery in New York consisted of his interactive and kinetic sculpture work. Wired magazine’s online UK site published a feature on Pinter’s work which explores perception through kinetic sculpture and graphics. Pinter is a contributing author to The McGraw Hill Multimedia Handbook and The Ultimate Multimedia Handbook. He has 9 issued patents and 27 pending patents, in the areas of live video technology, robotics, interactivity and telepresence.
Stephen Travis Pope:
Stephen Travis Pope is a software engineer and composer based in Santa Barbara. He taught at UCSB (in the departments of Music and Computer Science, and the Graduate Program in Media Arts and Technology) from 1996-2010, and is now known as FASTLabInc.com (for multimedia software) and HeavenEverywhere.com (for music and film). Stephen was among the very first to use Smalltalk for real-world applications (in 1984), and worked on the Smalltalk team at Xerox PARC and their spin-off ParcPlace Systems from 1986-94.
ISEA Website: www.isea2013.org.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Henry Lowood, director, How They Got Game Project, Stanford Humanities Laboratory
Time: Tuesday, February 12, 4pm - 5:30pm
Location: Social Sciences and Media Studies Building, room 1009
Abstract:
Shortly before the 1993 release of id Software’s computer game, DOOM, the company’s news release promised the game would “push back the boundaries of what was thought possible” on contemporary computers. The press release is a remarkable litany of innovations in technology, gameplay, distribution, and content creation. It also introduces a term, the “DOOM engine,” to describe the technology under the hood of the game software. Building on the success of DOOM as a new kind of “open game” promised in the news release, id established game engine technology as the motor of a re-imagined game industry. Lowood’s talk explores the game engine’s curious history as well as some implications for our future interactions with video games.
Bio:
Henry Lowood received his B.S. in History (minor: Physics) from the University of California, Riverside. He received Masters Degrees in Library and Information Science and History and a Ph.D. (History of Science & Technology) from the University of California, Berkeley. At Stanford, he has served as head of the Physics Library, Curator for Germanic Collections, and Head of the Humanities Resource Group. In addition, he has been Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections since 1983. He is a lecturer in the Science, Technology and Society Program and the Introduction to the Humanities program at Stanford, and adjunct faculty at San Jose State University, in the School for Library and Information Science.
Since 2000, he has been director of the How They Got Game Project in the Stanford Humanities Laboratory (SHL), a research project focused on the history of computer games and simulations; between 2004 and 2008 he was co-director of the SHL, as well. Among the many initiatives undertaken by the How They Got Game Project, he is curator of The Machinima Archive and the Archiving Virtual Worlds collection hosted by the Internet Archive and leads Stanford’s work on the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, funded by the U.S. Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. He has published widely in history of science and technology, library and archival studies, and digital game studies. A complete list c.v. is available on-line at:
Website: www.stanford.edu/~lowood/vita.htm
Sponsored by: The "Machines, People, and Politics Research Focus Group" in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Media Arts and Technology Program, and the Film and Media Studies Department.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Alan Macy. Founder, BioPac
Time: Monday, February 4, 6pm - 7:15pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
A tale that starts 400 B.C.E. and then jumps to the 17th century and beyond. A patchwork quilt of a story that weaves the root of beauty with emotional expression, the battery, the phone, re-tribalization and the omega point. At the end of the story will be a short visceral demonstration of human nervous system expansion involving a willing member of the audience.
Bio:
Alan Macy is currently the Research and Development Director, past President and a founder of BIOPAC Systems, Inc. BIOPAC is a biomedical equipment developer and manufacturer based in Goleta, California. Macy is responsible for managing the new development of life science measurement and analysis systems.
Macy has been designing biomedical and physiological recording equipment for 30 years. Presently, Macy is working in the areas of magnetic resonance imaging, virtual reality, multichannel wireless physiological monitoring and smart textiles. Macy has developed curriculum and designed teaching systems to support life science education worldwide.
Macy is a technical artist, specializing in the creation of interactive sculpture and installation environments. Macy has placed temporary installations at the San Francisco Exploratorium and the California Academy of the Sciences. Macy has served as a board member for a variety of non-profit medical and arts organizations.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Date: Tuesday, January 29, 4pm - 5:30pm
Location: Corwin Pavillion
Abstract:
Which outcome would you prefer for your current research project: a paper with 500 citations or a business worth $5 million? Academic and industrial researchers tend to answer this question differently. “The divergence is often reflected in the disjointed research portfolios of university groups and company labs, especially in the media and entertainment industry.
Joe Marks has spent his career at the world’s leading industrial research labs as both a researcher and a manager. In this talk he will focus on research related to media and entertainment. "There’s a perception that research in media and entertainment means just computer graphics. But it’s an incredibly broad industry that draws from many other subjects, too: human-computer interaction, mobile computing, robotics, material science, psychology, economics, operations research, etc." writes Marks. "As such, it’s a great context for thinking about how research can add value to a company and to society."
In this fascinating discussion, Marks will present a selection of industrial projects by himself and his colleagues to a panel of distinguished UCSB faculty members and ask them to make evaluative predictions of their worth. Audience participation is encouraged! Discover new insights about how to estimate the value of your own research from both academic and commercial perspectives.
Bio:
Joe Marks recently embarked on a new career as a first-time entrepreneur at age 51. Earlier this year he co-founded Upfront Analytics, Ltd., a small company in Dublin, Ireland, that is developing a playful approach to market research. Prior to that he was vice president & research fellow at Disney Research in Los Angeles from 2007 to 2012. He was the research director at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, Mass., from 2000 to 2006. He has also worked at Digital Equipment’s Cambridge Research Lab and at Bolt, Beranek and Newman. He holds three degrees from Harvard University. He has co-authored more than 50 papers, mostly on topics in computer graphics, human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence.
Presented by UCSB Arts and Lectures, the Department of Computer Science, and the Media Arts and Technology Program.
Date: Saturday, February 9, 7pm
Location: Geiringer Hall, Music Building
Marko Ciciliani is guest professor for electro-acoustic composition from the Institute for Acoustics and Media (IEM) at the Arts University in Graz, Austria. Admission is free.
Professor Ciciliani will also conduct a workshop on Friday, February 8:
Seminar, 9am - Noon
Practicum, 5 - 8pm
Location: Room 1605 Elings Hall (CNSI).
Presented by the Department of Music Corwin Chair, Media Arts and Technology, and the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE).
Speaker: Mark Goerner, Conceptual Artist & Designer
Time: Monday, January 28, 5:30 - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
This talk is open to all, artists, art enthusiasts, or simply art-curious, who are interested in exploring the process of generate original and fulfilling art – from concept, to finish. Samples of personal work past and present, as well as the design process will be shown and discussed. Sketching and expression, to digital illustration and clear communication will be covered, demonstrating the ways to break free of creative blocks, convention, and destroy the challenges we all face in achieving a vision in mind. Portfolio review to follow for those interested in constructive criticism and a bit of spicy encouragement.
Bio:
Drawn at an young age to conceptual design and problem solving, Mark Goerner’s sketchbooks and early projects reflected an industrial design sensibility that extended into fantasy environments with a futuristic mindset. Exposure to manufacturing during this time helped fuel an interest in machinery, an interest in varied forms of fabrication, and a curiosity towards materials. This, coupled with a love of nature on both a macro and micro scale, archeology, architecture and automobiles, helped form his base of interest. These interests were fed in later years by attending classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, Rhode Island School of Design, and later, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where he received a Bachelor of Science with distinction in automotive design, with a focus on entertainment design. Internships included work for Coca-Cola, and BMW/Designworks contributing on various conceptual automotive and product design projects.
His freelance career began by providing design services, illustrations, storyboards, character and concept development to post and pre-production studios such as, New Line Cinema, Disney, Fox, Rhythm and Hues as well as industrial design work for BMW/Designworks, Intel, Toyota, and Honda. He then entered the feature film industry as a conceptual illustrator for: “Minority Report”, “Constantine”,“X-men 2”, “Superman”, “Iron Man 2″, “Thor”, “Bunraku”, “Fantastic Voyage”, “Avitar” and “Battle Angel Alita”. These experiences lead him to developing training DVDs on digital painting, co-authoring “Concept Design 1-2″, and to teach seminars around the world on design methodologies along with classes in visual communication, production and entertainment design at Art Center, Gnomon and locally. Mark currently resides in Santa Barbara continuing to work on varied projects as both a digital and analog artist in constant pursuit to expand skills and communicate a strong level of artistry in architecture, photography, illustration and design.
2012 marks the beginning of his venture into starting a design studio developing artful products of exceptional quality, venturing at times from the purely digital world in the process. The creation of this new studio and involvements in immersive installations for festivals is taking him back into the built world while still delving into conceptual projects and inspirational visions of spaces not yet known.
