IMMEDIA '99 shows unique digital art

Those who passed through the Diag last night and witnessed hundreds of tiny blinking contraptions scattered about may have been perplexed about their mysterious origin.

Upon closer observation, each one of the lights, or LEDs, carried an address for a Website. The address belongs the University group Entity, a University organization committed to the evolution of art through the incorporation and development of new digital media. The mysterious Diag lights were a publicity gimmick to announce Saturday's opening of Immedia '99: Anything Digital, an annual show featuring a vast collection of digitally-based artistic endeavors.

This year's exhibition is the largest the group has sponsored since its creation in 1995, drawing in more than 70 submissions from students and professional artists from the local community as well as nationally, and has even received entries from Asia, Europe, Australia and South America.

The extravaganza will occupy the majority of the first floor of the Media Union, in various areas specific to their genre. Digitally composed music will pulsate from DJ booths on the upper level while various film projections, slide shows, 3-D work, performances, and demonstrations titillate the senses in the Video Studio.

Among the entries displayed in the Video Studio will be the silent film, "Take Three," a collaboration featuring the film art of Entity's curator and event coordinator, Art and Design senior Jennifer Concepcion, with two area artists: poet Shawn Durrett, who wrote the script, and composer Steve Serraiocco.

The Media Union Gallery will house diverse 2-D art, algorithm-based designs, and mixed media projects, all created digitally.

But the crowning glory of this year's show is the Virtual Reality CAVE, which, according to Engineering sophomore Ross Barna, is a room housing state-of-the-art equipment that simulates whatever fully interactive environment the artist creates.

Barna's project "Sculptor" will be featured in the CAVE, as well as several projects from a University class, and the work of a visiting CAVE artists, whose innovations are the only ones of their kind in the world.

Of his project "Sculptor," Barna explained, "I wanted to make an application that people could use easily, be creative with, and have multiple people use it and see the effects of other users." Participants can expect to encounter a virtual landscape upon entering the CAVE, through which they can wander, using a hand-held wand to form geometrical sculptures around themselves.

The use of the CAVE in Immedia '99 is a triumph for the members of Entity, who claim they have fought a battle with the University administration to secure access to work with it. Barna says it took much campaigning and "screaming and yelling," to get an opportunity to work with the CAVE.

Art and Design senior Dan Hacker, Entity's director, believes the University's astounding computer design and virtual reality facilities are not being used to their full potential, due to administrators and faculty who are hesitant at entrusting the multi-million dollar equipment to students. But Hacker claims that change, though painstaking, is visible, due in part to new faces in top positions.

"The New Director of the Media Union, Barbara O'Keefe, is part of the reason we've been able to do all this," he said.

Because of limited cooperation from the University in the past, Entity looked outside of the academic realm to private companies for sponsorship. Now the group boasts big-name support from such companies as Apple, NIQ, WCBN, Mouser Electronics, and Silicon Graphics.

Music senior Gabriel Regentin sees the show as a way to give small programs like the Performance Arts Technology program a boost. Thorough increased artist visibility, the small programs that allow technological innovation and personal flexibility gain support from the University.

"This show allows people like us to show what we can do. While we don't necessarily put oil on canvas or sculpt out of marble, ... we can sculpt in a virtual world or create sound art... We wouldn't be able to do this without the show," he said.

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