State of the Arts Category Archive: Technology
Six word memoirs: more than just a twitter feed
Posted at 3:30 PM on February 8, 2012
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Storytelling, Technology, Writing
A couple of weeks I wrote about a Twitter challenge the Loft Literary Center started, asking people for their six word memoirs.
One of the more than 700 six word memoirs Emily Lloyd has collected
It turns out Emily Lloyd of Eden Prairie Hennepin County Library has been asking people for their six word memoirs for some time, and her hope is to get all of Minneapolis to participate.
That's 382,605 residents, six words each.
Lloyd says she was inspired to create the project after the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure arrived in her library. Inspired, she created a display where people could leave their own abbreviated memoirs.
Suddenly, the 6-word memoir concept was flooded with meaning: I was reading the memoirs of patrons (and staff) that lived in the community where I work, people I passed on the street or in the stacks every day. Some were endearing, some were angry, some were silly, some were prayerful, some were witty, and every last one mattered. I felt my love and compassion for the community increase. I looked forward to every new addition. I felt more connected to the struggles and joys of the people I was sharing space with. And I thought, Someone should do this with Minneapolis.
To date Lloyd has collected more than 700 memoirs, which you can see on her flickr stream. She'd like to gather thousands more before she starts displaying them on portable murals around the city.
To participate, it's as easy as tweeting your memoir to @6wordsmpls. In addition to the memoir, be sure to include your first name, neighborhood and age.
More six word memoirs
Posted at 11:07 AM on January 27, 2012
by Marianne Combs
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Technology, Writing
So my Wednesday post on @loftliterary's Twitter contest, asking for #6wordmemoirs, drew some great responses. Submissions continued to pour in on Twitter, as well as on the blog. Here's a look at some of your ultra-condensed lives:
On my own at age five
Started flying, once I dropped anchor
He never quite finished what he...
Need dirt on my hands, surprisingly.
Trying to have it both ways.
Finally grew into my parents' skins.
Aged faster than I had planned.
Alive 30 years, just getting started.
Wild party girl gets a job
Entrepreneurial gypsy now dog-loving homebody. (That's only five, but I'm downsizing.)
Worked/played with, for, about children.
She loved cupcakes and making out.
Lost the damn manual. Guessed right!
I am bad at math
Born, lived, wrote memoir, brutally murdered
Rich food performances. Repeats pro bono.
"Say it politely," they suggested. No.
Gypsy blood ran from my pen.
I just wanted to be useful.
He said, "never write anything down."
Fourteen homes, ten jobs, one family.
Vietnam born. Minnesota raised. World wanderer.
She teetered but did not fall.
Creative effervescence still mistaken as bubbly.
Always moving, losing money, laughing loudly
Love makes for strange bedfellows, too.
Flattened to death by a bookshelf.
Finally bored with her own story.
Can't find my glasses anywhere. Crunch.
The Loft Literary Center will close its contest at noon. A select winner will win participation in an online writing class.
Your life story in six words
Posted at 3:47 PM on January 25, 2012
by Marianne Combs
(8 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Technology, Writing
The Loft Literary Center has been having fun on Twitter today, getting people to sum up their lives in six words. A select winner will win participation in an online writing class. Here are some of the wittier responses:
I erred by caring too much.
Started scribbling at six, never stopped.
You would think I'd have learned.
Left too many books, friendships unfinished.
I came, I saw, I ate.
Never a bridesmaid, always a bride.
Theater major. Will work for food.
Wrote lesbian novel. Married a guy.
So much icecream, so little time.
I walked, fell, then grew wings.
Wait here, sweetheart. I'll come back.
Trust me, you'd rather not know.
My heart was right all along.
Stayed up all night writing this.
Tripping up the curb of love.
Failed, failed, failed. No matter. Learned.
Young, threw discus. Now, torn meniscus.
My submission?
Crafty gal reporting on artsy world.
So which six words would you choose to summarize your life? Share your abbreviated memoir in the comments section, or on Twitter with #6wordmemoirs and @loftliterary in the tweet. Better yet, do both!
The decline of solitude
Posted at 11:47 AM on January 17, 2012
by Marianne Combs
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Filed under: Culture, Media, Technology
The noise level is rising.
In public spaces everywhere people are talking on their cellphones, chatting on social media, or laughing at a movie they're watching on a portable viewer.
And in the workplace, offices are now designed to create spontaneous interaction, with the idea that open design will allow ideas to flow and grow freely.
In a world such as this, where can we go for silence?
Susan Cain writes an eloquent opinion piece in the New York Times that examines the supposed payoff of "groupthink" versus working in solitude. According to Cain, "research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption."
And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They're extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They're not joiners by nature.
...Solitude has long been associated with creativity and transcendence. "Without great solitude, no serious work is possible," Picasso said. A central narrative of many religions is the seeker -- Moses, Jesus, Buddha -- who goes off by himself and brings profound insights back to the community....And yet. The New Groupthink has overtaken our workplaces, our schools and our religious institutions. Anyone who has ever needed noise-canceling headphones in her own office or marked an online calendar with a fake meeting in order to escape yet another real one knows what I'm talking about. Virtually all American workers now spend time on teams and some 70 percent inhabit open-plan offices, in which no one has "a room of one's own." During the last decades, the average amount of space allotted to each employee shrank 300 square feet, from 500 square feet in the 1970s to 200 square feet in 2010.
...Studies show that open-plan offices make workers hostile, insecure and distracted. They're also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion. And people whose work is interrupted make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long to finish it.
So what are the consequences of this new, hypersocial, crowded world we live in? How to retreat, for extended periods of time, without being labeled 'unwilling' or 'uncooperative?'
I was delighted to note, at a recent art crawl, one gallery was set aside, empty except for several chairs, for people to take a break from all the visual stimuli.
And it was also interesting to see how the new silent movie "The Artist" has been received with such welcome arms. Is it perhaps due in part to our nostalgia for a quieter time?
Your thoughts welcome, as always.
What to do about cell phones?
Posted at 11:41 AM on January 13, 2012
by Marianne Combs
(8 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Music, Technology, Theater
By now you may have heard about the New York Philharmonic performance earlier this week which was halted due to an iPhone alarm going off in the front row. The owner of the phone continued to allow the alarm to sound for minutes, in the final movement of Mahler's 9th Symphony, until finally the conductor stopped the performance, addressed the patron directly, and waited until the alarm was turned off before starting the movement over from the beginning.
By all accounts this is an extreme event, and it was later revealed that the patron - a devoted fan of the Philharmonic - had just been given a new phone by his employer, and didn't even know it had an alarm on it.
But performers will regale you with numerous instances in which their performances were marred by a patron's poor phone etiquette. I remember seeing Twelfth Night at the Guthrie Theater, and in the middle of Malvolio's monologue (performed by Charles Keating), a cell phone went off. Keating finished the monologue, turned and pointed at the offending patron, and yelled "Answer it!"
Charles Keating as Malvolio in Twelfth Night: whan a man in a kilt tells you to answer your phone, you do as he says.
Photo: Michal Daniel
So what's to be done with cell phones? Most venues will remind audiences to turn off their phones before the performance begins, but for some reason that doesn't seem to do the trick.
