Turning Art into a More Intimate, Social Experience
We are shifting to a new cultural paradigm with the convergence of computing and media creating new forms of art. Just as technologies of representation (photography and cinema forms) profoundly shaped 19th and 20th century culture, the rubric of visualization, derived from advanced scientific visualization research, will sculpt the landscape for the 21st century. In this context, Calit² New Media Arts is poised to explore the role computing in the arts will play in the future of cultural and social transformation.
Sheldon Brown, Director for the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at UCSD, references three technical challenges facing computing in the arts that must be addressed as we move into the 21st century. These challenges are distribution, participation, and coherency.
The next-generation wireless/wired network will allow the distribution of more forms of media to more diverse delivery points. Advances in network technologies will help determine how we take immersive artistic experiences with us throughout our world. As social and media spaces engage with the physical world, interactions with art forms will become more intimate and immersive. This, in turn, will change how individuals and groups participate. The linearity and non-interaction, which we currently experience with art forms, will become the exception to the rule - art will become a social experience, and non-linear narratives will be the norm. For all these new forms - computing, media, and art - it will be important to develop a deeper, expressive vocabulary to help create "coherent" experiences, that is, to help us understand, through artistic expression, the ever-more complex world we inhabit. Artists are currently working to bring expressive meaning to the nascent forms of this new cultural landscape (examples of which include the web, computer games, and digital cinema effects) along with the requisite new tools and authoring environments.
Media will become more immersive, intimate, and pervasive due to the development of ubiquitous networks, cheaper and better displays, 3-D graphics, spatialized audio, wireless technology, haptic interfaces, and sensor devices. Already the stage is set for a revolutionary change with 3-D graphics. Just as 2-D graphics launched the World Wide Web, the eventual ubiquitous availability of 3-D graphics will allow for immersive experiences that will make media omnipresent within physical space. The distinction between an observer and a work of art will become blurred. Currently, there are limits to the growth of 3-D modeling and problems with 3-D scanning. However, 3-D geometry protocols are in development, and researchers at UCSD's San Diego Supercomputer Center are working on these new geometry forms.
The gaming industry has also enhanced the landscape for New Media Arts, specifically for rapid development in visual graphics. Traditionally expensive hardware, like the SGI Onyx system, was needed to develop high-quality visual arts. However, gaming technologies, such as the GeForce3, now give visual artists the capabilities to produce their work at a much lower cost. This technology has allowed visual artists to transition into a ubiquitous environment that will eventually allow people at-large to engage complex data and use it creatively. As computing processes begin to standardize and become more economical, New Media Arts will become accessible to every schoolchild and integrated into the fabric of our society.
Professor Sheldon Brown's artwork examines relationships between information and space, which manifests as public artworks, and installations that combine architectural settings with mediated and computer-controlled elements. His work includes Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House, ( http://www-crca.ucsd.edu/~sheldon/micasa/index.htm), a bi-national networked virtual-reality installation and, most recently, Istoria (http://crca.ucsd.edu/~sheldon/istoria.html), a set of tableau sculptures, developed with visualization software.
--Michele Foley, Web Content Developer, Calit²
Related Links
New Media Arts Layer
CRCA