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My final project for my digital art class. I’m hilarious.
Camille Utterback, a graduate with a Masters degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, creates interactive installations that have been enjoyed all over the world.
Her pieces have been featured in New York at the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the American Museum of the Moving Image but she’s shared her work in exhibitions in Japan, Ukraine, Austria and Spain.
Along with her own artwork, Utterback has developed permanent installations for several museums in New York and Pennsylvania and even for companies like Shiseido, a cosmetic company. She has earned several awards and features in publications such as Wired magazine and the New York Times. Res magazine even selected her as an artist pick of the year in 2000.
Utterback recently became a MacArthur Fellow earlier this year. The grant, a whole $500,000, is given to artists that have shown exceptional creativity, innovation and have given their community inspiring pieces.
Many of Utterback’s pieces rely on the interaction of viewers. She invites people to explore her pieces through movement. An early example of her style of work is ‘Text Rain,’ an interactive installation that was put together in 1999. The falling text on the screen could be lifted and played with and would fall according to obstacles, or rather, a person’s shadow on the screen.
More recently, she put together a gigantic interactive sculpture in San Jose, California that creates projects based on the movements of passing pedestrians. The piece, entitled ‘Abundance,’ exhibited in 2007 and is one of her most popular.
The most recognizable theme in all of Utterback’s pieces is that viewers can interact with them and change the piece depending on their actions and movements. Even the number of viewers or the size of the groups involved can change certain elements in a piece. Through time, her pieces have grown larger and interact with viewers on a larger scale. Sometimes, her pieces, like ‘Abundance’ for example, change to represent the community and environment it’s in. She often uses an underlying theme of unity and evolution to represent bringing people together. For a brief period of time, people have the ability to impact artwork personally, even if one may not be artistic at all, simply by playing with it.
Camille Utterback is an artist that resides in New York, where much of her work is on display.
One of her most famous pieces is Text Rain, an interaction installation she finished in 1999.
The most recognizable theme in all of Utterback’s pieces is that viewers can interact with them and change the piece depending on their actions and movements.
Her most recent finished piece, Abundance, was a temporary outdoor installation in San Jose, California, completed in 2007. Abundance, unlike Text Rain, is more than just playing with the artwork. Viewers will unknowingly temporarily personalize Abundance with their movements. Elements will change in the piece dpending on how many people are there or if viewers are by themselves.
Since we have to make a 14 second video for my digital art class, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by making a little something for the Danger Bunny fans and posting it on my pre-existing channel. It’s supposed to be like a “good-times, friend compilation” of some bloopers from an old sketch we filmed.
It’s sort of embarrassing I have no shame in filming myself in that horrible old lady wig and outfit but it’s so funny I’d be a bad person not to share this.
Chapter 3
What are the major themes in digital art and why?
The theme of a piece or digital art as a whole is determined by the medium of a piece. However, that’s not to say traditional media doesn’t or can’t have a theme as well.
Artificial intelligence plays a major role in media art because as technology develops, speculation about science, science fiction and where it’s all taking us is explored. Humans’ relationship with machines has been a popular research topic for artists and scientists for dozens of years. Computers are an ever evolving technology based on the idea that they can think and function for the convenience humans.
Artificial life, with projects like the one done by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneu called A-volve, provides a direct connection between the virtual world and the real world. It’s a way for humans to interact and communicate with machines. The project involves a pool covered by a touch screen where visitors can draw their own creatures and see how they will interact with one another based on how they look, swim and survive other predators. Human creation and decision affects the virtual realm of the life in the pool. Artwork that incorporates artificial life is often about the evolution of the world and its organisms but is not limited to it.
Another theme in digital art is telecommunication or telepresence. Artists use machines like faxes and telephones to explore the connection between one’s physical body and networking.
Body and Identity are also themes of digital art. While we have one physical body, we can have multiple ‘selves’ through virtual realms. Everything from retina scanning and fingerprint identification creates technological identification of a being. Likewise, we can use our bodies with technology to accomplish different forms of art and science. For example, wearing a glove meticulously covered in wires that control a computer or a robot. This is another way of connecting humans with machine and provides a source for adapting our art, technology, and ourselves to new environments.
Virtual reality also creates ways for humans to connect with art and even other worlds. We are able to interact and change the art with our reaction to the surroundings or the system guiding us. A flight simulator, for example, can make one feel as though he is truly flying a plane over fields and rivers. His senses will give his brain the sensations to make him feel as though he really is.
Data visualization and mapping are more themes in the digital world. These allow users to navigate textual commands and make them visual. Mapping is the territory being used and explored in a virtual space and will change depending on the data received. For example, the internet can be mapped by the IP addresses of computer and where the users take them.
Japanese people are hilarious.
My cat used to do this- but I don’t have him anymore 
But this cat is adorable. I imagine him in a little tweed coat with a brief case and a hat.