Christi Rodriguez Cottrell, former Executive Director at CalibanCo Theatre, shares this technique:
At CalibanCo, we always stated at the beginning of each show that if a cell phone went off, we would stop the performance. The audience was encouraged to go ahead, pull out their phone, and make sure it was turned off. In the entire time we performed, we never had a cell phone go off. I think fear of humiliation goes a long way, but it shouldn't be so hard to get people to be respectful. That should be true of all things - dinner, doctor's office, library, coffee with mom:-) We all had lives before cell phones. I think we can part with them for a couple of hours while we're entertained. Nothing interrupts a suspension of disbelief like a ringtone from reality.
Performer Christopher Kehoe wonders:
I'm not sure theatres/performers can do anything outside of the curtain speech without losing some class in the process. Perhaps audience members should hold one another accountable?
And Jeff Prauer, Executive Director at the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, had this to add:
Grown-ups should take some simple lessons from their kids, or other kids if they don't have kids of their own. In my experience, young people seem to handle cell phone etiquette much better by having their phones on vibrate almost all of the time.
So what do you think should be done? Is there a way to convince people to turn off their phones before a performance in a way that's convincing, but not threatening?
Arts 101: Inside the Projectionist's Booth
Posted at 12:51 PM on December 29, 2011
by Luke Taylor
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Arts 101, Film, Technology
It's much more than flipping a switch. For Tom Letness, projectionist and owner of the Heights Theater on Central Avenue in Columbia Heights, film projection is a craft.
Every film Letness receives, he manually inspects "on the bench" -- the work table in the booth -- to make sure the film doesn't contain bad splices or damaged sprockets, and to ensure it has cue marks, those black dots that appear in the upper-right corner of a film frame to help projectionists start a new reel during reel-to-reel changeovers.
Projectionist Tom Letness inspects a film "on the bench."
Letness then previews at least two reels of the film to make sure the aperture, focus and sound levels are properly set. "Time you spend checking the film saves a lot of grief during the presentation," he explains. "I believe that if people are going to come back on a regular basis, you have to have good presentation."
Inside the projection booth at the Heights are two Philips Norelco model AAII 35/70mm mechanical film projectors, both dating from the 1960s. "It's the greatest projector that was ever made, hands down," Letness says. "They are still running and they show a great image and I'm able to do so much with them."
Letness uses his Norelcos for many purposes: to screen new 35mm releases -- on this night, a print of Clint Eastwood's biopic J. Edgar is prepped and recumbent on an adjacent platter; to screen classic silent films and 1930s Hollywood fare; to project the Fifties' widescreen Cinemascope and Vista Vision films; and to show 70mm prints that became popular in the '60s and '70s and ended with 1997's megahit Titanic.
The Philips Norleco AAII projector can play either 35mm or 70mm film. Letness added several different audio readers to enable multiple soundtrack formats.
Having two projectors allows Letness to do reel-to-reel changes, a necessity for screenings of archival films, which are often from such sources as the Library of Congress, the UCLA Film and Television Archive and New York's Museum of Modern Art. Those archives enforce strict rules that prohibit projectionists from automating -- essentially, taping together -- film reels. "A lot of these classic films, it's the only print they have left," Letness explains.
Alongside the Norelco projectors, the cooling fans whirr on a DLP Cinema projector, which just completed a screening of The Nutcracker ballet. A hulking black block aimed out a porthole, the DLP slightly resembles a 19th-century naval cannon; as a digital projector, however, the DLP is strictly 21st-century technology. Next year, Letness plans to upgrade the eight-year-old DLP to Digital Cinema.
"Avatar was the big game-changer because it was making so much money," Letness says. "We want to be able to show any 3D if it comes out. In order to do that, we have to be digital because that's where the technology is going. ... For the average cinema, the average multiplex, their film days are, if not done, almost done."
At the AMC Southdale 16 in Edina this week, Jason Reitman's Young Adult -- partially shot on location in Minnesota -- is being shown on film. But according to Ryan Noonan, director of public relations at AMC Theatres, film presentations are becoming less common for the cinema chain. "Approximately two-thirds of our auditoriums at AMC Theatres are digital as the conversion process is ongoing," Noonan explained via e-mail. "With a few exceptions, it's AMC's goal to be fully digital during the next few years."
In his recent book, The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex, BBC film critic Mark Kermode cautions about the rapid proliferation of digital cinema and what that means for projectionists. "The great profession of projection (in the traditional sense of the craft) is in the process of becoming obsolete," Kermode writes.
Letness, however, believes digital and film can peacefully coexist.
"Digital is not the enemy," Letness insists. "I think for a new release, if your digital system is set up right, if you have a bright lamp house, if everything is the way it should be, I think it looks really great."
Letness says digital will enable him to start a showing at the Heights from vacation in Florida using his smartphone; he also says digital provides many more opportunities for contemporary alternative programming, such as operas, ballets, concerts and stage plays.
"I think for actual mainstream theaters, film will be gone forever," Letness says. "But for theaters like mine and other theaters that already specialize in film and archive screenings, film will continue."
The Heights Theater
One pervasive attraction remains, no matter the format: "I think the biggest thing is the community event," Letness says. "It really is the communal event of watching the film together, even though I don't know if people necessarily realize that."
What do you think about digital cinema versus film? Share your thoughts and experiences below.
Creating art for the iPad
Posted at 1:44 PM on December 13, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Photography, Technology
Minneapolis Photographer Joann Verburg is used to having her large photographs - tryptichs of olive trees, portraits of people floating in water - hanging on the walls of such prestigious museums as the Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center.
Now she wants them in your purse or briefcase.
JoAnn Verburg in her Minneapolis studio. She approached the publishers at Location Books with the idea for an iPad app. (MPR Photo/Euan Kerr)
As Euan Kerr reports, Verburg has just released a new collection of images as an iPad application as a new way for people to experience her work.
The iPad lets a viewer do what would be unthinkable in a gallery: to touch the images, to zoom in and look deeper, Verburg said."Some places where you see raindrops hanging on the tips of branches or you see a blossom that's absolutely sharp in focus," she said. "There are a lot of places that are out of focus and especially if you enlarge them on your iPad they become abstractions and so there is a lot of variety as there is in life."
There are some intriguing forces at work here. One is about location. Until now, experiencing Verburg's work meant visiting a museum or buying an expensive photography book. "As It Is Again" is a free application, available to anyone with an iPad. You can't get it in book form.
Verburg's publishers are hoping the new application will change the way many people use technology, providing them with opportunities to slow down, instead of speed up.
You can hear the entire story by clicking on the audio link below:
Walker Art Center launches new website
Posted at 10:00 PM on December 1, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Museums, Technology
The Walker Art Center's website is sporting a new look.
Olga Viso stands before a projection of the new website design
Image courtesy Walker Art Center
The redesign is the first major overhaul of the museum's website since 2005.
It's being overseen former Adbuster journalist Paul Schmelzer and, according to Executive Director Olga Viso, walkerart.org will be more like a news site about the arts than a typical museum website.
Resembling an online art magazine in its design and format, this new site provides a multifaceted publishing platform--unique among museums worldwide. Here you will find news and feature content about contemporary art as well as the Walker's own programs and collections. As a pioneer in developing new platforms for scholarship, publishing, arts journalism, and creative exchange with our audiences, we believe we can play an important role in offering alternative media infrastructures as arts coverage in the mainstream media outlets everywhere have been dramatically reduced in recent years. Our cross-disciplinary focus as an institution also positions us well to survey larger trends in contemporary visual arts, performing arts, design, and media culture.
