Crouse’s piece, Dayton Cubes, is a projection piece that envelops the eye and fully distorts the viewer’s sense of space in the room with different digital cubes. The installation was made with Hush Studios and Flightphase for the University of Dayton admissions office. Crouse says, “When I enter the building, it is in "idle mode", where there is some animated typography of some questions. When I enter the interaction area, a 87x26 field of cubes starts moving, rotating, and scaling in waves, and some cubes directly in front of me congeal into a surface and a video of student life starts playing. At one point, you can see the Kinect cameras installed in the ceiling.” Overall, the piece is all consuming. If someone walked into the room where this piece was installed, he or she could not ignore it. The piece is simply to big and interesting to be ignored. Although an art project so large may seem like it doesn’t belong in an admissions office, it does. The project is meant to be a part of one’s first moment in the room. Absorbing a setting is an extremely powerful thing. Having that feeling be altered and surprised by digital media and the notion that technology is always around us, is the point. The idea of having a digital media space interact with a real space directly compliments Howard’s piece, Wallpapers.
The same idea is present in that the real space is converted into a moving digitally projected and enhanced space. With these pieces, the room in which they are installed is transformed and as a result, the viewer or spectator is transfixed. The notion that these rooms should act in this way or affect the viewer in a certain way is not mentioned. However, upon digitally viewing portions of these projects, it probably could be concluded that everyone would want to experience or live in this sort of art at least once. Nicolas Sassoon and Sara Ludy, artists who also participated in Howard’s Wallpapers helped alter and make the 3000 square foot space be overcome by animated gifs. The walls, because all are covered in this digital wallpaper, seem to be moving. The viewer can act as they do in everyday life but also may have a tendency to be transfixed, more than usual, by the moving art on the walls. Something that is general ignore (art hung up on a wall or repetitive wallpaper) can now because of digital media become a noticeable and exciting interaction. Although this art is seen on such a large scale, it almost means more to us because we can soak it in by interacting with it.
In both instances, the pieces allow for considerable interaction with the audience. In Crouse’s Dayton Cubes, the viewer directly participates in the piece because the cubes move according to a viewer’s presence. In the absence of their presence, the cubes remain as they were however, when the viewer moves, so do the cubes. The cubes projected on the 36-foot wall eventually move and rotate to reveal videos of student experience, which is fitting because it was set up in the admissions office at the U of D. Because the art is engaging and graphically interactive, the viewers get a strong sense of direct interaction. Now, instead of just witnessing a neat digital projection, they are actually influencing it. Viewers can further their interaction by moving to different parts of the wall, where eventually different videos of student life are played. In addition, Howard’s Wallpapers piece is interactive because it features several live musical performances by artists in the digital space. Although someone is still living though the digitally modified space, they are not directly influenced by it. Only several actually interact in the space. The artists performing become part of the piece, but only for others to view. The wallpaper does not actually change with the movement of viewers.
Although the pieces and ideas presented in these two pieces are immensely similar, there are a few key differences. Howard’s Wallpapers piece was projected on all the walls in the room while Crouse’s Dayton Cubes piece was just projected on one giant wall. Although the pieces act similarly in moving one’s eye, Wallpapers probably accomplished enveloping the viewer in an integrated world of the digital and the real. One wall may be enough to catch one’s eye but not enough to immerse one’s self into another sense of reality. Another major difference these two pieces face is that of shape. The cubic piece of Crouse’s is consistent. There are cubes and breaks in the cubes for other images or distortions. The flow of the piece may be disjointed as times, but is purposeful and the cube-like digital projections will always remain. On the other side of shape, Howard’s Wallpapers varies greatly in what digital forms or shapes one will see. On one wall, it could be purple squares and on another wall green, moving zig zags. There is no answer to whose may affect the viewer more. Both are simply esthetically different. As previously mentioned, the way a viewer interacts with the piece is considerably different. The more effective of these two is Crouse’s Dayton Cubes. Because the person can reach out of move about to produce a different result, they will become involved with the piece longer. As if the consumer needs to be enveloped by technology ever further is unclear. However the piece becomes affective because the viewer is a part of making it function.
Though these projects were active in 2011, these artists are still extremely active in dissecting ideas based on technology and our strong connections to it. Crouse, with an MS from the Digital Media program at Georgia Tech, continues to be involved in schools while producing art. He not only teaches at Bennington College but also spends time in New York teaching Code for Art at Parsons. Howard works at the Curatorial Director of 319 Scholes and is the 2012-2013 Cultural Fellow for Eyebeam. In 2013, she will be revealing a 5-year project called “F.A.T. Gold” that will further explore the idea of our unlimited accessibility. Both members of Eyebeam, Crouse and Howard continue to pursue and break apart technology’s profound effects on us.
These pieces, in particular show similarities in these two artist’s work. Technology, used in slightly different ways but with similar tools can be used to convey a similar meaning. However, they can still have a different effect on the viewer. Howard’s Wallpapers piece shows the audience how technology can be all around us and we may not be able to escape it if it is on every wall, moving around us. Crouse’s Dayton Cubes shows the audience that being a part of digital media can be interactive and revealing. If you stop interacting with it though, it becomes dull and reveals nothing. In both cases, digital media helps bring to light the topic of technology and what role that plays in our everyday lives. It brings up questions of if we should interact with it, and if so how closely. It also nicks the ideas that digital art and technology does not have to stay in it’s own space. If it leaks over into the real world, will it be a benefit or a nuisance? Can we even escape from it, or do we even want to? These are just several of the questions Crouse and Howard poke at in their beautiful digital presentations.
Wallpapers
http://www.eyebeam.org/people/lindsay-howard
http://319scholes.org/exhibition/wallpapers/
http://www.jeffcrouse.info/
http://www.jeffcrouse.info/project/dayton_cubes.html
http://www.flightphase.com/main_wp/expanded-media/interactive-wall-at-ud
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