Website: www.grnr.com
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Danny Rozin, Artist/Educator/Developer, ITP Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Time: Monday, January 21, 5:30 - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
One of man’s earliest technological inventions, mirrors have been loaded with meaning and myth from the beginning. Mirrors have often been thought as objects of evil and many superstitions are linked to them. Sometimes overlooked in the search for important technological developments, I believe that no other invention has had a more significant impact on the way people perceive the world around them, and more importantly the way they perceive themselves. Mirrors have the ability to let us observe ourselves in the same manner we observe others, this is in complete contrast to the way we experience our being internally, which is a highly subjective process. Mirrors have been featured extensively in the arts mostly in the 17-19th centuries, before that mirrors were not perfected nor common enough to be incorporated into the collective psyche, in our century it seems we take them for granted and have lost our curiosity about them. In spite of its simplicity, a mirror is a profoundly complex object, a mirror has the ability to display for a multitude of viewers a unique reflection, in effect no two people looking into a mirror will ever see the same image even if they are viewing together. This unique behavior of simple optics, is something that even high technology and computers cannot emulate because of its infinite complexity, and yet a polished piece of tin or a charcoal-covered glass can achieve this result easily.
Since 1995 I have been creating interactive digital art and found the mirror, as an object and paradigm, an excellent platform of expression. Initially unaware, and lately more deliberately, I have created a series of pieces which are in one way or another -mirrors.
My investigation into mirrors can be divided into 5 groups of pieces: Software mirrors, Mechanical Mirrors, Video Painting, Glass Mirror Sculptures, Proxxi composite prints.
Bio:
Daniel Rozin is an artist, educator and developer, working in the area of interactive digital art. As an interactive artist Rozin creates installations and sculptures that have the unique ability to change and respond to the presence and point of view of the viewer. In many cases the viewer becomes the contents of the piece and in others the viewer is invited to take an active role in the creation of the piece. Even though computers are often used in Rozin’s work, they are seldom visible.
As an educator, Rozin is Associate Art Professor at ITP, Tisch School Of The Arts, NYU where he teaches such classes as: "The World - Pixel by Pixel", "Project Development Studio" and "Toy Design Workshop". As a developer, Rozin owns Smoothware Design, a software company that creates tools for the interactive art and multimedia authoring community.
Born in Jerusalem and trained as an industrial designer Rozin lives and works in New York. His work has been exhibited widely with solo exhibitions in the US and internationally and featured in publications such as The New York Times, Wired, ID, Spectrum and Leonardo. His work has earned him numerous awards including Prix Ars Electronica, ID Design Review and the Chrysler Design Award.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Stephen Travis Pope, Software Engineer and Composer
Time: Monday, January 14, 5:30 - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
The Smalltalk-80 programming system is celebrating its 30th birthday this year; Smalltalk-80 version 2 was released and documented in a series of books in 1982. The system was the first popular software development tool that incorporated a number of features we take for granted today, including an object-oriented programming language, a comprehensive open-source class library, an integrated window-based development environment, and a cross-platform virtual-machine-based delivery system.
This talk will outline the requirements for software development environments, introduce the Smalltalk language, libraries and tools, and then contrast them with other languages in current use. Several aspects of the Smalltalk system make it especially good for developing multimedia applications, and these will be introduced and compared to the multimedia support in other development systems. The talk will end with a manifesto of what developers should expect of their languages, libraries and tools.
Bio:
Stephen Travis Pope is a software engineer and composer based in Santa Barbara. He taught at UCSB (in the departments of Music and Computer Science, and the Graduate Program in Media Arts and Technology) from 1996-2010, and is now known as FASTLabInc.com (for multimedia software) and HeavenEverywhere.com (for music and film). Stephen was among the very first to use Smalltalk for real-world applications (in 1984), and worked on the Smalltalk team at Xerox PARC and their spin-off ParcPlace Systems from 1986-94.
Links:
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Monday, January 14, 4pm
Location: Experimental Visualization Lab, room 2611, Elings Hall (CNSI)
Abstract:
"Inventions at the Borders of History, Re-significance of Media Technologies From Latin America" explores the emergence of influential sonic, visual and computational technologies such as photography, color television and computer music in Latin America in parallel with and even before the development of mainstream technologies in the US and Europe. It investigates the reasons why and the way in which Latin American researchers developed technologies that remain widely unknown today. To do so this dissertation establishes a close dialog with the discourse of media history, focusing on the invention process proposing a re-significance of the technologies studied on the basis of a theoretical and experimental approach.
Speaker: Andres Burbano, PhD candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara
Time: Monday, January 7, 5:30 - 6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
The International Symposium on Electronic Arts is arguably the most important international conference on media arts research and practice. UCSB faculty and students have a history of participation as speakers and artists at the conference as it has moved from Singapore to Istanbul to Albuquerque, and next year to Sydney. Parallel to the research for my dissertation “Inventions at the Borders of History, Re-significance of Media Technologies From Latin America”, I have been working in the content design of the Latin American Forum in the framework of the ISEA from 2010 to 2012. This has been of great value to contextualize my theoretical and historical research about the relationship between art, science and technology in Latin America. Special attention will be paid to the Latin American Forum 2012. Some of the conceptual nodes of the Latin American Forum were the history of cybernetics in Latin America, balloons and collaborative mapping, open labs in post digital times and the history of Native American Code Talkers.
Bio:
Andres Burbano, originally from Colombia, explores the interactions of science, art and technology in various capacities: as a researcher, as an individual artist and in collaborations with other artists and designers. Burbano’s work ranges from documentary video (in both science and art), sound and telecommunication art to the exploration of algorithmic cinematic narratives. The broad spectrum of his work illustrates the importance - indeed, the prevalence - of interdisciplinary collaborative work in the field of digital art.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Monday, December 17, 10-11am
Location: Elings Hall Conference Room, room 2003 (CNSI)
Media artists are increasingly involved in projects that have significant scientific or engineering components that require collaboration with engineers, designers, and scientists. These collaborations offer the media artist opportunities to work with emerging media and to influence projects that may have far-reaching effects on research practice and policy. However, they also encourage media artists to take on new practical roles that may compromise creative agendas. Media arts practice often includes activities that may be at odds with the goals of empirically-oriented research, such as experimenting with representation, challenging cultural assumptions, and questioning the meaning and impacts of technology and innovation. This dissertation investigates the following question: what methodologies effectively enable media artists to function both pragmatically and creatively within interdisciplinary research projects? To answer this question, I propose framing media arts activities in terms of the following methodological themes: generation, augmentation, provocation, and mediation. I present a series of collaborative art works and research projects, including Data Flow, Fluid Automata, Information Poems, Annular Genealogy, and Natural Material Browser, as case studies that elucidate these themes. I contend that these overlapping themes more accurately describe the creative activities of media artists, and moreover that they provide an effective way for explaining the emerging roles of the media artist when integrating creative arts practices into interdisciplinary research projects.
Speaker: Timo Honkela, Professor of Information and Computer Science, Aalto University School of Science, Finland
Time: Tuesday, December 4, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Human visual system interprets information obtained through eyes to build a representation of the surrounding world. This channel is our main source for understanding the world. Walking on a street, reading a book, or watching a movie all rely on our visual system. The relationship between movement, visual perception and language is complex. Movement is a specific focus of this presentation for several reasons. It is a fundamental part of human activities that ground our understanding of the world. Abstract meanings are often constructed as metaphoric extensions of movement schemas. As there is an increasing amount of video and motion tracking data available, formation of semantic models based on movement using computational methods is becoming feasible. In addition to movement, multilinguality and subjectivity of understanding are also addressed.
Bio:
Prof. Timo Honkela is currently a chief research scientist at the Department of Information and Computer Science, Aalto University School of Science. He is the head of the Computational Cognitive Systems research group. Earlier he has served as a professor at the laboratory of computer and information science at Helsinki University of Technology and as a professor at the Media Lab of University of Art and Design Helsinki. Honkela has published more than one hundred scientific publications in topics related to artificial and computational intelligence, cognitive modeling, natural language processing and text mining, including a central role in the development of the Websom method for visual information retrieval. Honkela collaborated with Prof. George Legrady to produce Pockets Full of Memories, an interactive museum installation, the concept of which was created by Legrady. Honkela is a former chairman of the Finnish Artificial Intelligence Society and current vice-chair of Finnish Cognitive Linguistics Association. He is also the chair of the IFIP working group on knowledge representation and reasoning (WG 12.1) in which position he has initiated and chaired the AKRR conference series on adaptive knowledge representation and reasoning. He is a member of the executive committee of European Neural Network Society.
Links:
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Date: Monday, December 10
Time: 1pm
Location: Experimental Visualization Lab, room 2611, Elings Hall
Abstract:
"Check It Out" is a real-time interactive large-scale data visualization project. As datasets become bigger and more complicated, visualizing these data sets presents new challenges requiring innovative methods. As such, the importance of data visualization is increasingly growing in computer science, digital media art, and social science fields.