The site showcases news stories, interviews and essays written by Walker staff as well as aggregated content, covering issues not just limited to the museum itself but to art around the world.
As a reporter, I find this shift particularly interesting, because it marks a significant step forward in an ongoing trend. Namely arts organizations, faced with a lack of media coverage, are creating their own coverage, and taking the dialogue directly to their audiences. Will arts journalists eventually be employed by museums and theaters, rather than newspapers?
While the redesign has been applied to most major sections of the site, some additional sections will continue to be updated over the next year.
What do you think of the redesign? Your thoughts are always welcome.
City of Minneapolis and MPR launch new public art audio project
Posted at 3:21 PM on November 10, 2011
by Marianne Combs
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Filed under: Public Art, Sculpture, Storytelling, Technology
MPR and the City of Minneapolis are working together to raise the profile of public art in the city. "Sound Point" is a new interactive audio tour that allows visitors to use their mobile devices to access stories about works of public art in Minneapolis.
Signs like this one next to select works of public art in Minneapolis direct passers-by to learn more about the work and listen to interviews with the artists.
My colleague Jeff Jones conceived of the project, and partnered with Mary Altman at the City of Minneapolis to realize it.
"I wanted to take what we know about audio and storytelling to the streets," said Jones. "Minneapolis has great public art and this project allows people to hear from the artists who created it."
Say you're at the "Blossoms of Hope" bus stop in North Minneapolis, and you're admiring the huge colorful blooms over the shelter. A few feet away a sign invites you to call or text a number, or visit a website using your smart phone, and hear artist Marjorie Pitz talk about the project.
At the end of her talk, you have the option of leaving a message, telling the city and MPR what you think of the shelter. Raves and rants are equally welcome.
"Whether we look closely or not, great art in public spaces improves our quality of life in Minneapolis every day," said Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. "I'm pleased that MPR has created the 'Sound Point' tour of our beautiful public artwork. It's a terrific tool for people to pause, look and learn more about our city, our art and our many great artists."
Currently there are 13 "sound points" in Minneapolis, with plans to expand to 25 in the near future.
The City has published a map of these locations to assist viewers in conducting their own self-guided tour of these artworks.
Note: There are lots of QR scanning apps to choose from for both iPhone and Android, and all behave a little differently. For Sound Point, MPR recommends a simple one called "Scan" for iPhone.
In the coming weeks, check State of the Arts for profiles of the individual sound points, starting Monday with a closer look at the "Blossoms of Hope" bus shelter.
So you think you know your composers?
Posted at 12:31 PM on August 23, 2011
by Euan Kerr
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Music, Technology
A couple of weeks ago "Top Score" presenter Emily Reese presented MPR staff with a very compelling arguement on why many contemporary classical composers are now looking to video games as a source not only of income, but creative challenge.
Composing the the theme and incidental music for a major game allows a composer to explore and develop motifs while creating the atmosphere for an interactive experience. Reese led a lunchtime session for MPR staff to explore some of the new approaches being taken by composers and game creators, which gave many of us a new appreciation for the myriad creative aspects of the work.
This is the material Reese presents in every edition of the Top Score podcast.
To celebrate the upcoming second season of Top Score Reese has created a prize challenge for listeners to identify the composers behind seven musical selections. The winner gets a $60 giftcard to Gamestop.
You can find details here. Good luck!
New PBS series goes "Off Book"
Posted at 2:21 PM on July 18, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Technology, Television
PBS is launching a new web series devoted to exploring experimental and non-traditional art forms.
Called "Off Book," the 13-part, bi-weekly series debuts Wednesday on PBSArts.org. The first episode focuses on a new generation of photographers who are pushing digital imagery to its limits.
The second episode, set to premiere on August 3, looks at the world of typography, interviewing graphic designers and font creators.
Future episodes will look at steampunk art, video games, fashion, aerial dance, and more.
A release from PBS describes the inspiration for the show's title this way:
Just as actors reach a point at which they're confident enough to go 'off-book' and leave their scripts behind, the visual and performing artists featured in this series are taking the next steps with their talents and training, forging new artistic paths. "Off Book" will offer interactive experiences for each of its 13 online episodes, encouraging further viewer participation and providing additional artistic inspiration.
Bakken sculpture garden: art fueled by the elements
Posted at 1:41 PM on August 2, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Sculpture, Technology
How do you make energy - something we generally can't even see - compelling to kids?
In the case of the most recent exhibition at the Bakken Museum, you invite artists to help tell the story.
The Bakken Museum's rooftop terrace
All images courtesy the Bakken Museum
The Bakken Museum, located just a block from Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, is currently presenting a Green Energy Art Garden on the museum's rooftop terrace.
Kelly Finnerty, Deputy Director for Programs at the Bakken, says the museum wanted to talk about green energy, but not give that "same old presentation that's been done a hundred times."
We're a museum about electricity and we wanted to talk about the energy challenges facing our world. The Minnesota Legislature has mandated that 25% of our energy come from renewable resources by 2020; we want to raise awareness about the potential for renewable energy uses in our daily lives.
Solar Spitters
The museum partnered with Forecast Public Art to create a sort of cross-pollination between artists and engineers. They asked a group of artists to use energy the way they use paint - not just for functional use but with aesthetics in mind. Because, says Finnerty, "renewable energy can be funtional and beautiful."
The artists then met with a team of experts to help them figure out just how they could bring their "energy sculptures" to life.
The results of this collaboration are four different works of art powered by the sun and wind, that invite the public to experiment and play. Marjorie Pitz' "Solar Spitters" are three fountains powered by solar panels. As I toured the garden, young boys came running up to the fountain, and by placing their hands over the panels, could control the flow of water shooting out of the mouths of Pitz' "pond goblins."
Infinite Flower Garden
In Mayumi Amada's "Infinite Flower Garden" a panel of pinwheels made from plastic bottles powers LED lights inside view boxes, forming a kaleidoscope of images and patterns.
Finnerty says the public response to the exhibition has been just what she was hoping for.
They find it creative, cool and fun. I hear people say "I bet I could do that in my garden" or "what a clever use of plast ic bottles!" We take the sun's energy for granted, and this makes it visible.
Finnerty says the exhibition is just one component in the museum's ongoing effort to raise public awareness of green energy, including an outreach program in St. Paul Public Schools.
The Green Energy Art Garden will remain on the museum's rooftop terrace through September 3; families who visit the museum on "Super Science Saturdays" will have the opportunity to participate in conversations on renewable energy.
Nico Muhly brings social networking to life, and to the opera
Posted at 8:48 AM on June 14, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Opera, Technology, Video
Have you ever thought about just how bizarre our online relationships are? I mean, really, are you actually "friends" with all those people on Facebook? What if you really "followed" people over the course of days, or years?
Composer Nico Muhly has been pondering these questions, and it's the inspiration for a charming - albeit slightly disturbing video - promoting his upcoming opera "Two Boys," which gets its premiere later this month by the English National Opera.
However, according to The Guardian's Tom Service, the film is nothing like the actual opera.
If the wit of the film gets people to turn up to ENO for the show, so much the better, but anyone who buys their ticket based on the film is in for a shock. If Two Boys lives up to the potential of its music and its story, it will be a searing night at the theatre that will do more than make you delete a few friends on Facebook. It should force you to think about the complexities of human identity and relationships, on- and offline, as well as confront you with some of the freshest music in the opera house in the 21st century.
