iARTA News

November 05, 2016

The North Texas Digital Fabrication Group will be hosting a Digital Fabrication Research Symposium at UNT Willis Library’s The Factory on Thursday, November 5, 2016. The group was formed to facilitate the free exchange of information amount members of the group. Group members are from North Texas area universities (University of North Texas, Texas Women's University, and University of Texas Dallas) and engaged in some aspect of digital fabrication.

Through the support of a faculty mentoring grant from UNT, the group has conected faculty of all academic levels to facilitate mentoring through shared research interests.

Virtual Reality Installation by David Stout, Cory Metcalf and Reilly Donovan
Premiered at 9e2 Festival, Seattle Washington
2016

The Observer Effect is a virtual reality installation by Reilly Donovan, Cory Metcalf, and David Stout that takes place within the physical space of a second projected video installation titled, MELT. Viewers enter this “world within a world” encountering an abstract field or landscape populated by fluid geometric forms that generate their own sounds. Physics defines, the “observer effect” as an occurrence where changes are made to a phenomena as a result of the act of observation. This result is due largely to the instruments employed in observation and not the mind of a conscious observer; however the mind does play a powerful role in witnessing how tools influence what is under observation. In this work, the VR headset and trackers are the devices impacting the properties of the simulation. The VR apparatus frees each observer to wander and unfold a unique sonic-visual-somatic experience much like a visitor entering an extraterrestrial domain of ambiguous scale and dimension.

NoiseFold (David Stout and Cory Metcalf) were invited to the Pilchuck Glass School to transcode thier virtual sonic forms into glass.

The legacy of the artist-in-residence program dates back to the beginning of the school. Over the years, hundreds of notable artists from a wide range of artistic disciplines have come to Pilchuck to explore how glass can factor into their practice and visual vocabulary. Artists and collaborative groups are invited for each session and provided with their own artist assistant, who acts as a translator, giving technical guidance and assistance in the studio. Two craftspersons in residence (also known as gaffers), skilled glassblowers, help realize projects in hot glass.

NoiseFold (Cory Metcalf and David Stout)
Premiered at the John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, preview performance at Spectrum Concert Series at UNT, Denton, TX, performed Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University with the Left Edge Collective.
2015

"Tao gives birth to one,
One gives birth to two,
Two gives birth to three,
Three gives birth to ten thousand things …”

from chapter 42, Tao Te Ching

The Ten Thousand Things is an audio-visual performance project that explores the interplay between inertia, noise and force of attraction within the digital simulation of spinning particle fields. Stout and Metcalf have engaged in an ongoing expedition through these virtual fields to discover latent images, sounds and musical potentials that give rise to often arcane and archetypal emblematic forms. The composition exists as a coordinate map of locations, virtual locales where the performer is likely to find a confluence of intersecting energies that will generate a visual and/or auditory event or behavior. The performance thus takes form as an exploratory journey into a vast noise-field in search of resonant phenomenon. One obvious corollary is the search for extraterrestrial life.  Advancing this metaphor further, all of creation can be seen to exist as a vibratory nexus that is expressed through a near unending stream of structural phenomena that may or may not be perceivable to our augmented human perception. The spatial distance between these virtual nodes of aesthetic potential may be exceedingly far. When one arrives at the coordinate there may be a chimera of some shape or form, perhaps it is reminiscent of a vessel, fountain, field, blossom or undulating serpentine spire. The performer decides how to make these ephemeral structures “sing” with the distinct possibility that the moment may unfold into unexpected visual complexity, or be a fleeting encounter dependent on a very narrow window of existence.  

The Future is a data-driven sculpture by UNT Sculpture faculty member Alicia Eggert and Safwat Saleem that illuminates the overall state of peace or conflict around the world. The sculpture is composed of 206 light bulbs that collectively spell out the word “FUTURE,” with each individual light bulb representing one of the world's sovereign states. The base of each light bulb has been laser-engraved with the name of the sovereign state it represents, and the states are organized alphabetically from left to right. Bulbs representing states at peace are lit, while bulbs representing states in conflict are unlit. Determinations regarding the peace or conflict status of individual sovereign states are made on a weekly basis using data culled from various online sources, including the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and warsintheworld.com.

The Future was commissioned by fineacts.co and has been exhibited at TED2015 in Vancouver and the Cartagena Data Festival in Colombia.