The goal of "Check It Out" was to create an innovative way of visualizing data in a three dimensional layout. It is designed to work equally well regardless of venue, from laptops and desktops to gallery-style installations with mobile device control and even large-scale immersive stereoscopic environments like the AlloSphere.
"Check It Out" computes statistics on lending histories, providing an anonymous visual and textual glimpse into the borrowing habits of patrons and their interests with an aesthetically compelling interactive visual representation. It is comprised of a central data visualization application, a MySQL database, and an iOS interface which allows the user to interact with the application using Open Sound Control(OSC). Instead of serving a static visualization, Check It Out encourages the audiences to dynamically query the dataset thus creating their own visualization on the fly, tailored to their interest. This visualization research uses over 60 million transactions of checked out items such as books, CDs and DVDs, by patrons of the Seattle Public Library acquired through the "Making Visible the Invisible" artwork.
Speaker: Carlos Gonzalez-Ochoa.
Time: Tuesday, November 27, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
"Uncharted" is a series of action adventure games for the PS3 game console that present an interactive cinematic experience with dramatic action sequences driven by strong narrative. The games are distinguished by their well-loved characters and the myriad of locales with spectacular environments. Each game of the series has been highly critically acclaimed for the story, game-play and graphics.
In this talk, I will describe part of the technical process used by Naughty Dog to produce the game; starting from story, concept art and design, to the production of assets, to the final rendering using a highly optimized game engine. I will also discuss some of the environmental effects of the game engine, focusing mainly on the water rendering engine and how it was used in several levels of the game.
Bio:
Carlos Gonzalez-Ochoa works at Naughty Dog, Inc. as a graphics programmer. Here he develops all sort of graphics tools and runtime systems, and has worked in all the games of the Uncharted series. Previously he worked in visual effects and animation at Sony Imageworks and Disney Feature Animation. His film credits include "Cast Away", "Reign of Fire", and "Chicken Little". He holds both a Masters and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University.
Links:
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speakers: Perry Cook and Ajay Kapur.
Time: Tuesday, November 20, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 1001
Abstract:
With advances in algorithms for sound synthesis and processing, combined with inexpensive computational hardware and sensors, we can now easily build new types of musical instruments, and other real-time interactive expressive devices. These new ‘‘instruments’’ can leverage and extend the expertise of virtuoso performers, expand the palette of sounds available to composers, and encourage new ideas and participation from the young or the musically untrained. These new expressive devices can be expansions of traditional musical instruments, whimsical objects made by augmenting everyday nonmusical objects, or entirely new paradigms for making and controlling sound and graphics. Wired and wireless networking can provide opportunities, yet pose significant challenges, for new forms of group or ‘‘orchestral’’ expression. This talk will look at a variety of new devices, projects, and ensembles created over the last decade or so at Princeton, Stanford, Cal Arts, and elsewhere. Particular emphasis will be given how these have been used to engage students in projects outside of their discipline of focus, whether it be teaching engineering students about music, sound, and user-interface design, or teaching music and art majors about programming, algorithms, networking, and other hard-core computer science topics. Lots of audio/video examples, as well as actual live demonstratons, will be presented.
Bio:
Perry R. Cook attended the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory of Music from 1973 to 1977, studying voice and electronic music. He worked as a sound engineer and designer from 1976 – 1981. He received a BA in music in 1985, and a BS in Electrical Engineering in 1986 from UMKC. He received a Masters and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford in 1990. Along with working for companies such as NeXT Inc., Media Vision, Xenon/Chromatic, and Interval Research, he continued at Stanford as Technical Director of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, until joining the faculty of Princeton University in 1996 as a Professor of Computer Science, with a joint appointment in Music.
Cook has published over 200 technical and music papers, books, and book chapters, and presented lectures throughout the world on the acoustics of the voice and musical instrument simulation, human perception of sound, and interactive devices for expressive musical performance. He is also the author of the Synthesis Toolkit in C++ (STK), and co-author of the ChucK audio programming language. He has performed as a vocal soloist and as a computer musician throughout the world, and has recorded Compact Disks on the Lyricord Early Music Series Record Label with the vocal group Schola Discantus, and live electronic music with the group Interface on the Cycling 74 label. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship, to write a book on the subject of Technology and the Voice. Along with Princeton Music Professor Dan Trueman, Cook is the co-founder/director of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), which received a 2008 Digital Learning Initiative grant from the MacArthur Foundation. In January of 2009 Cook was named a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, for his contributions to Computer Music, Physics-Based Sound Synthesis, and Voice Analysis/Synthesis. He is now Emeritus Professor at Princeton, and holds faculty/arts fellowships at Arizona State University, California Institute of the Arts, and Stanford CCRMA. Cook is a founding advisor and consultant to the mobile App startup SMule, and lives in Southern Oregon where, at his Humbug Sonic Arts, he researches, writes, composes, farms sunlight, and eats lots of locally grown organic food.
Ajay Kapur is currently the Director of the Music Technology program (MTIID) at the California Institute of the Arts, as well as the Associiate Dean for Research and Development in Digital Arts. He is also a Senior Lecturer of Sonic Arts at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University of Wellington. He received an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in 2007 from University of Victoria combining computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, music and psychology with a focus on intelligent music systems and media technology. Ajay graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University in 2002. He has been educated by music technology leaders including Dr. Perry R. Cook, Dr. George Tzanetakis, and Dr. Andrew Schloss, combined with mentorship from robotic musical instrument sculptors Eric Singer and the world famous Trimpin. A musician at heart trained on drumset, tabla, sitar and other percussion instruments from around the world, Ajay strives to push the technological barrier in order to explore new sounds, rhythms and melodies.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Andres Cabrera, Lecturer, Media Arts and Technology, UC Santa Barbara.
Time: Tuesday, November 13, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
The concept of auditory source width emerges from the study of concert hall acoustics to describe the apparent widening of the sound from the stage, as perceived by the audience. This widening, together with a related but different phenomenon called Listener Envelopment are considered desirable acoustical attributes in concert halls. These terms have been borrowed and adapted to describe the perception of width and envelopment in multi-channel reproduction. This talk will address the perception of width in these environments, along with discussions of techniques to increase or “enhance” source width.
Bio:
Andres Cabrera is a programmer, musician and audio engineer focused in spatial audio and audio software tool development. He recently started lecturing in University of California Santa Barbara after completing his PhD in Queen’s University Belfast under the supervision of Gary Kendall and Stéphanie Bertet, where he developed a technique for decorrelation to increase source width in multi-channel systems. He has been a long time contributor to the Csound language, and has developed the CsoundQt development environment for interactive control and scripting of Csound.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Date: Wednesday, November 14, 8pm
Location: Lotte Lehmann Convert Hall
$15 General Admission, $7 Students. Tickets can be purchased in advance at www.music.ucsb.edu.
Speaker: Sekhar Ramakrishnan, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland.
Time: Tuesday, November 6, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
I will present ideas from a variety of topics — sound installation, sound spatialization, data sonification, the theory and implementation of programming languages — illustrated with examples from projects I have been involved with. Along the way, we might encounter digressions into the domains such as the mathematical theory of information and ancient numerical systems.
Bio:
Chandrasekhar Ramakrishnan is a sound artist and software engineer. He studied mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. 1997) and Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (M.A. 2003). In 2003 – 2004, he was a fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. There, he was part of a team that collaborated with the late Max Neuhaus to realize Auracle, a distributed sound installation on the Internet. From 2004 – 2008, he was a researcher at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) | Karlsruhe. At ZKM he worked on the Klangdom, a concert sound spatialization system, and developed the Zirkonium software, which was awarded second prize in the Lomus 2008 open-source music software competition. In 2008 – 2009, he was an artist-in-lab in Prof. J. Gutknecht’s Native Systems Group at ETH Zürich. He currently works at ETH Zürich implementing data management software for systems biology research. He lives in Zürich, Switzerland with his wife and children.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Heather Jeno Silva, Forum Lounge Curator, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum.
Time: Tuesday, October 30, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
In this presentation, I will discuss the curatorial perspective of presenting time-based art, including the role of the curator as collaborator, advocate, producer and cultural interpreter. By including examples of past artist collaborators, I also plan to shed light on the qualities of time-based art that make it most appropriate for public presentation in both gallery and museum settings.
Bio:
Heather Jeno Silva is an art critic and independent curator residing in Santa Barbara, CA. Silva received her M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California in 2003 and has variety of experience in curatorial work, including the USC Fisher Gallery and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her curatorial experience includes the group exhibitions Unusual Behavior at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum and Fast Forward for the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission featuring contemporary works of artists in the Barry Berkus Collection at the Channing Peake Gallery, among others.