And truly, to read the opera's description on the ENO website, viewers are in for something quite dark:
A teenage boy is stabbed. An older boy is caught on CCTV leaving the scene. An open-and-shut case, it would seem. But, as Detective Inspector Anne Strawson investigates the older boy's story, she uncovers a bizarre nexus of chatroom meetings, mysterious internet identities, supposed spy rings and disturbing cybersex, leading to a stunning conclusion.Loosely inspired by actual events that occured in an English industrial city, Nico Muhly's new opera is a cautionary tale of the dark side of the internet.
Modern high-tech protects ancient high-art
Posted at 2:02 PM on June 9, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Technology
Museums work hard to provide the best environment for artwork so that it can both be seen, and be protected from the elements. Heat, light and humidity can all have disastrous effects on prints, paintings and even tapestries.
A new device created by the folks at IBM is giving museums a whole new level of sophistication when it comes to monitoring gallery conditions.
National Public Radio visited the Cloisters Museum - a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York - where the sensor is being tested out.
The IBM sensors -- each housed with a radio and a microcontroller in a case about the size of a pack of cigarettes -- can measure temperature, humidity, air flow, light levels, contaminants and more. They are inexpensive and run on low power, and several can be positioned in a room, scientists said Wednesday.
The information collected goes into a three-dimensional "climate map" that can be accessed on a computer, and the data can then be analyzed to adjust the climate, spot trends and even make predictions.
The data collected will help museum staff determine how best to accomodate for such anomalies as sun shining through a window onto a specific part of the room, a group of people walking into a gallery after being out in the rain, or a packed opening event.
You can read more about the technoology here.
An example of a small electronic sensor, like those that will be deployed at the Cloisters Museum, is placed on a table next to a quarter to illustrate its size in New York. The new system will monitor the environment in the museum to help preserve the works of art within its walls. (AP Photo/Metropolitan Museum of Art)
MIA questions what's real
Posted at 7:06 PM on May 26, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Technology
Seung-woo Back
RW001-001, 2004, from the series Real World I, 2004
Digital print
Courtesy Gana Art Gallery, Seoul
What is "reality?"
I mean, if a person spends hours of their time role playing on Second Life, isn't their experience still part of their reality?
And hasn't American political debate proven time and time again that there are people out there who have a completely different understanding of reality from your own?
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, under the direction of contemporary art curator Elizabeth Armstrong, is taking a look at how we perceive reality in the modern age.
The exhibition is still a ways out in the future - it will open at SITE Santa Fe in July 2012, then travel to the MIA in February 2013. But I know from past conversations with Armstrong that this idea has been on her mind for quite some time, and she's extremely excited to be putting the show together.
It's titled "More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness," a reference to a term coined by humorist Stephen Colbert, but which has since made its way into our English lexicon. The American Dialect Society defines truthiness as "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true,"
Armstrong says "the exhibition proposes that we now live in an 'Age of Truthiness,' a period in which the slippage between fact and fiction has become increasingly blurred. Today artists in all parts of the world are exploring the pervasiveness of "truthiness" in art, politics, and the culture at large."
One of the featured artists in the exhibition will be Ai Weiwei, whose own understanding of reality appears to be at conflict with that of the Chinese government.
Beautiful and scary: music for video games
Posted at 3:45 PM on May 26, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Technology
Over on the classical side of MPR, Emily Reese has been having a bit of fun.
Reese has been interviewing composers about their work creating scores for video games. So far the series - called Top Score - has featured such games as Dragon Age II, Stacking, Dead Space and Bioshock.
Reese admits, she had a motivated self-interest in producing these interviews:
I love classical music, I'm a classically-trained musician with a masters in music theory - but I'm also a serious gamer. I began to notice an upward trend in the quality of video game scores and knew that if someone like ME loved the music in games that other people would too. I wanted to share the insights of composers with listeners, and give gamers who love game music the opportunity to hear a conversation between composers and someone who knows a bit about music.
Composers of game music are often also composers of other music, but Reese says composing for video games presents its own set of unique challenges:
Music in games is responsive, far more often than not, to what the player is doing in a particular environment, and since individual people control the player on the screen, the music will often respond differently for every player. Video game composers often are involved in the development process long before composers for film or television, simply because the music is one of many components of the interactivity of the game. What happens musically if I pick up this wrench? What will happen if I move toward the door? What will happen if I move toward the door, but then decide not to go inside? Music can change depending on the slightest action of a player, so composers spend a great deal of time thinking about how their music can achieve that type of interaction.
Here's an excerpt from Bioshock that gives you a sense of just how the music is incorporated into game-play - it really comes to the fore at about four minutes in:
Those old high school yearbooks, digitized
Posted at 1:23 PM on May 18, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Libraries, Technology
The cover of Central High School's yearbook from 1890
Image courtesy of Hennepin County Library
Who knew that the most popular books in the Central Library's special collections are old yearbooks?
But, as it turns out, the 50 oldest yearbooks - which date from 1890 to 1922 - are so fragile, and also so in demand, that the Hennepin County Library has digitized them.
Now people can browse them at their leisure on the HCL website.
The digitized yearbooks can be searched by name or browsed by a particular school or year.
The yearbook digitization project is made possible by Minnesota's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and is administered by the Minnesota Historical Society. More yearbooks will be digitized and added to the collection in the future. The remainder of the project will be funded by a gift from the Professional Librarian's Union of Minneapolis.
Librarian Heather Lawton says the yearbooks are commonly sought by family historians, people trying to track down former classmates or planning class reunions, or children looking for material for a parent's or grandparent's retirement or anniversary party.
Interested in donating an old yearbook to the collection? Contact Special Collections at 612-543-8200 or specialcoll@hclib.org
89.3 The Current's local music stream, now HD
Posted at 10:08 PM on May 3, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Technology
If you have an HD-capable radio, you can now listen to Local Current on the air at 89.3 KCMP HD2.
For those of you who don't own HD-capable radios, not to worry - Local Current is still also a web stream.
So have you given Local Current a listen? What do you think? >
The interactive book
Posted at 3:31 PM on May 3, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Books, Media, Technology, Writing
In a rather low energy talk, software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad -- featuring video, audio, and even a windmill that responds to your breath. The book is "Our Choice," Al Gore's sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth."
One commenter on the TED website said "It's an interesting way to present information, but I don't think it's a book." What do you think?
Check that: Typewriters are not dead!
Posted at 11:32 AM on April 26, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Technology, Writing
This photo taken on February 15, 2011 shows professional typist Purushottam Sakhare typing an affidavit on his typewriter at a sidewalk outside a city court in Mumbai.
Photo credit: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images
So about an hour ago I forwarded on the news reported in the CBC, that the last known typewriter factory had shut its doors.
Whoops.
Gawker.com proves otherwise. Here's an excerpt from their post:
From the fake typewriter ashes, a million nostalgic personal essays bloomed.But rest easy, annoyingly hirsute hipster Luddites loitering at local cafes: The typewriter is alive and well. How do I know? Well, because I looked on Staples' website. But don't take my word for it. Let's check in with a typewriter manufacturing expert:
The typewriter is "far from dead," [says] Ed Michael, General Manager of Sales at Moonachie, NJ-based Swintec.
