Challenging Perceptions Through Art & Technology

Regarding art and technology (in Brazil) I came across this interesting website recently about a favela painting project:

In order for the lives of people living in the favelas to improve, the popular perception of their neighborhoods must improve. The "Favela Painting" project aims to achieve this by painting an entire hillside favela. Not in a uniform color, but with each house colored according to an elaborate plan so that the hillside will depict a huge image visible from prominent places in the city center.
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When completed 'Favela Painting' will be the largest painting in the world, depicted on many postcards alongside other landmarks such as the statue of Christ and Copacabana beach. The favela will become a legitimate part of the city attracting the attention the culture within deserves.

The artists used Photoshop and other software to visualize the project. They created a website, a blog, and even published a clip from their documentary about Brazilian hip-hop to inform people.

When many people think about Brazil they think City of God or inaccessible, dangerous urban areas that are dominated by drug gangs comprised of local child soldiers. The Favela Painting project seeks to challenge that perception and the status quo by painting an entire hillside favela.

I am interested in bringing these artists to exhibit in Boston. I also think this might relate to my S.O.A.R. project.

SIGGRAPH 06...Day #2

Well, I went back to the conference for another half day. It was a few degrees cooler but still hot outside. Since I knew the venue I went straight to the exhibition hall (see clip above) found the Second Life booth and grabbed more "swag". Second Life gave me a cube that glows in the dark (see left) and some game cards.

It all starts with a cube.

The Second Life folks were very cool and so was the art gallery/playground but this time around my goal was to catch a couple of Educator Panels. I caught part of "A Knowledge Base for the Emerging Discipline of Computer Graphics" but "Creative Manipulation of Time, Space, and Image" really interested me.

The first presenter talked about math and imaging. He wasn't very dynamic and I nodded off a couple of times. The last couple of presentations were much more interesting to me.

Christopher Bauder and Til Beckman from w-h-i-t-e-v-o-i-d (beta software is available at http://www.whitevoid.com/) talked about metaphors & mapping. They have been using common objects such as ladders, guns, etc. as musical instruments and building in them interfaces. They showed a video projection system with perspective distortion. In the "playground" their electric moons or balloons with bump maps and illumination (physical 3D pixel display) was on display for all to see.



The next couple of guys presented the Fall of Antioch: From a Concept of Defamiliarization to Realization (an experimental music video) hinting at the demise of the city Antioch. The main inspiration source for the video was a Windows Media Player with "particles realization" (?) turned on. By defamiliarization the artists meant concepts or principles such as repetition, isolation, irony, satire, and slow motion cinematography evident in works by artists such as Duane Hansen and Andy Warhol. A realization is the relationship between visual elements that specify different behaviors and provides an implementation. Watching the final video it become easier to grasp these ideas and concepts. Click on the image below to see the Fall of Antioch video.

SIGGRAPH 2006

Today I spent a half-day at SIGGRAPH, the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques (whew!). The conference is in Boston this year and I went in 100+ degree weather. (ouch!) The event was HUGE and a bit overwhelming at first because it looked like a thousand people were there, from all over the world. Plus, there was signage overload...tons of venue signage on top of the easels every other step along the hallways. In minutes I was exhausted but once I registered I figured it was a good idea to stop running around, chasing my tail...to eat my homeade lunch and get acclimated to the surroundings.

I grabbed loads of stuff, esp. the free magazines and postcards. There were a couple of highlights: an actual figure drawing class with Sony Imageworks (they're doing Monster House), a digital art gallery, and the emerging technologies “playground”.

Intersect with art that explores new territories, crosses traditional boundaries, provokes thought, reveals ideas in innovative ways, and addresses contemporary issues. Intersections features 2D, 3D, and 4D wall-hung works, sound art, installation art, art animations, and screen-based work from throughout the world. - from the site

I waited around for a whole hour for the figure drawing class surrounded by Pixar, ATI and LucasArts/ILM booths. There was a live model posing (she replaced another very buff male model...rats!) and people got to take their final sketches home on special (free) Imageworks T-shirts. I wanted to see if I still had the skills...in college I had to draw from the figure for hours at a time. This time we had 20 minutes in total to practice and only 5 for the final sketch! The facilitator saw my T-shirt and complimented me after the session. I should have brought my resume and portfolio…maybe I could have gotten a job at Sony. Riiiight (not)...seriously though, I was just getting warmed up. Hahahaha.

In Emerging Technologies there were a couple of ping pong-sized digital drawing tablets that allowed me to paint like Jackson Pollock with my finger on one hand and with my other hand on a special pad. I went virtual fishing with a real pole and lure. Once the virtual fish bit the lure I had to reel in an actual (plastic) fish that tugged frantically and tried to get away from me. The virtual lake was projected onto a special surface that rippled and moved like water when the fish moved...it really felt like I was fishing in a lake. Amazing!

Another cool thing to look at was the MorphoTower/Spiral Swirl by Sachiko Kodama, a media artist and theorist. She makes interactive art using new materials such as magnetic fluid. Her Tower was awesome and part of a project called "Device Art" (see image above). This project comes from work derived from Japanese interactive art.

I didn’t get to play with all the toys or see all the art, so I’ll probably go back tomorrow. I was hooked like those plastic and virtual fish. Hahahaha! Also, no digital cameras were allowed in the gallery but folks had their camera phones, so I'll see what I can do.

Next year the conference is going to be in San Diego (yay!), so I am going to save my pennies now, so I can attend in 2007. The future theme is "Face Tomorrow" and I have a nice poster and shiny button to remind me. :)