Silva’s art criticism has appeared in numerous print and online publications, including various exhibition catalogs, art.blogging.la, RiM Magazine, the Santa Barbara New Press, and the Pasadena Weekly among others. She was a contributing writer for Flavorpill Los Angeles and THE Magazine and wrote a column, Off the Wall, about visual art in unconventional venues for the Santa Barbara Independent. She is currently the Programming Manager for the Arts & Lectures performing arts program at UCSB. Silva also curates the Forum Lounge, a monthly public program at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum that features contemporary performance art, film, and multimedia events.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Kyle McDonald, Media Artist.
Time: Tuesday, October 23, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Elings Hall, room 1601
Abstract:
This is a discussion about sharing. Sharing code and ideas, and collaborating on artwork. Sharing personal information, and learning about the difference between what’s public and private. It’s about what you do when your girlfriend asks you to stop posting everything you type directly to Twitter. It’s about what you do when the Secret Service confiscates your laptop as you’re trying to learn about human computer interaction. It’s about responding to thousands of emails from people you’ve never met, who have questions you could never imagine. This is a discussion about the future of creativity.
Bio:
Kyle McDonald is a media artist who works with code, with a background in philosophy and computer science. He creates intricate systems with playful realizations, sharing the source and challenging others to create and contribute. Kyle is a regular collaborator on arts-engineering initiatives such as openFrameworks, having developed a number of extensions which provide connectivity to powerful image processing and computer vision libraries. For the past few years, Kyle has applied these techniques to problems in 3D sensing, for interaction and visualization, starting with structured light techniques, and later the Kinect. Kyle’s work ranges from hyper-formal glitch experiments to tactical and interrogative installations and performance. He was recently Guest Researcher in residence at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan, and is currently teaching at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speakers: Jeffrey Treviño, Trevor Baca and Josiah Wolf Oberholtzer.
Time: Monday, October 15, 2-4pm
Location: Music Building, room 2215
Abstract:
Abjad is an interactive software system designed to help composers, music theorists and musicologists build up complex pieces of music notation in an iterative and incremental way. Abjad is implemented in the Python programming language and architected as an interrelated collection of packages, classes and functions. Users can visualize their work as publication-quality score at all stages of the composition process using Abjad’s interface to the LilyPond music notation package. Abjad is open-source software available for download from Google Code.
Website: http://packages.python.org/Abjad
Speaker: Daniel Vaquero, PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Time: Tuesday, October 16, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Elings Hall, room 1605
Abstract:
We present novel camera technology that explores contextual information silently gathered while the user is attempting to frame a shot. The camera employs computer vision and computational photography techniques to automatically generate a wide range of interesting and compelling photo suggestions. Applications include improving the aesthetic quality of photographs taken by the user, as well as explorations in media arts created by combining multiple images. Our technology can be integrated into current point-and-shoot cameras, and it effectively expands the photographic possibilities for casual and amateur users, who often rely on automatic camera modes.
Bio:
Daniel Vaquero received a PhD degree from the Department of Computer Science, University of California, Santa Barbara. Throughout his doctoral studies, Daniel held research internship positions at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, IBM Research, and the Nokia Research Center, where he worked on novel computational photography and surveillance techniques. Daniel’s research has been featured in major Computer Vision and Graphics conferences, such as CVPR, ICCV and SIGGRAPH. His interests span topics in computer vision, graphics, and image processing, with applications in computational photography and visual surveillance.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Marc Böhlen, Associate Professor, Center for the Arts, University at Buffalo (SUNY).
Time: Tuesday, October 9, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Qualculation (Law&Callon2003, Thrift2004) is often defined as the sum of second order effects and unintended consequences in everyday life of pervasive computing on massive scales. RealTechSupport understands qualculation as a design challenge. In this talk I will discuss several projects that take an active role in the making of qualculation. In particular I will discuss recent and ongoing work in the area of site specific urban environment monitoring that creates new relationships between numerical systems and the complex living things they intend to represent.
Bio:
Artist-Engineer Marc Böhlen, aka RealTechSupport (CH/US) offers the kind of support technology really needs. Böhlen designs and builds information processing systems that critically reflect on information as a cultural value. His projects query the relationship between people and automation systems in fundamental ways. Böhlen is Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo. His work has been shown in exhibits, museums and galleries around the world, including VIDA and Ars Electronica.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: David Rosenboom - Composer/Performer - Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music. Dean, The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts.
Time: Tuesday, October 2, 5:30-6:45pm
Location: Elings Hall, room 1601
Abstract:
Tracing thought pathways connecting interstellar communication with apprehending musical forms, Rosenboom will discuss selected examples from his work over four decades that explore emerging principles of interactivity-music of many nows, emphasizing those that have employed technology to materialize or mediate propositional models of morphogenesis in music and media. Descriptions of current projects and speculations on non-ergodic excursions into adjacent possible futures will be included.
Bio:
David Rosenboom (born 1947 in Fairfield, Iowa) is a composer, performer, interdisciplinary artist, author and educator known as a pioneer in American experimental music. During his long career, he has explored ideas about the spontaneous evolution of musical forms, languages for improvisation, new techniques in scoring for ensembles, multi-disciplinary composition and performance, cross-cultural collaborations, performance art and literature, interactive multi-media and new instrument technologies, generative algorithmic systems, art-science research and philosophy, and extended musical interface with the human nervous system. He holds the Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music at California Institute of the Arts where he is Dean of The Herb Alpert School of Music and serves as a board member of the Center for New Performance. He taught at Mills College from 1979 to 1990 where he held the Darius Milhaud Chair and was Professor of Music, Head of the Music Department, and Director of the Center for Contemporary Music,. He studied at the University of Illinois, where he was later awarded the George A. Miller Professorship as a visiting artist, and has held positions at the Center for Creative and Performing Arts in the State University of New York at Buffalo, York University in Toronto, Bard College, Simon Fraser University, San Francisco Art Institute, California College of Arts and Crafts, Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale, and Ionian University in Greece. His work is widely presented around the world.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Friday, July 27, 12-2pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
In the interactive computer arts, any advance that amplifies or extends the limits and capacities of software enables genuinely novel aesthetic experiences. Within compute-intensive media arts, flexibility is often sacrificed for needs of efficiency, through the total separation of machine code optimization and run-time execution. Compromises based on modular run-time combinations of prior-optimized ‘black box’ components confine results to a pre-defined palette with less computational efficiency overall: limiting the open-endedness of development environments and the generative scope of artworks. The dissertation demonstrates how the trade-off between flexibility and efficiency can be relaxed using reflective meta-programming and dynamic compilation: extending a program with new efficient routines while it runs. It promises benefits of more open-ended real-time systems, more complex algorithms, richer media, and ultimately unprecedented aesthetic experiences.
The dissertation charts the significant differences that this approach implies for interactive computational arts, builds a conceptual framework of techniques and requirements to respond to its challenges, and documents supporting implementations in two specific scenarios. The first concentrates on open-ended creativity support within always-on authoring environments for studio work and live coding performance, while the second concerns the open-endedness of generative art through interactive, immersive artificial-life worlds.
Website: www.grahamwakefield.net
Speakers: D.V. Rogers, Seismic Artist, and Ryan McGee, PhD Student, University of California, Santa Barbara
Time: Tuesday, June 5, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
David will give an overview of the Parkfield Interventional EQ Fieldwork (PIEQF), a seismic machine earthwork that took place in the remote town of Parkfield in 2008. Located on the central section of the San Andreas fault, the part machine, part earthwork, part performance of PIEQF reflected Californian micro-seismic events for a continuous period of 91 days. Currently artist in resident at Allosphere, and collaborating with Ryan McGee, this presentation will also present findings of research being undertaken in the field of auditory display which focuses on the sonification of seismic waveform data.
Bios:
Australian-based New Zealander D.V. Rogers is an installation-based, performance artist-engineer working between the fields of geophysics, conceptual cultural theory, activism, performance, systems engineering, and social commentary. During 2007-2008 he was artist-in-residence at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California. His work attempts to link the earth sciences and art towards broadening the reach of earthquake awareness and preparedness using contemporary cultural models.
Ryan Michael McGee is a hybrid engineer working at intersections of music composition, signal processing, data mining, and interactivity. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Media Arts and Technology at UCSB, exploring new paradigms for sound spatialization and sonification.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Friday, June 8, 1-3pm
Location: Experimental Visualization Lab, room 2611, Elings Hall
Analysis and synthesis (A/S) approaches are common in multimedia signal processing. Reducing a signal to its constituent parts is attractive because once the signal is analyzed, the set of extracted parameters can be more convenient for storage, finite length representation, transmission or manipulation than the signal in its original form. The community of audio artists have adopted (A/S) techniques as an important part of their arsenal of technological tools for the creative manipulation of sounds. Parameters can be altered before the synthesis, generating sophisticated sound effects while maintaining the identity of the original signal. Tools such as the tracking phase vocoder allow musicians to manipulate pitch and duration independently or to combine two signals in exotic ways (cross-synthesis). However, a similar emphasis has yet to be pursued for the creative manipulation of video signals. This dissertation describes how (A/S) approaches can be used to obtain non-photorealistic representations from live video. Algorithms are designed to overcome problems like temporal coherence and to extend concepts like cross-synthesis of two video signals. The creative and narrative possibilities of the developed techniques are used to compose complete pieces divided between short animations and real time installations. Details on the design and implementation of those pieces are included in this document. The pieces, together with the different examples used through the dissertation, illustrate the versatility and control that can be obtained with (A/S) approaches and confirm that these sets of techniques can be considered for the creative manipulation of video data.