"We have manufacturers making typewriters for us in China, Japan, Indonesia," Michael says. "We have contracts with correctional facilities in 43 states to supply clear typewriters for inmates so they can't hide contraband inside them," Michael explained.
There you have it: So long as you can smuggle a nail file inside a MacBook, the typewriter will live to jam another day.
Well, I, for one, am happy to find out I was misled.
89.3 The Current to stream local music
Posted at 2:04 PM on April 11, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Technology
It sounds too good to be true - all your favorite local bands, playing twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
89.3 The Current (also known in the MPR newsroom as "those hipsters upstairs") has announced it will launch "Local Current Music Stream" on April 14.
The 24-hour stream will be dedicated entirely to local music, new and old.
"The Local Current music stream is another way we can share the music and culture of Minnesota with the world," says program director Jim McGuinn. "We are excited to offer the best local music 24/7."
Of course, 89.3 The Current's stream already does expose the world to quite a bit of Minnesota music. I was on vacation in New Zealand last year, and had an animated conversation with a "Kiwi" about Atmosphere and P.O.S. - he streamed The Current on his computer.
I've put in call to McGuinn to see if he'll divulge what the first song will be on the new stream... back in 2005 89.3 The Current launched with "Shhh" by Atmosphere.
The Local Current music stream is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund
Starting Thursdays, listeners can tune in to the Local Current music stream at thecurrent.org/local.
Museums of the world, up close
Posted at 11:05 AM on February 2, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Museums, Technology
If you've done a Google search this morning, you may have noticed the home page is promoting something called "Art Project." Well that's too tempting a title for me to resist, so I did a little exploring, and am pretty thrilled with what I found.
"Art Project" is basically a collaboration between museums around the world to upload their artworks online in extraordinary detail, as well as offer virtual tours of their galleries. Users can create their own collections of favorite artworks from the participating museums.
In short, it's an art lover's dream come true.
Currently there are 17 museums participating in the project, including the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, the Tate Britain in London, the Uffizi gallery in Florence and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The website promises more information soon on how other museums can join the project (the Walker and MIA, perhaps?).
According to the Art Project website, Google approached the museum partners with the idea, and each museum was able to chose the number of galleries, artwork and information they wanted to include.
As you might imagine, the images on the site are copyright protected, and Google owns the "Stree View" imagery used for creating the virtual museum tours.
Here's the current list of museum partners:
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin - Germany
Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC - USA
The Frick Collection, NYC - USA
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin - Germany
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC - USA
MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC - USA
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid - Spain
Museo Thyssen - Bornemisza, Madrid - Spain
Museum Kampa, Prague - Czech Republic
National Gallery, London - UK
Palace of Versailles - France
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg - Russia
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow - Russia
Tate Britain, London - UK
Uffizi Gallery, Florence - Italy
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands
MCAD gets a new virtual look
Posted at 3:20 PM on December 6, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Education, Media, Technology
Starting today, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design has a new look on the web.
The website redesign features a new logo and a new banner. The logo is pretty simple - it's an "X." MCAD President Jay Coogan explains the new logo this way:
The new logo mark shows two arrows that have come together to form an intersection. The Intersection is illustrative of the new MCAD vision statement, "transforming the world through creativity and purpose." MCAD is the place where creativity meets purpose, and increasingly where the student experience will take place at the intersection of the campus and the world at large.
The website banner, which used to feature silhouettes of the Minneapolis skyline, now shows students and their work. Visitors to the website can click on the images and be taken to a virtual gallery of student work.
The new look on the website is the first stage in a three part overhaul; the next two phases will be geared at adding services for students/alumnae and faculty/staff, respectively.
The website and logo were both created by MCAD alums. The redesigned logo was created by MCAD DesignWorks Director J. Zachary Keenan '05; Little & Company, the Minneapolis-based consultancy founded by Monica Little '78, designed the new website.
Video break: "Myth and Infrastructure"
Posted at 11:30 AM on November 3, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Animation, Media, Storytelling, Technology, Video
Miwa Matreyek creates performances where real shapes and virtual images trade places, amid layers of animation, video and live bodies. Using animation, projections and her own moving shadow, Miwa Matreyek performs a gorgeous, meditative piece about inner and outer discovery. The piece Matreyek performed at TEDGlobal 2010 is an abridgement of the work "Myth and Infrastructure." Take a quiet 10 minutes and dive in. With music from Anna Oxygen, Mirah, Caroline Lufkin and Mileece.
View art in 3D, on your laptop
Posted at 9:46 AM on October 27, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Technology
Ever been at a museum, and really wished you could get a better look at a piece, either by walking around it's backside (which is up against a wall) or by opening up a drawer or by just holding it and examining it in your hands?
Now technology is making it possible for museums to let you do just that - virtually.
The Getty Museum has a new feature on its website which allows the curious to explore the many facets of one of its most intricate pieces - a four-sided collector's cabinet from Augsberg, Germany.
Collectors' cabinets were basically the forerunners of today's museums, holding precious items in their many different compartments, and the cabinets themselves were often works of art in their own right.
So what work of art do you wish you could get your hands on?
[h/t Open Culture]
Guthrie to screen six high-def London productions
Posted at 12:05 PM on October 6, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Technology, Theater, Video
Evidently the Guthrie Theater is enjoying its role as a high-quality art cinema. The theater has re-upped its partnership with the National Theatre in London, and will broadcast six of the NT's productions in the coming performance calendar. They are as follows:
Saturday, November 6 at 1 p.m.
Complicite's A Disappearing Number
Directed by Simon McBurney
A Disappearing Number weaves together the story of two love affairs, separated by a century and a continent. The first happens now. The second is set in 1914. It tells of the heartbreaking collaboration between the greatest natural mathematician of the 20th century, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a penniless Brahmin from Madras in South India, and his British counterpart, the brilliant Cambridge don GH Hardy
Thursday, January 20 at 7:30 p.m.
Shakespeare's Hamlet
Directed by Nicholas Hytner
Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, sees his father's ghost. Tormented with loathing and consumed by grief, he must avenge his father's murder. What he cannot foresee is the destruction that ensues.
Thursday, January 27 at 7:30 p.m.
FELA!
Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), FELA! reveals Fela Kuti's controversial life as an artist and political activist while featuring many of his songs and choroegrapher Bill T. Jones' staging.
Monday, February 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Donmar Warehouse presents Shakespeare's King Lear
Directed by Michael Grandage, and featuring Derek Jacobi in the title role.
An aging monarch. A kingdom divided. A child's love rejected. As Lear's world descends into chaos, all that he once believed is brought into question. One of the greatest works in western literature, King Lear explores the very nature of human existence: love and duty, power and loss, good and evil.
Sunday, April 3 at 1 p.m.
Danny Boyle's production of Frankenstein
A play by Nick Dear based on the novel by Mary Shelley
Oscar winner Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) returns to his theater roots with a new adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Boyle is making his debut at the National Theatre directing Nick Dear's play as a "large-scale and theatrically and visually ambitious stage production."
Monday, July 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard
Directed by Howard Davies
The Gaev family face bankruptcy and the loss of their estate. Even so, they refuse to sell their largest asset, their famous cherry orchard. The old world is giving way to the new, but the Gaevs seem not to have noticed the bewildering changes in the Russian way of life. The fate of the beautiful orchard becomes a symbol of the fate of all of the characters in this classic masterpiece.
Tickets for all performances are $20.
