Artsnova Digital Art and Space

I spent this weekend in the company of the Windycon Science Fiction convention and confess to having had a good time. In addition to participating in two panels and making a presentation, I also entered six giclee prints in the art show. Of these only half are included in my online gallery:

• Contemplating Infinity
• Femme Fatale
• Sands of Mars

With respect to programming, in my The 2008 Windycon Science Fiction Convention post I wrote about the panels and presentations I was giving. Personally, the most satisfying was the panel on which Artist Guest of Honor David Mattingly and I engaged in a wide ranging discussion of digital art. Unfortunately our third panelist - science fiction author Roland Green - had to miss the convention due to illness. David offered many insights on his transition from a traditional to a digital artist. I particularly liked that he simultaneously identified the digital "undo button" as being both the artist’s greatest friend and worst enemy.

I also attended a number of panels. Given that the theme of the year’s convention was military science fiction, the bulk of the programming addressed that topic. However, there was ample non-military SF programming. One of the most fascinating was that given by friend and physicist Bill Higgins. His talk How Antimatter Becomes a Plaything of Science discussed the history of antimatter, aka contraterrene, in both science and science fiction. A one page essay written by Bill on the subject appears in the September 2008 issue of Symmetry Magazine - a joint publication of Fermilab and SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center).

Back to the art show, Friday night there was a wine and cheese reception so that convention goers could meet and talk to the artists. While talking to a couple people, I put down my plate of brie and bread and glass of wine in front of my display. Perhaps because I was under the influence of the wine, I grabbed a bid sheet, wrote in the title of Unfinished - Still Life and my name as the artist, arranged/positioned the food and drink and attached the bid sheet to the plate - making it appear that my food and drink were actually a part of the show. What was great is that this did create a fair amount of buzz and folks were coming over to take pictures of it (something I unfortunately did not do.)

Unfortunately none of my six prints sold. I attribute this in part to the fact that my large framed pieces were at the high end of the bid scale vs the many, smaller unframed prints and originals available from other artists. Perversely, the one item I entered into the auction that did sell was, yes you guessed it, Unfinished - Still Life.

The highlight of the art show was the exhibit by David Mattingly of his work with lenticular 3D. Each print is actually the result of creating multiple viewpoints of the same scene, cutting each into small strips, assembling and finally overlaying with a carefully aligned lenticular screen. For more see David Mattingly’s page on depth-view prints

Browsing through the art show there were two other artists whose work caught my eye. One was Todd Johnson, a member of the General Technics group. Todd’s display consisted of a number of Shockfossils - a term of Todd’s creation. These Shockfossils are a form of Lichtenberg figures - created by zapping blocks of acrylic with millions of electron volts and then creating a fracture point through which the trapped electrons escape. See below the video that Todd created illustrating the process of freeing the electrons.

The other artist whose work caught my eye was Liz "Galindorf" Harper. Liz uses polymer clay to hand-sculpt figures and then uses metallic pigments powders applied by hand to color the piece. The colored sculptures are then placed in a shadow box on top of a black velvet backing. The effect is quite striking. I have used a photograph of Liz’s Sea Dream - Seahorse to illustrate this post.
You can see more of Liz’s work at her Astral Dreamers web site.

Now sit back and enjoy Todd’s video about the creation of Lichtenberg figures.

Todd Johnson creating Lichtenberg figure at lunchtime at Fermilab

Schaumburg Prairie Art Festival

If you are a resident of Illinois or an adjoining state or if you’ll just be visiting, the Illinois Arts Council in association with the Chicago Artists’ Coalition has an online Illinois Art Fair Directory. You can search the directory for Illinois art fairs by city and/or date and/or search term.

This handy tool can be found at http://www.caconline.org/illinoisartfairs.asp.

The picture above is a photograph taken at this year’s Schaumburg Prairie Art Festival which occurs each May.

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art

Today I visited the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. I was there to see the Imaging by Numbers: A Historical View of the Computer Print art exhibit.

Quoting from the Imaging by Numbers exhibition flyer:

“This groundbreaking exhibition examines the intersection of digital technology and the graphic arts by surveying the use of computers in printmaking and drawing. From electronic waveforms and plotter printer drawings to experiments with computer code and software and inventive combinations of digital and traditional printing techniques, Imaging by Numbers features approximately 60 works by nearly 40 artists… from the 1950’s to the present.”

There were works by Manfred Mohr, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Ben Laposky, Otto Beckmann, Michael Noll, Kamran Moojedi, C. E. B. Reas, and Richard Helmick to name a few. There were also two works by Joan Truckenbrod who taught the first computer graphics class at Northern Illinois University. I am happy to say that I was fortunate enough to get into that graduate level course. You can read more about this in my article Recollections of my Introduction to Computer Graphics.

Another smaller exhibit that is running concurrently is Space, Color, and Motion which features animated images and one very cool computer controlled magnetic ball creating patterns in a sandbox.

If you are in the Chicago area and art thinking of seeing the show, do it now because the exhibit ends April 6. Admission is free! The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art is located on the grounds of Northwestern University at 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL.

I found out about this art exhibit by way of the American Art American City Exhibit Calendar web site created by the Terra Foundation for American Art. The calendar consists of listings of current exhibitions in Chicago area art museums.

Here is a list of links you may find useful.

• Nine works from Imaging by Numbers
• Imaging by Numbers exhibit information
• Block Museum of Art Hours and location
• American Art American City Exhibit Calendar

Ad Astra, Jim