Speaker: Chi-wang Yang, Independent Artist, Cloud Eye Control
Time: Tuesday, May 22, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Digital media is leaping out from the confines of screen and speaker, re-writing the dramaturgical playbook of live performance. This space of colliding bits and bodies is the milieu out of which my work arises. In my hybrid-theater works, the deep integration of media/technology and live performance presents many interesting artistic and cultural challenges. My presentation will look at the work of Cloud Eye Control, a new media performance collective which I co-founded with animator Miwa Matreyek and musician Anna Oxygen. I will also discuss The Closest Farthest Away (La Entrañable Lejanía), a groundbreaking international collaboration between American and Cuban artists. Using those projects as a lens, I’ll discuss issues pertaining to creative process, tools and technology, interdisciplinary collaboration, cultural exchange, and audience experience.
Bio:
Chi-wang Yang is a Los Angeles-based director of theater and performance. Whether in the form of plays, operas, concerts, or installation, his work is intensely physical, experimental, and collaborative. He is committed to expanding notions of identity and theatrical form and to exploring the unstable intersections of body, narrative and technology.
Yang is a founding member of performance collective Cloud Eye Control, whose technology-infused productions integrate live theater, animation, and music. His work has been presented at theaters and galleries internationally, including REDCAT, LACMA, Time-Based Arts Festival, Fusebox Festival, EXIT Festival (Paris), and the Havana International Film Festival. He received his MFA in Theater Directing and Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts, where he currently teaches, and his BA from Brown University. More information on his work can be found at http://mysteriously.org.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Date: Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Reception: 6-9pm
Reviews: 10am-5pm
Location: Elings Hall, UC Santa Barbara
Map: www.cnsi.ucsb.edu/visitor
 |
 |
Please join us for our annual display of Master’s and Doctoral student work in Media Arts and Technology. Come experience the Allosphere, interactive installations, live audio-visual performances and screenings.
A reception with faculty and students, live performances and Allosphere tours will be held from 6pm to 9pm.
Speakers: George Legrady, Professor, Media Arts and Technology and Department of Art, and students Josh Dickinson and Ryan McGee, Media Arts and Technology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Time: Tuesday, May 15, 5:30-7:30pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
The presentation will describe the "Voice of Sysiphus" multimedia installation which consists of a projection of a black and white image sonified and spatialized through a 4 channel audio system. The audio-visual composition unfolds as several regions within the image are filtered, subdivided, and repositioned over time. George Legrady will provide the background and conceptual development, Ryan MGee will discuss the signal processing and spatialization engineering component, and Joshua Dickinson will describe the sound composition.
Bios:
George Legrady is director of the Experimental Visualization Lab in the Media Arts & Technology program at UC Santa Barbara. He holds a joint appointment as Professor of Media Arts in the MAT and Department of Art. He is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of interactive digital media arts.
Ryan Michael McGee is a hybrid engineer working at intersections of music composition, signal processing, data mining, and interactivity. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Media Arts and Technology at UCSB, exploring new paradigms for sound spatialization and sonification.
Joshua Dickinson is a student in MAT and an electronic composer.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Rebecca Allen, Professor, Design | Media Arts, University of California, Los Angeles
Time: Tuesday, May 8, 5:30-7:30pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
The 21st century has brought a new level of discourse about simulation and the constructed nature of reality and self. As we view ourselves as decentralized, multiple selves there is increasing awareness that we exist in a liminal world; a world that merges the physical and virtual and allows us to simultaneously be both here and there.
Mobile devices and the mobile experiences that drive them point to this new sense of reality. There is an opportunity to design holistic experiences that will seamlessly integrate the virtual with the real world, and profoundly change our ways of communicating, learning, playing and, ultimately, our perception of reality.
Examples of cross disciplinary research that show new forms of wearable devices, novel interfaces, art and entertainment experiences will serve as points of discussion.
Bio:
Over the past three decades Rebecca Allen has been recognized internationally for her groundbreaking work in media art, design and technology research. Her work pushes the boundary of creative expression utilizing cutting-edge technology in areas of mobile media design, virtual and augmented reality, video games, wearable computing, large-scale performance and experience design.
Rebecca was Director of Nokia Research Center Hollywood until early 2012. She and her teams designed and built prototypes of future mobile media experiences and novel interfaces. She is professor of Design | Media Arts at UCLA and was founding Chair of the department. Previous positions include: Design Manager and co-inventor of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) award-winning XO laptop; Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Liminal Devices research group at MIT Media Lab Europe; founding Director of the Intel funded UCLA research group called Emergence; Creative Director and 3D visionary for video game company Virgin Interactive Entertainment; Senior Researcher at the renowned NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory, and Researcher at MIT Architecture Machine Group (predecessor of MIT Media Lab).
Allen has collaborated with artists such as Kraftwerk, Mark Mothersbough (Devo), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Peter Gabriel, Carter Burwell, Twyla Tharp and Joffrey Ballet. Clients include Time Warner, Island, Mattel, Philips, Nintendo, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS/Nova, BBC, TVE (Spain), Taejon World Expo, Seville World Expo, Apple and DARPA. Her artwork is part of the permanent collection of Centre Georges Pompidou, the Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art, NY. Numerous art and design awards include an Emmy. Rebecca was listed in Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2010.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Polona Tratnik, Artist, Postdoc, University of California, Santa Cruz
Time: Tuesday, May 1, 5:30-7:30pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
The raise of biotechnology in the last two decades certifies the extent of biopolitics beyond compare to biological modernity, which supports new possibilities of gaining total control over life and body. With the turn of the millennium a genetic paradigm accordant to computer paradigm in culture had been withdrawing and the regenerative paradigm has come in the foreground. Tissue engineering has presented new hopes of life sciences in the last decade. Current paradigm of biotechnology is oriented to manipulation with body’s own cells for composition or regeneration of tissues or other bodily parts, with special, increasingly stronger interest for stem cells. In life sciences and in Western medical thought and practice a turn is taking place, yet very slowly, from mechanical paradigm or the paradigm of artificial body to the paradigm of the auto-regenerative body.
Bio:
Polona Tratnik, research associate and docent at University of Primorska, Science and Research Centre & Faculty of Humanities in Slovenia, in 2012 research associate at University of California Santa Cruz as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar and Professor. She is director of Horizonti institute, president of Slovenian Society of Aesthetics, and was art director of the Break 2.3 festival New Species (2005). Her monographs include: In Vitro. The Living Beyond Body and Art (2010), Transart. Culture and Art in Global Conditions (2010), The End of Art. Genealogy of Modern Discourse: from Hegel to Danto (2009), Art: Resistance, Subversion, Madness (ed., 2009). She is a pioneer bio artist working with human living material and participated among others at: Ars Electronica (Linz, 2008), Bios 4 (Sevilla, 2007), Vitrti (Antwerpen, 2007), In Vivo in Vitro (Athens, 2006), Biennial for Electronic Arts (Perth, 2004), L’Art Biotech (Nantes, 2003).
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Albert Gräf, Lecturer, Computer Music, Institute of Musicology, Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) in Mainz, Germany
Time: Tuesday, April 24, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
In recent years there have been many advances in functional programming tools for computer music and signal processing applications. One notable example is Yann Orlarey’s functional DSP programming language Faust (http://faust.grame.fr). Faust makes it easy to specify custom signal processing components for software instruments and effects in a completely abstract and device-independent way, which can then be compiled to native code ready to run in a large variety of different signal processing environments. In this talk Dr. Gräf presents latest work on the Pd-Faust interface which turns Miller Puckette’s graphical computer music system Pd into an integrated development environment for Faust signal processors. This includes capabilities such as dynamic reloading and live-coding of Faust programs, automatic and instant generation of graphical user interfaces inside Pd, as well as automatic mapping of MIDI and OSC controllers and OSC-based controller automation. The system is written in the author’s Pure programming language which has interfaces to both Faust and Pd and is compiled to native code, so that it offers the efficiency and performance required to operate in a realtime environment.