NT Live's first season was seen by over 150,000 people on 320 screens in 22 countries. Outside of the Guthrie Theater, the closest venues for Minnesotans to check out the NT productions are in Thunder Bay(Canada), Winnipeg(Canada), Lincoln(Nebraska) and Ann Arbor(Michigan).
The beauty is in the detail
Posted at 10:26 AM on October 5, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, Technology
Botticelli's The Birth of Venus is one of several paintings you can now explore in hyper-detail on an Italian website.
I love the difference in looking at a painting from a distance of ten feet or so, and then getting up close to look at the brush strokes. Of course, museum guards get a little nervous when you start getting really close to a painting, and sometimes there's even a cord in place to keep you from doing just that.
Thanks to an Italian website, you can now explore some of the great Italian masterworks in amazing detail, all from the comfort of your home computer. For fun I took a virtual tour of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" (or "Venus on the half shell" as we know it in my family). I was able to zoom in on her eyes and see the cracks in the paint. The clarity was stunning, and made me see Botticelli's work with even greater appreciation.
Other paintings available for perusal include da Vinci's The Last Supper and Annunciation, Caravaggio's Bacchus and Agnolo Bronzino's stunning Portrait of Eleonor of Toledo.
via Open Culture
Will live performance lose out to technology?
Posted at 12:57 PM on September 14, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Technology, Video
In a world where we can watch movies from the comfort of our own homes for pennies and assemble personalized soundtracks in a tool the size of our thumb, how likely is it people will continue to attend live theater and music? Not only must one contend with the price of tickets, but then there's parking, babysitting, fighting traffic and the fact that the show might not be as great as hoped. With such odds stacked against them, it seems only inevitable that the performing arts will fade as instant entertainment continues to become more readily available.
Not so, says Ben Cameron, Arts Program Director at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in New York. In this empassioned speech, Cameron points to the performing arts role in helping technology to succeed, and economies to thrive.
The performing arts are going to be more important to the economy as we move forward, especially in industries we can't even imagine yet, just as they have been central to the ipod and the computer game industry, which few if any of us could have foreseen 10 to 15 years ago. Business leadership will depend more and more on emotional intelligence, the ability to listen deeply, to have empathy, to articulate change, to motivate others - the very capacities that the arts cultivate with every encounter.
Especially now, as we all must confront the fallacy of a market-only orientation uninformed by social conscience we must sieze and celebrate the power of the arts to shape our individual and national characters. ...The arts, whatever they do, whenever they call us together, invite us to look at our fellow human being with generosity and curiosity. God knows if we have every needed that capacity in human history, we need it now.
Singing across the internet
Posted at 11:34 AM on April 30, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Technology
Composer Eric Whitacre is known for his lovely choral pieces that evoke a deep sense of calm and connection to the universe.
Now his work is being performed in a way that evokes a deep sense of connection... via the internet.
After seeing a video of a soprano sitting at her computer, singing along to his piece "Sleep." Whitacre realized he could have all the parts sung by people anywhere on the earth, and create a virtual choir.
Since then, Whitacre along with producer Scott Haines, have completed two virtual choral pieces: "Sleep" and "Lux Aurumque." You can read more about the process of putting the project together here.
Can video games save the world?
Posted at 8:03 AM on March 26, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Media, Technology
Jane McGonigal's goal for the next decade is to make it as easy to save the world in real life as it is to save the world in a computer game. According to McGonigal, people spend on average 3 billion hours a week playing video games. These games are intensely engaging, satisfying, and demand great concentration on the part of the player. So what if were able to get all those people playing games that dealt with poverty, obesity, and other world crises? Could we have an "epic win" for the world?
Marco Breuer's photographic process
Posted at 6:00 AM on February 19, 2010
by Euan Kerr
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, People, Photography, Technology
Marco Breuer doesn't like to interfere with the way people see his pictures.
For instance, what do you see in the image below?
We'll get back to what it is in a moment, but in the meantime meet Breuer, an academically trained photographer who decided a few years ago he wanted to follow his own path.
"I think that photographers tend to find the longest way to the image," he says. "What I am after is the other end of the spectrum, the shortest way, the most direct, immediate interaction with photographic material."
In other words, Marco Breuer usually doesn't use a camera. He says his work really goes back to the idea of a photogram. He tends to work directly with photographic paper, stressing it, as he calls it with abrasive materials, or even a heat gun to create his images. Sometimes this is done before the paper is processed, sometimes after.
Several of Breuer's images are on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts beginning this weekend. It's simply called "New Pictures:2"
The images are all very different. There is the swirling image above, but there are others with intricate patterns scratched into their surface.
"I want these images to read photographically," he says. He creates images in one way, but due to the way people tend to see photographs, they can appear to be something else.
For instance one piece looks as if it is textured like a rug, until you get close-up and see the lines are the result of pieces of fluff and other material produced by scoring the paper before processing. The image is quite flat.
"What I don't want the images to be is kind of a check list," he says, meaning people should not be able to readily identify certain things in the images. "There always remains a degree of openness in the whole matter."
Breuer takes this almost to extremes. He has had a long standing rule that his own face does not appear with his work. He's a photographer who sees problems in having his own image appear with his work. He chuckles a little when asked about it, but then explains
"From my own experience there are certain artists that I wish I didn't know what they look like. I wish I had never seen a photograph," he says. "I just want to experience the work. And so a while back I made the decision that for myself I would just take my likeness out of the equation. What I have to say is in the work, and there it is."
Breuer's process is ever-evolving however, and this is true of this show.
After the exhibit has been open for about a month, Breuer will return from his home in New York state to redecorate the gallery where his pictures are now on display. He'll paint all the walls, which are currently creamy white, with black paint, creating a giant blackboard. He says he'll use chalk to "join the dots," fill in more information about the images. All of the pictures will be in the same place, but everything else in the show will have changed.
He did give me a small preview of what that might reveal.
He says the image above was created through putting photographic paper in a plywood box, with a lens attached to the front. (He points out that he does sometimes use what is essentially a camera.) He then attached L.E.D.'s to his finger tips. The image was created by the movement of his fingers as he loaded a 12 gauge shotgun. It's a snippet of information which, at least for this viewer, entirely changes the perception of the image.
We'll run more of my interview with Marco Breuer on the air next week.
Watch it! Short stuff! (Live action version)
Posted at 11:32 AM on February 16, 2010
by Euan Kerr
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Film, Media, Technology
The Oscar ceremonies are a few weeks away yet, but later this week Twin Cities and Twin Ports audiences will get their fleeting chance to check out the contenders for the short live action and short animation prizes.
The live action nominees form a lively, if dark, selection, featuring entries set in India, Australia, Russia, Sweden, and the USA, although several of them have international production teams. The stories range from a social commentary piece on child labor practices ("Kiva,") to a twisted tale of apartment living adapted by, and starring, David Rakoff called "The New Tenants." There is the story of a lonely grade schooler in an Australian school "Miracle Fish" and a tragic tale of a family caught in an environmental disaster ("The Door.") A tale of a wannabe magician trying to survive his parents demands he get a real job, "Instead of Abracadabra," rounds out the pack.
Once a staple of the silver screen, the short film is not so well known to many filmgoers nowadays, which is a real shame. Like a great short story, a great short film delivers a slice of life with at least one twist to give viewers a small glimpse of a greater truth or absurdity. All five of the live action short nominees deliver.