Click here to read an interview about the work on Medium

UNT Professors James Thurman (Digital Fabrication) and Dr. Jaehyung Ju collaborate on 3D-Printed Lattice Structures. Professor Thurman describes the project, 

"Since 2013, I have been working with Dr. Jaehyung Ju and his graduate students from UNT’s College of Engineering.  Doctoral student Jiwon Mun has been very involved in the hands-on aspects of the project.  Dr. Ju’s research involves the creation of lattice structures with a wide range of applications.  These lattice structures are 3D printed in wax from digital models and then we have been working together to analyze the lost wax casting of them.  Investing and casting has been especially challenging because most of the wax thicknesses are less than 1mm and many lattices include tubes.  Personally, I have been amazed at our success rate.  I look forward to continuing our experiments as we push the boundaries of what I thought possible with lost-wax casting."

Click here for more info

February 13, 2015

Join the Initiative for Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts for the iARTA in-House Symposium, featuring a wide spectrum of mini-lectures and demonstrations of Art and Technology from across the University of North Texas campus. Presenters include faculty and grad students from Music, Visual Art, Dance, Physics, Engineering and more.

January 27, 2015

BioMediation was produced by iARTA in collaboration with CEMI, College of Music (Composition Studies Division) and College of Visual Art and Design (Studio Art / New Media). The BioMediation concert takes its name from the evening’s featured work presented by João Beira and Yago de Quay, two Portuguese artists currently completing their doctoral work in digital media at U.T. Austin . The event highlighted a variety of live approaches exploring a range of electronic performance possibilities including gestural and brainwave input, image to sound transcoding, optical-sonic feedback systems and hybrid human-digital-analog network interactions. Participating iARTA faculty and affiliates included, Copulative Signules: Prolixitic Light Chamber (2014), composed and performed by Martin Back (Studio Art). Aludel of the Dawn Albedo (2014), Created by David Stout (Composition Studies & Studio Art / New Media) and Cory Metcalf (iARTA affiliate, University of Denver), with music composed and performed by Trio KAZE and NoiseFold (Stout & Metcalf). Sonic Synergies V (2014), composed and performed by Panayiotis Kokoras (Assistant Professor, Composition Studies).

Click here for Photos from the event

October 01, 2014

The artists will present their work and participate in a public lecture and roundtable discussion from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Oct. 1 (Wednesday) at the Art Building, Room 223. They also will conduct workshops with students from the College of Visual Arts and Design on Oct. 2 (Thursday).

Presenters include:

  • Arcángel Constantini, México, independent New Media artist and curator
  • Gustavo Crembil, Argentina/United States, assistant professor of architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Guto Nóbrega, Brazil, director, Nucleous of Art and New Organisms (NANO LAB) at the School of Fine Arts, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
  • Mariela Yeregui, Argentina, director of Master in Technology and Aesthetics of Electronic Arts, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero

The symposium is a collaboration between the New Media Art and Art Education programs. The event is sponsored by UNT-Incentives for Global Research Opportunities (IRGO), jointly sponsored by the Office of Research and Economic Development, UNT-International, the College of Visual Arts and Design, and CVAD's Visiting Artist and Scholar Series, the Department of Art Education and Art History, the Department of Studio Art, the New Media Art Program and the CVAD dean's office.

October 01, 2014

The annual festival/conference of the International Conferderation of Electroacoustic Music (CIME/ICEM) 2014, featuring iARTA participants Panayiotis Kokoras, Andrew May and Jon Nelson, will be held at the University of North Texas College of Music Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI). The conference will focus on the topic of acousmatic music in the age of the internet. The conference will feature afternoon presentations (papers, studio reports, panel discussions, seminars, and/or workshops) and evening concerts. The concerts will take place in Voertman Hall and in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater (MEIT) and will feature music, video, and installations on topics as diverse as the following:

  • What is the future of acousmatic music within the context of new and emerging technologies?
  • How do the internet and new technologies impact the production and dissemination of acousmatic art?
  • Do new technologies create new modes of listening?

Both concert spaces feature immersive surround sound systems with more than 16 channels of audio and theatrical lighting systems. The MEIT also features 270-degree wraparound video projection screens. Installations will be presented in various locations within the college, including the CEMI studios.

For a complete program of the events of the festival, go here: http://cimefestival2014.wordpress.com/program/

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