Bio:
Albert Gräf studied mathematics and computer science at Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) in Mainz, Germany, and holds a PhD (summa cum laude) in mathematics from JGU. Since 1998 he is head of the Computer Music department at the Institute of Musicology of JGU, where he teaches computer music and systematic musicology to students of computer science, mathematics, media, music and musicology. His research interests include the mathematical theory of music as well as the design and implementation of functional programming languages for media applications. He collaborates with Grame (Lyon, France) and CCRMA (Stanford) on the further development of the Faust language and is author of the Pure programming language and various Faust components.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Benjamin Bratton, Associate Professor of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego
Time: Tuesday, April 17, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
In an age of planetary-scale computation, what is the future of sovereign geography? As it is conditioned by globalization, localization, and intermediate zonal regionalisms, by spaces absorbed by networks and networks absorbed by citadels, will some other, unknown political geometry come to enact and enforce the necessary partitions and brackets (border, wall, law, identity) that would program the world according to its alternative plan, and plan it according to its program? For the citizen-subject-user-agent of that future, how can sovereignty itself be redesigned as the organization of another cosmopolitics, another geography, and another world that is not only possible but even inevitable? These questions are posed in anticipation of an opening-to-come, another "Copernican" transformation of the spatial order that would emerge both in resemblance and against the image of planetary-scale computation as we currently understand it. We may not have to wait. Geographies that were comfortable and doxic are now transient and alien, inhabited weirdly.
Lines are rewritten, dashed, curved, erased, automated (becoming frame then topography) The opposition of chthonic and geometric territorialization is collapsed into computation: the algorithmic is accounted for as a means of continental divide Interfaces multiply into networks which multiply into territories which multiply into geoscapes: territories comprised of territories (made and so entered into, not entered into and so made) The embedded is mobilized and the liquid is tethered-down into shelter, infrastructure. Jurisdictional territories are multiplied from flat planes into towered, interwoven stacks. The opaque is transcribed and the transparent is theatricalized, staged, artificialized. The enclave, the diaspora, the satellite, and ex-patriot allegiances are formalized, The futurist and the medievalist scenarios confiscate supercomputational utopias, one from another.
The incomplete(able) comprehensiveness of Earth’s archives are folded back upon themselves as a promiscuous, ambient cosmopolitics. The Stack is assembled as the blur infrastructure of a world recomposed (our pharmakon — both remedy and poison).
Bio:
Benjamin H. Bratton is a sociological, media, and design theorist. He is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and Director of the Center for Design and Geopolitics at the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology. His work sits at the intersections of contemporary social and political theory, computational media and infrastructure, and architectural and urban design problems and methodologies. Current research interests include: the philosophical problematics of the interfaciality, digital urbanism and media architecture, contemporary continental philosophy and aesthetic theory, the history and future of political geography, models of computational ecological governance, organizational theory, and speculative interaction, interface, and systems design.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Nathalie Riche, Researcher, Microsoft
Time: Tuesday, April 10, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 1001
Abstract:
Collecting data to understand how people communicate, collaborate, what information they exchange, what role they play in social groups has been tremendously simplified with the popularity of online networking systems such as Friendster, LinkedIn, or Facebook. Compared to data collected through polls and interviews, collected networks require less processing as they are directly stored digitally and open new opportunities for social scientists as they are far larger and often contain much richer information. However, this avalanche of data raises new challenges for their analysis: tools need to support a very large amount of data often evolving through time.
As human brain is particularly effective at processing visual information, researchers in computer science developed a number of visual exploration system to analyze graphs and networks. In the last five years, an increasing part of the research in information visualization focused on graph visualization, tackling the problem from novel angles. Our research focused on alternative representations to node-link diagrams, supporting the analysis of denser networks as well as novel interaction techniques to scale to larger datasets. In this talk, I will present an overview of these novel visual exploration systems.
Bio:
Nathalie is a researcher at Microsoft Research since december 2008. Her interests lie in the visual exploration of graphs and networks, visualization of groups, interactive graph navigation techniques and evaluation methods for information visualization. She completed her Ph.D on the visual exploration of social networks in 2008, supervised by Pr. Jean-Daniel Fekete in France and Pr. Peter Eades in Australia.
Exciting projects she is involved in at MSR include the visualization of heterogeneous networks (multiple types of nodes and edges), the visualization of networks evolving over time, and taking advantage of natural user interactions (sketch, natural language) to create and interact with visualizations.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Thursday, April 12, 8pm
Location: Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall
Speaker: Jean-Pierre Hébert, Independent Artist
Time: Tuesday, April 3, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 1001
Abstract:
For forty years, I have written code to create algorithmic sketches and drawings that I render with devices across different media – but always lines, the stuff of drawings. I will relate my experience with the related media, art and technology as they evolved and how their changes impacted my work, or did not. I will reflect on the interrelationship between art, science, algorithms as it lives in my work, and as I feel it observing other artists’ works. To conclude I will present my deep belief that in the media-art-technology trilogy, art – for whatever that is for me – must always prevail and drive, so that the forrest can be prevented from hiding the tree.
Bio:
For almost forty years Hébert has been exploring the creative possibilities of algorithmics, mathematics, and physics. He uses software, hardware, and improvised devices to compose motifs and to mark paper, copper, or sand with ink, lead, or stylus. The early work was essentially drawings on paper, and has since evolved to embrace printmaking, installations, digital wall displays. The initial obsession with precise line constructions has opened up to chance, motion, light, sound, text. The aim remains quiet beauty and peaceful meditation. His work has been shown extensively in the US and EU since 1989 and has received a PollockKrasner Award. Since 2003 Hébert has been Artist in Residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He is often engaged in collaborations with physicists, engineers and artists on campus and in the community. He currently works on upcoming installations involving sand, water, light, sound, and on artists’ books.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Jatila van der Veen, University of California, Santa Barbara
Time: Tuesday, March 13, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Although research in psychology and neuroscience suggests a correlation between arts and sciences in the way people learn, the prevailing paradigm in education is to treat arts and sciences as completely separate cognitive domains. I suggest that this arts-sciences segregation in our educational system may be contributing to the persistent fear of math and physics in society. An intervention which is based on multimodal learning strategies of arts and sciences may be a hopeful way to overcome this fear. I suggest that the concept of symmetry, which is at the heart of our understanding of the laws of nature, and which is embedded in our perception of aesthetics, offers a common talking point from which to design such a new educational paradigm.
In this talk I will discuss my course, Symmetry and Aesthetics in Contemporary Physics, as an intervention at the undergraduate level, with potential applications in graduate education, K-12 education, and teacher preparation. I will present an overview of the course, some positive results of using drawing for understanding in physics education, as well as some of the difficulties I have encountered in attempting to overcome resistance to this model. Finally, I will discuss implications for ongoing research in how people learn, as well as implications for redesigning how we conceptualize education.
This work has been supported by NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Planck Mission.
Bio:
Dr. Jatila van der Veen is a Research Associate in the Lubin Experimental Cosmology Lab, under a NASA grant, as the Education Coordinator for the International Planck Mission. She is also a Lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Studies program of the College of Creative Studies.
Her Masters and "ABD" are in geophysics from Columbia University, and her Ph.D. is in Physics Education from UCSB. She has worked in industry as a geophysicist, in education as a physics teacher in high school, lecturer in physics at UCSB, and after obtaining her Ph.D. in Education at UCSB she has been teaching and doing research in the use of visualization in teaching physics. This work extends from the simple use of drawing for understanding in physics to teaching astronomy in virtual immersive spaces to visualization and sonification of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which she has been working on with Ph.D. students in the MAT program.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Wednesday, March 14, 4-5pm
Location: Elings Hall, Room 2611
How to make the invisible visible, how to make the inaudible audible, those are already classical questions on the visualization or sonification of information fields that are strong components of our Media Arts and Technology doctoral program. Inspired by such ideas I decided to relocate those questions in a broader conceptual scenario, the idea is to place them on the field of history of media technology, therefore the questions should be formulated like: how to make visible an invisible story, how to make audible an inaudible story. Those are the questions that I have been confronting the last years during the research process that is culminating now with this doctoral dissertation. This dissertation investigates why and how influential sonic, visual and computational technologies like photography, color television and computer music appeared in Latin America in parallel with mainstream technologies that are more widely known.
Speaker: Ken Goldberg, Professor of New Media, IEOR and EECS, College of Engineering and School of Information, UC Berkeley
Time: Tuesday, March 6, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Heidegger’s 1954 definition of technology as "non-technological" anticipates technologies such as nanotechnology, stem cells, and robots. Ken Goldberg will present recent research and selected artworks involving robotic systems. These include work on "superhuman" surgery, cloud-based grasping, and several art installations including a site-specific acoustic installation at Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.
Bio:
Ken Goldberg is an artist, engineer, and Craigslist Distinguished Professor of New Media at UC Berkeley. His artwork has been exhibited at Ars Electronica, ZKM, Centre Pompidou, ICC Biennale, Kwangju Biennale, Artists Space, The Kitchen, and the Whitney Biennial.