The films open this weekend at the Lagoon Theater in Minneapolis and the Zinema 2 in Duluth. Also after a couple of weeks in the theaters the movies will be available for download through iTunes on March 2nd.
I'll write up the animation (which includes a new Wallace and Gromit episode from Nick Parks) tomorrow.
Guthrie to show three more National Theatre broadcasts this season
Posted at 12:31 PM on September 23, 2009
by Euan Kerr
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Technology, Theater
The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis announced today it will show three more NT Live broadcasts from the National Theatre in London. The decision follows the success of the the NT performance of Phedre with Helen Mirren in midsummer.
The three shows are Shakespeare's "All's Well That Ends Well" (right) on Oct 24th and 25th at 1pm, "Nation" by Terry Pratchett (Feb 5th and 6th at 7,30,) and a new Allen Bennett play "The Habit of Art" on May 1st and 2nd.
Some theaters will take the NT feed live, but due to timing considerations, and other shows already booked in the theater, the Guthrie shows will be tape delayed.
The Guthrie's Lee Henderson says while there were a few technical glitches on "Phedre" the production was very well received. He says the Metropolitan Opera has already prepared audiences for the idea through its productions sent to theaters around the world. He says patrons know the quality of the National Theatre and then curiosity brings them in.
He also points out that it's expensive to fly to London to see a show, and this arrangement offers a unique opportunity.
"To see four shows at the National Theater in London is just not possible for the average theater-goer in Minneapolis," he says.
The Guthrie is betting the broadcast option will work well as an affordable substitute. If local audiences like it, the Guthrie may make future NT Live broadcasts a regular feature.
What's on your bookshelf?
Posted at 11:02 AM on September 17, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Books, Technology
A friend of mine recently convinced me to check out Shelfari, the website for book lovers. Shelfari was inspired by the simple pleasure of perusing your friends' bookshelves. The website allows you to do this virtually, so you're not limited to what they own. You can see what they've read, what they're currently reading, and what's on their "to read" list.
The site is also incredibly useful to people who want to chart their progress on their own reading lists, or who are interested in seeing just how well-read they are. Readers can post reviews about a book, or partake in an online discussion.
There are a couple of downsides to the site: there are many different listings for the same title - one for each edition. This can make navigating what you have and haven't read tedious (I know I've already clicked on Wuthering Heights three times!). The site also requires a pretty steep initial time investment, as you try to remember just how many of those classics you read in high school and college.
Have you tried Shelfari out? If so, what do you think? Any tricks or features I should know about?
The "Immersive" experience - getting the shakes at the movies
Posted at 4:22 PM on September 10, 2009
by Euan Kerr
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Animation, Technology
The other night when I went to see "9." I spent a few minutes talking with a couple of fine gentlemen from Canada about getting the shakes in a movie house.
The Canadians were Philippe Roy ands Guy Marcoux, who both work with D-Box, a company which makes chairs designed to make movie watching, and video-game playing, what Philippe calls an immersive experience.
I was at the Theaters at the Mall of America, one of only seven multiplexes nationwide to feature D-Box seats.
Basically what happens is when something shakes, rumbles, or even explodes on the screen you feel it through your D-Box. Philippe says after the introduction of Surround Sound in theaters, making your seat part of the action was the next step.
The idea is to link a mechanical system in the chair to what is happening on screen. Guy says this is done through a code created by a motion designer.
"A what?" I asked.
"It's like a sound designer, except it's for motion," he said with a smile. They described how the motion designer watches a move frame by frame to create the code which is fed into the chairs as the film rolls. It's only been done with a few titles: "The Fast and the Furious," "Terminator Salvation" "Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince," and "The Final Destination." Now "9" becomes the first animated film to get the D-Box treatment.
Being of that age, I brought up how I had seen "Earthquake" back in 1974. I was convinced that this had been a similar mechanical system all those years ago.
Philippe looked mildly pained as he explained that system depended on banks of sub woofer speakers mounted at the front of a theater, pumping out low frequency sounds. I remember even now how the sensation was quite frightening. Every time a shock hit in the film, your knees started shaking.
The D-Box is much more sophisticated. Watching "9" it was quite remarkable how small movements on screen caused your chair to react. They were actually much more effective than the moments when the action on-screen became very violent. Good sense and insurance companies mean a seat can only whip around so much when while the characters were being thrown across the landscape. So the immersive experience didn't match the visual and the magic dimmed a little.
You'll pay a premium to sit in a D-Box. At the MOA Theater they are $16.50 as opposed to the $9.50 for the plain old stationary seats. However you can buy a D-Box seat for home use, either with your DVD or game system. There are even ways of converting certain existing seats to the immersive experience.
Actually, you can try it out for free. There's a demo chair outside the theater at the MOA.
I must admit I was intrigued by the D-Box, but I think I'd want to carefully select the next movie I see with it, to maximize the effect.
Has anyone else tried them? Let us know your reactions.
Imagine a world
Posted at 3:28 PM on August 17, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Animation, Technology
World Builder from BranitVFX on Vimeo.
Special effects producer Bruce Branit created this short film, which is now getting its own legs. "WorldBuilder" is a sweet little story that revolves around the notion of what we might be able to create in a virtual world.
Imagine yourself the city planner, architect, decorator and gardener for your own virtual neighborhood. What would you build?
Urbanscreen creates art out of ordinary buildings
Posted at 10:35 AM on August 7, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Architecture, Dance, Film, Public Art, Technology
JUMP | media facade | urban screening from urbanscreen on Vimeo.
I just discovered the work of Urbanscreen, a group of German video installation artists, and I'm hooked. As you'll see in the piece above, Urbanscreen manages to combine movement, architecture, film and public art into something wholly engaging and fantastic.
Below is a piece titled "How would it be, if a house was dreaming?" which projects an incredibly convincing 3D video onto the building, creating what appears to be a living, breathing structure. The sounds of the bricks sliding in and out of place really just puts it over the top. Enjoy!
555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.
Why blog about art?
Posted at 1:44 PM on August 6, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Criticism, Culture, Technology
(Please forgive this act of self-indulgence. Oh wait, this is a blog...)
Blogging about art has made me a member of a rarified group of people, perhaps even more rare than the group "arts reporters." But our numbers are growing, as both traditional media outlets and freelancers find value in talking about art on a more casual, daily basis.
So when I saw that PBS' blog Art Beat had posted a new blurb (that's a technical term) titled "The Art of Blogging About Art," I was immediately sucked into the great naval-gazing void. Would I find myself reflected in their descriptions? Would I agree with my art-blogging compatriots?
Yes.
And no.
Chris Amico talks with three arts bloggers: Lisa Fung (arts editor and contributor to LA Times' Culture Monster), Don Share (contributor to "Harriet," the Poetry Foundation's group blog) and Lee Rosenbaum (arts writer for the Wall Street Journal, aka CultureGrrl).
Here are some of the ideas they raised, with which I heartily agree:
Blogging about the arts allows me and my colleagues at MPR to share news and ideas with you in ways completely different from our traditional radio format. That gives us flexibility to tell a story more creatively, with slideshows and video, if we like. It also allows me to speak in a more personal voice, and engage in a conversation that I don't get to have as a reporter on our air.
Talking about art in a more personal voice in turn makes the conversation more accessible to the general public. No snooty noses in the air here - all opinions are welcome. And the more voices that pitch in, the better the conversation.