Website: goldberg.berkeley.edu/art
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speakers: Andres Burbano, Danny Bazo, Solen Kiratli DiCicco, University of California, Santa Barbara
Time: Tuesday, February 28, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
"The New Dunites" is a site-specific research project in the arts investigating a culturally unique and biologically diverse geographic site located on California’s Central Coast. The site and its history have many interesting components, such as a unique coastal dune ecology and biodiversity, and having been a communal home to a group of intellectuals in the 40s who called themselves "the Dunites" However, the most prominent of these components from a point of view of media archaeology is the site’s role in director Cecil B. Demille’s 1923 silent film "The Ten Commandments". Buried under these dunes are the dynamited remains of the set of this epic biblical spectacle. We are fascinated by the research possibilities that the site embodies: a unique combination of cinema and archaeology.
Throughout our process of research and implementation we have employed many tools and methodologies of the arts and sciences to investigate this land. In an attempt to articulate and mediate the interaction between humans and this special environment, our end product is the construction of an ecology of interfaces (from mobile device apps to gallery installations) which uses the data gathered by our explorations as their primary input. Our goal, as media artists and researchers, has been to create an alternative narrative of this wonderfully complex site through the usage of scientific data, historical facts, and artistic practice.
The New Dunites is funded by UCIRA (University of California Institute for Research in the Arts), and Fundación Telefónica (Spain).
Bios:
Andres Burbano, PhD Student, Media Arts and Technology, UCSB
Burbano, originally from Colombia, explores the interactions of science, art and technology in various capacities: as a researcher, as an individual artist and in collaborations with other artists and designers. Burbano’s work ranges from documentary video (in both science and art), sound and telecommunication art to the exploration of algorithmic cinematic narratives. The broad spectrum of his work illustrates the importance, indeed, the prevalence, of interdisciplinary collaborative work in the field of digital art. Andres Burbano is currently a PhD candidate of Media Arts and Technology at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Solen Kiratli DiCicco, PhD Student, Media Arts and Technology, UCSB
Solen is an architect, researcher and media artist. Her work is primarily concerned with the intersections of computational media processes and spatial practices. She holds a BSc in Architecture from Istanbul Technical University and an MArch from USC (University of Southern California). She has worked on several architectural projects in Los Angeles area. She is also the recipient of UCIRA Social Ecologies Grant, VIDA 13.0 Artistic Production Incentives, and IHC (Interdisciplinary Humanities Center) Media Arts Award.
Danny Bazo, PhD Student, Media Arts and Technology, UCSB
Danny’s research interests lie at the intersection of robotics and media arts, and are strongly informed by cybernetics, systems theory, and biologically-inspired engineering. Through the creation of robotic systems and environments, and through the analysis of historical and current representations of robotic beings in popular media such as cinema, television, and games, he aims to explore and illuminate the relationships between intelligence, physical embodiment, perception, awareness, and emotion. He has designed robotics and digital systems for arts and engineering projects in California, the United Kingdom, and Japan, and is currently a fellow of the Robert W. Deutsch foundation.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Edward A. Shanken, Professor, Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam
Time: Tuesday, February 21, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
The malleability of history is demonstrated by the many ways the canon of art history has been written and rewritten from the perspectives of ever-changing presents. But this is also a two way street. Just as every "now" arguably constructs an alternative "then," so every "then" constructs an alternative "now". Moreover, every alternative "now" and "then" establishes a particular foundation for imagining the future. This inevitably impacts the "nows" and "thens" to be; those that are yet to come. My talk will explore the relationship between history and the future in the narratives of art. I will share some examples from my work on the history of art and technology and from my current research on bridging the gap between mainstream contemporary art and new media art.
Bio:
Edward A. Shanken writes and teaches about the entwinement of art, science, and technology with a focus on interdisciplinary practices involving new media. He is a researcher at Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and a member of the Media Art History faculty at the Donau University in Krems, Austria. He was formerly Universitair Docent of New Media at UvA, Executive Director of the Information Science + Information Studies program at Duke University, and Professor of Art History and Media Theory at Savannah College of Art and Design. Recent and forthcoming publications include essays on art and software in the 1960s; sound art and ecology; art historiography; and bridging the gap between new media and contemporary art. His forthcoming book, Inventing the Future: Art, Electricity, New Media will be published in Spanish and Chinese in paper and e-text. He edited and wrote the introduction to a collection of essays by Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness (University of California Press, 2003).
His critically praised survey, Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon Press, 2009) has been expanded with an extensive, multimedia Online Companion: www.artelectronicmedia.com.
Website: www.artexetra.com
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland, College Park
Time: Tuesday, February 14, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Interactive information visualization tools provide researchers with remarkable capabilities to support discovery. These telescopes for high-dimensional data combine powerful statistical methods with user-controlled interfaces. Users can begin with an overview, zoom in on areas of interest, filter out unwanted items, and then click for details-on-demand. With careful design and efficient algorithms, the dynamic queries approach to data exploration can provide 100msec updates even for million-item visualizations that can represent billion-record databases.
This talk reviews the growing commercial success stories such as www.spotfire.com, www.smartmoney.com/marketmap and www.hivegroup.com. and research tools for time series data such as (www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/timesearcher ).
The central theme is the integration of statistics with visualization as applied to temporal event sequences such as electronic health records (www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/lifelines2 and www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/lifeflow) and social network data (www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/socialaction and www.codeplex.com/nodexl).
Bio:
Ben Shneiderman is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Founding Director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/) at the University of Maryland. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, ACM, and IEEE, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2010.
Ben is the co-author with Catherine Plaisant of Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (5th ed., 2010) http://www.awl.com/DTUI/. With Stu Card and Jock Mackinlay, he co-authored Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think (1999). With Ben Bederson he co-authored The Craft of Information Visualization (2003). His book Leonardo’s Laptop appeared in October 2002 (MIT Press) and won the IEEE book award for Distinguished Literary Contribution. His latest book, with Derek Hansen and Marc Smith, is Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL (www.codeplex.com/nodexl, 2010).
Website: www.cs.umd.edu/~ben
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Simon Penny, University of California, Irvine
Time: Tuesday, February 7, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Over 25 years, Penny has explored embodied interaction within hybrid robotic installations, variously deploying immersive technologies and custom hardware and software systems. The theoretical and philosophical tensions which lie at the heart of the the so called convergence of digital technologies and cultural practices were always a preoccupation and have led Penny through a phenomenological critique of AI into embodied cognition. The relevance of theories of embodied cognition to arts practices and in particular will be discussed in the context of presentation of several works.
Bio:
Simon Penny is an Australian practitioner in the fields of Digital Cultural Practices, Embodied Interaction and Interactive Art. His practice has included artistic practice, technical research, theoretical writing, pedagogy and institution building. Over the last twenty-five years, he has made interactive and robotic installations which address critical issues arising at the intersection of culture and technology, informed by traditions of practice in the arts including sculpture, video-art, installation and performance; and by theoretical research in enactive and embodied cognition, ethology, neurology, phenomenology, human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, robotics, critical theory, cultural and media studies. Informed by these sources, he designs and builds artworks utilising custom sensor and effector technologies. He built the autonomous robotic artwork Petit Mal in the early 1990s. His machine vision based interactive digital video work Fugitive was exhibited at the opening of the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1997. Traces ( a 3D machine vision driven CAVE immersive interactive) was presented at Ars Electronica in 1998. Fugitive Two was commissioned by the Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne Australia, in 2000, and premiered there in 2004. He has received funding and/or residencies from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Science and Art, ZKM, GMD, WDR, and other sources.
Penny has spoken widely internationally and published over 50 papers and essays on digital cultural practices, in several languages. He was director of Digital Arts and Culture conference 2009 (DAC09). He curated Machine Culture (arguably the first international survey of interactive art) at SIGGRAPH 93 and edited the associated catalog and anthology. He edited the anthology Critical Issues in Electronic Media (SUNY Press 1995). He was architect and founding director of the interdisciplinary graduate program in Arts, Computation and Engineering ( www.ace.uci.edu). He was Associate Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University (a joint appointment between the College of Fine Arts and the Robotics Institute) 1993-2001. He is a guest professor in the Interdisciplinary Master in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. He has served on juries, boards and review committees for the National Research Council of the National Academies, the Rockefeller Foundation, Daniel Langlois Foundation for Science and Art (Canada), the "VIDA" Art and Artifical Life Award of the Telefonica Foundation (Spain/Latin America), the Banff New Media Institute (Canada), the international board of ISEA and other bodies.
Website: simonpenny.net
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Monday, February 13, 4-5pm
Location: TBA
Abstract:
To date information and scientific visualizations have evolved into two sub disciplines of visualization that are quite distinct from each other. A separation between these fields was justified because of significant differences in the type of problems and the corresponding data sets tackled by each. This separation led to a gap between the software tools, hardware technologies and visual languages adopted. However, information visualization techniques can find appropriate uses in scientific visualization applications of high dimensional data sets that consist of physical/spatial/structural components and additional abstract dimensions. Similarly, 3D graphics rendering methods which are readily adopted in scientific visualizations, can be used to enhance 2D information visualizations for improved functionality. This thesis is motivated by the goal of developing synergy between scientific and information visualization, which would enable researchers and developers to build visualization tools that leverage the key advantages afforded by each of these sub-disciplines.