Finally, writing a blog - and having a place where people can post their comments - helps me to do my job better as an arts reporter. I hear more now from people who wouldn't have taken the time to hunt down my e-mail address and send me a personal note. Those comments sometimes lead to (valued) corrections, and sometimes lead to new posts and even in-depth stories.
So yea for art blogs. But there is one idea brought forth by the bloggers with which I must disagree, at least in terms of my own writing.
Lee Rosenbaum says in the Art Beat article that she blogs "because I felt I had a lot to say and no place to put it... I can only write so many articles for the Journal but I have ideas everyday that I feel like sharing."
Reporter/blogger Chris Amico goes on to quote Scott Rosenberg, the author of "Say Everything," as saying that most people blog out of "a desire to express themselves, to think out loud, to exult in the possibilities of writing in public..."
In my case, not so much. I may have lots of ideas or thoughts throughout the course of a day, but there are very few I feel are worth typing out. For me, writing is often a very deliberate process, and when I post something here I want to make sure that it's worth my time - and yours. I'm much more excited in hearing what you have to say in response to a post than I am in the idea of simply "writing in public."
So with that, I'll shamelessly plug some of the ways in which YOU can have a say in this blog. As with any blog, you can comment on what you find here. You can also share your favorite work of Minnesota art for our series "We Art Minnesota." And you are always welcome to sign up to be an Art Hound, to help keep me and your fellow Minnesotans in the know about cool cultural events.
I'm no artist, but I play one on my computer
Posted at 10:41 AM on August 4, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Technology
Imagine my delight when I stumbled across a new game on Yahoo called "Artist Colony." Great! An opportunity for us not-so-creative folk to live the artistic life, if only vicariously. I downloaded a trial version of the game, and gave it a whirl.
I should have known better. The game, based on the SIMS model of gaming, is all about managing a community. In this case, it's a run down artist colony that a couple of guys are trying to rehabilitate and repopulate (preferably with cute female artists). In the first hour of play there was very little art-making, but a lot of cleaning up debris and learning how to keep your artists rested and happy.
While the game was not nearly as satisfying as I had hoped, it was in some strange way educational about the world of the artist.
First off, an artist's creativity is significantly enhanced or upset by the quality of his or her love life (I'll buy that one).
Also, the price a person is willing to pay for a painting appears to be completely random. If you wait long enough there's sure to be a dealer who will offer far more than the painting is worth (again, depending on the economy, I'll buy that one, too).
A lot more time is spent working on non-artistic activities in order to sustain the making of art. I know of many artists who will attest to the truth of that.
However, there was one aspect of the game that I fear only perpetuates poor stereotyping. Every once in a while, a psychedelic looking "magic flower" will appear somewhere in the colony. In order to inspire your artist to create a new work, you must place them next to the magic flower (a lotus? a poppy?) until their inspiration levels are fully charged. Sigh...
Digital art that moves you
Posted at 9:08 AM on August 4, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Technology
Computer engineer and artist Golan Levin wants to see more art made with software. He's not talking about graphic design, but actual works of art that engage and react to human movement. Golan bemoans the lack of applications for iphones that involve real creativity, and demonstrates some of the many interactive pieces he's created using the latest technology.
How to shoot a car (The Egg Timer part 2)
Posted at 5:49 PM on July 23, 2009
by Euan Kerr
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Film, Technology
If you have ever wondered how film makers get those great shots of people driving their cars, take a look at the picture below.
(Click on image for larger version)
It's from Emily Haddad's production blog for "The Egg Timer." Whatever else is going on, Stacia Rice seems to be having fun in the driver's seat.
Davis Guggenheim and the feathered fish
Posted at 4:50 PM on July 22, 2009
by Euan Kerr
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Film, Music, Technology
Film maker Davis Guggenheim says someone in his team told him just before his film "An Inconvenient Truth" went before an audience for the first time that his movie was "a feathered fish."
"What's that?" Guggenheim asked.
"It doesn't swim and it doesn't fly," came the terse response.
"And this is someone who's supposed to like the film," Guggenheim says. Then a studio executive told them no-one would pay to see the film.
Of course it then went to the Sundance Film Festival, became a box office smash, and won the best documentary Oscar.
"And then going with (Al Gore) to get the Nobel Peace Prize, that was pretty cool," he laughs.
Looking back though, he says they made the film in a vacuum, and that was ultimately a good thing. They were convinced that they had an important message to spread, and they were shielded from common wisdom which might have scuppered them.
Guggenheim was in the Twin Cities to talk about his new documentary "It Might Get Loud." It is is built around the meeting of three rock guitar legends: Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, U2's The Edge, and Jack White of the White Stripes.
He says he didn't want to make a traditional rock film, and he has succeeded. He interviewed all three of his subjects separately on their home turf and then put them together on a giant soundset in Hollywood (he say's it's where they filmed "The Perfect Storm") and made them talk to one another.
While nominally about the art and science of the electric guitar, the film delves into what it means to be an artist, and how each of these three musicians developed their own approach to what they do.
And then they jam together. It's a fascinating piece of film as three icons from very different parts of the rock world watch and learn from one other.
The film opens in the Twin Cities in late August. We'll have a piece closer to that time but in the meantime here is the trailer.
Listening to the sounds we can't hear
Posted at 10:32 AM on July 22, 2009
by Euan Kerr
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Sculpture, Technology
If you have ever wondered about the sounds of an insect eating a leaf, or even the mist condensing on a window, you are not alone.
These are the kind of sounds which sonic artist Diane Willow hopes to collect with a new microphone she will use for her work "Listening to the Silent Landscape of the Everyday."
Willow, who teaches at the University of Minnesota will gather sounds with a highly sensitive contact microphone which allows her to listen in the tiny sounds all around us which are beyond the sensitivity of normal human hearing.
Willow, who came to the U from MIT, has used other recordings in sculptures and other works. She will develop interactive pieces from the new recordings.
You can see at video of "Serenade," a piece she did in Beijing here
Web Site Story: The Musical
Posted at 10:25 AM on July 2, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Technology, Theater
Collegehumor.com takes on Facebook, Twitter, Pandora and more in this modern take on "West Side Story." Enjoy!
Art for Bread
Posted at 8:57 AM on June 28, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Funding, Technology
Here's a site that encourages you to be creative for a good cause. The canvas? A slice of bread. You can draw on it, and even download images onto it. Every piece of "bread art" results in a $1 donation to Feeding America, formerly known as America's Second Harvest.
There's also a gallery of other people's work, and as you wander from image to image you are fed little tidbits of information about hunger in the United States. The Bread Art Project was created by the Grain Foods Foundation to raise awareness about the prevalence of hunger here at home.
Does the punishment fit the file-sharing crime?
Posted at 9:33 PM on June 18, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Technology
A jury ruled today that Brainerd resident Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs. The price tag? $80,000 per song, or $1.92 million. If you agree the average song lasts approximately three and a half minutes, that amounts to approximately $380 per second of downloaded music.
Thomas-Rasset says it's unlikely the plaintiffs (Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC and Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment) will ever see the money, since she's the mother of four kids and has little means.
So what does the decision mean for people who share music files on the web, and for the recording industry? Will it inspire these major corporations to pursue more lawsuits? Will it scare people off of file-sharing?
Some advocates of file-sharing say it doesn't hurt the music industry, and in fact many musicians make their songs available for free on the internet. So who will win out in the long run? Who are you supporting?
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