The goal of this thesis is to find appropriate uses for 3D graphics technologies within the bounds of 2D information visualizations. To this end, we examine: (i) the use of stereoscopic depth in 2D node-link diagrams to support adjacency and accessibility tasks; (ii) the use of lighting and shadows to improve the readability of overlapping set representations. Additionally, the goal is to also define novel interaction metaphors and interface solutions to bridge 2D and 3D visualizations. These are explored via two applications – (i) the integration of multiple displays to present 3D visualization on a large display and associated 2D textual information and/or visualizations on personal tablet devices, (ii) coordinated visualization of 3D structural networks and 2D abstract networks to support interpretation of these data sets in relation to each other.
Speaker: Roger Malina, Distinguished Professor of Arts and Technology, and Professor of Physics at the University of Texas, Dallas
Time: Tuesday, January 31, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
A recent series of National Science Foundation workshops have explored the useful links between Science and Engineering with the Arts and Design; among other ideas these discussions have fed into a national discussion of turning STEM into STEAM. As an astrophysicist with a long hybrid career in both science and in the arts and humanities I want to articulate some of the arguments for creating platforms that allow productive, two way, collaboration between experts in the arts and humanities with scientists. I will discuss examples of such initiatives internationally including the IMERA Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, and the new Art-Science program at the University of Texas, Dallas. I have recently been named Professor of Physics and Distinguished Chair of Arts and Technology in the School of Arts and Humanities and will be working on hard problems that require collaboration between the sciences with the arts and humanities.
Bio:
Roger Malina is an art-science researcher, astronomer and editor. He is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Technology and Professor of Physics at the University of Texas, Dallas; he is also Directeur de Recherche at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille and Executive Editor of the Leonardo Publications at MIT Press.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Harold Cohen, Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego
Time: Tuesday, January 24, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Harold Cohen began work on his acclaimed AARON program in the early 1970s, making it one of oldest continuously developing programs in history. During that period his relationship to the program has changed significantly. In this talk he discusses AARON’s developing role, from potentially autonomous artist to collaborator, in terms of the changing algorithmic strategies that have marked its development. And he offers some thoughts on the nature of algorithms and some tentative conclusions on the nature of computational creativity.
Bio:
Cohen, founding director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at UCSD, was an English painter with an established international reputation when he came to the U.S. in 1968 for what was intended as a one-year visiting professorship. His work on AARON began when he was a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1972-3. Together, Cohen and AARON have exhibited at London’s Tate Gallery, the L.A. County Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and many more of the world’s major art spaces. They have also been shown at a dozen science centers, including the Ontario Science Center, the Boston Science Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of Science and Industry. Cohen represented Britain in the Venice Biennale in 1966 and the U.S. in the World’s Fair in Tsukuba, Japan, in 1985. His work is represesented in many international art museums, and he has permanent exhibits devoted to his work in the Museum of Computing History in Mountain View, Calif., and in the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Elaine Chew, Professor of Digital Media, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London
Time: Tuesday, January 17, 5:30-9pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
As artists increasingly use technological tools to create and express, and scientists/engineers extend their research to inventions and investigations in the performing arts, the possibilities can be endless as each draws inspiration from the other. When top practitioners from each field come together to collaborate, the results can be seismic (Guardian, 21 Aug 2011). What happens when rather than one-off seismic events, we are interested in building sustainable collaborations that can withstand the test of time? How can we take into account the continued prosperity, long-term wellbeing, and professional advancement of all parties involved?
In this talk, I argue that unless the two worlds change the solution lies in balancing professional requirements in the two cultures, in light of each tribe’s differing currencies of exchange. I present some rules of engagement and reflect on three collaborations amongst musicians and engineers in which I have been or still am involved. The examples, which span a decade, are: Flying Sonics – a tale of immersive audio and diverse instruments, Distributed Immersive Performance – a study on the effect of network latency on distributed ensemble performance, and Mimi – multi-modal interaction in musical improvisation. SWOT analyses will reveal how each project fared in creating a sustainable collaboration. If time permits, I shall speak on how I reconcile the two worlds in my solo performances and single investigator work.
Bio:
As both a musician (pianist) and engineer (operations researcher), Elaine Chew lives in the crucible of debate on whether the worlds of the performing musician and the academic engineer can productively co-exist. As a graduate student in operations research at MIT, she engaged in too many musical performances (including an open rehearsal of Harbison’s Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma), and was appointed Affiliated Artist of the Institute’s Music and Theater Arts division following a MISTI-funded field study on contemporary Chinese piano music. As Affiliated Artist, she founded the Aurelius Ensemble and curated its highly successful eclectic themed concerts from 1998 to 2000. She has collaborated with composers to premiere new works, her performances have been broadcast on WGBH (Art of the States), KUSC, and WDIY, and her recordings have appeared on Albany and Neuma Records.
As a graduate student, Chew covered topics in nonlinear optimization, computational biology, and computational finance. It was not until she met Jeanne Bamberger who introduced her to Music-and-AI that her two worlds came together, and she graduated with a PhD thesis on mathematical modeling of tonality. After a brief stint at Lehigh University, Chew joined the University of Southern California as a faculty member in the Viterbi School of Engineering, with a joint appointment in the Thornton School of Music. At USC, she founded the Music Computation and Cognition Laboratory, created a new course on Topics in Engineering Approaches to Music Cognition, and directed research in music and computing. In 2004/2005, she won the NSF Career/PECASE awards for her teaching/research activities at the cusp of music and engineering. She joined Queen Mary, University of London, this Fall as Professor of Digital Media, where she is Director of Music Initiatives at the Centre for Digital Music and Director of Graduate Studies in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Speaker: Tod Machover, Professor of Music and Media, MIT Media Lab, Opera of the Future
Time: Tuesday, January 10, 5:30-7pm
Location: Engineering Science Building, room 2001
Abstract:
Professor Mavhover will have informal dialogues with MAT students and discuss their work. He will also be sharing with us some of his own work.
Bio:
Tod Machover is head of the Media Lab’s Opera of the Future group. An influential composer, he has been praised for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries; his music has been performed and commissioned by some of the world’s most important performers and ensembles. In 1995, he received a "Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres", one of France’s highest cultural honors, and in 1998 he was awarded the first DigiGlobe Prize from the German government. He has composed five operas and is the inventor of Hyperinstruments, a technology that uses smart computers to augment virtuosity. Hyperinstruments have been used by performers such as Yo-Yo Ma, Prince, and Peter Gabriel. Machover is also the creator of the Toy Symphony, an international music performance and education project. His research group is currently examining ways to use music in therapy for emotionally and physically challenged individuals.
Machover’s opera "Death and the Powers" premiered in Monte-Carlo in the fall 2010; the project was developed by a creative team of international artists, designers, writers, and theatrical luminaries, as well as by an interdisciplinary team of Media Lab graduate and undergraduate students. Scored for a small ensemble of specially designed Hyperinstruments, Powers features a robotic, animatronic stage — the first of its kind — that gradually "comes alive" as the opera’s main character. Machover, who was formerly director of musical research at Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM institute in Paris, received both his BA and MA from the Juilliard School in New York.
For more information about the MAT Seminar Series, go to:
www.mat.ucsb.edu/595M.
Time: Thursday, January 12, 4-6pm
Location: Information Visualization Lab, room 2611, Elings Hall
Abstract:
Issues of consonant and dissonant sonorities in music have defined its compositional practices for centuries. Musical issues continue to arise as new compositional styles and musical vocabularies emerge, constantly forcing composers and listeners to reevaluate what is consonant, what is dissonant, and how musical relationships are formed between the two. Contributing to our understanding of consonant and dissonant sonorities is the quantification of sensory dissonance. There has been much research done in developing a method to quantify the sensory dissonance between two tones. All methods consider the physical and psychoacoustical aspects of sonic perception. However, these models are typically without the dimension of physical space.
This project aims to develop a model for representing sensory dissonance in three-dimensional space. In doing so, the proposed method accounts for numerous factors that impact the spatialization of sound and, in turn, sensory dissonance. These factors include the inverse-square law, head-related transfer functions, atmospheric absorption, phase, and auditory masking. The implementation of these factors will be discussed in detail, ultimately resulting in a method to model the sensory dissonance of sound in space.
Once the method is established, dissonance fields will be calculated, displaying the contours of dissonance that occur in a given space with multiple sound sources. It will then be shown how such dissonance fields and contours can be altered by manipulating sound sources. The result of this is the ability to create atmospheric sculptures resulting from the sonic arrangement of a given space.