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Advanced Arts Technology

College of Arts & Sciences, College of Engineering
Center for Advanced Research Technology in the Arts and Humanities, Schools of Art and Music, and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering

During the past three decades a dramatic evolution in the arts has taken place parallel to those in the sciences and engineering. An exponentially increasing demand for advanced computer-based production, research, and education in the visual and aural domains has changed the face of the arts worldwide. Artists, often working closely with engineers and scientists, are collaborating in and initiating fundamental research while developing new and hybrid art forms, a corpus of new knowledge and a core of practice and theory. This cultural transformation has generated a growing need to train and educate students in the arts and humanities as well as in the sciences and engineering in advanced arts technology concepts and techniques. This project will build upon individual and collaborative work already undertaken in the Center for Advanced Research Technology in the Arts and Humanities, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the School of Art, and the School of Music, over the last several years to lay the foundation that will lead towards a comprehensive path-breaking program in Arts Technology at the UW.

Contacts:	Richard Karpen Professor, Music Composition and Director, CARTAH karpen@u.wasington.edu
	Paul Berger Professor, Photography peberger@u.washington.edu
	Edward Lazowska Professor and Chair, Computer Science and Engineering lazowska@cs.washington.edu
Allocation:	$555,392
Date Funded:	February 1999

Update, May 2001

Here's a URL for a web page that links to photos of the "Terraform I" installation that we had running a the Henry from last December to April: http://www.washington.edu/cartah/digiart/terraform/gallery/index_1.htm. The Tools funds were essential for this project. Five of the participants (of those listed below two post-docs, two grad students, and a staff person) are funded by Tools.

Progress Report, November 2001

Tools for Transformation in Advanced Arts Technology - A Tools for Transformation grant for Advanced Arts Technology, awarded in 1999 to faculty in Art, Music, and Computer Science and Engineering and administered by CARTAH, supported the temporary addition of post-doctoral artists, staff, and teaching assistants for a two-year period. This pilot project has furthered the accomplishments and reputation of the UW as an emerging leader in the Digital Arts and has led to a successful UIF in Digital Arts.

Some of the activities made possible through the addition of Tools-funded faculty, staff, and operations include:

new undergraduate and graduate courses in Digital Arts. Students from Art, Music, CSE, EE, and other areas enrolled in these courses w hich focus on the development of new technologies and the creation of new artwork using those technologies.
an interdisciplinary graduate course led by Arts and Engineering faculty with over 30 students from these disciplines. The course included a series of public lectures by leading digital artists and engineers from around the country. As their final project the students broke into interdisciplinary groups to speculatively design public art projects that would use digital media in innovative ways.
TA support for courses that require intensive lab work making it possible to increase access Digital Arts courses; provided important teaching experience for interdisciplinary arts graduate students.
an enhanced research environment with post-docs and RA's leading explorations into new technologies and new art genres.
more public exposure for digital art produced at the UW including Computer Music/Digital Video shows in Meany Hall and participation in the newly launched UW Summer Arts Festival (the Digital Arts show was among the most successful events of the first festival in 2000. A similar event took place in 2001 on the opening night of the Festival).
national and international research and arts partnerships. We have furthered some existing relationships and begun some new ones with artists and engineers working at Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and those in Argentina, Britain, France, Germany, India and Spain. These relationships involve collaborating on research, sharing newly developed computer applications, and the programming of one another's works on concerts and in galleries.
selected list of artists and performers and speakers
- October 1999
  - Marie O'Mahony - "The soft machine: design in the cyborg age"
- November 1999
  - Allan Coleman - "Fuzzy Logic and Artificial Stupidity"
  - Mark Goldstein - "New electronic instruments for percussive performance"
  - Trimpin - "History of mechanical musical instruments"
  - Fernando Lopez-Lescano - "New computer music from Argentina"
- January 2000
  - Beryl Graham - "Curatorial practice and new media"
  - Brian Wallace - "Curatorial practice and new media"
  - Pablo Di Liscia - "Concert: new computer music"
  - Joseph Anderson - "Concert: new computer music"
  - Perry Cook - "Physically-based parametric synthesis and control of audio for the computer-mediated experience."
- February 2000
  - Victoria Vesna - "Recent eveolutions in new media"
  - Jonathan Harvey - "Recent electro-acoustic music"
  - Ellen Dissanayake - "What is art for?"
- March 2000
  - Tony Orsler - "Installation Artist"
  - Chris Chafe - "Music and compuer based research"
the recent Terraform project at the Henry Art Gallery. Faculty, post-docs, students, and staff, working together developed a real-time computer-controlled audio/visual environment inside the Henry's New Media Gallery. For 10 weeks during autumn quarter 2000, the project brought together art and music students, faculty and technical staff to wrestle with the technological and aesthetic issues which make up artists' creative processes. The installation ran from December 2000 through April 2001.

Student and Post-doctoral Faculty Activities and Recognition

national recognition of graduate students supported by the Tools for Transformation with the award of two Fulbright Scholarships, one for Spain and the other for India.
research associate acitivites in the art:

July 2001 "Northwest Annual Film and Video Festival"
July 2001 "Pleasure Craft" - Tacoma Art Museum
June 2001 Artist Trust Grant
June 2001 Whatcom Museum - Bellingham, WA. "Donut shop #4" -Chris Moss
March 2001 "Marginalia," Millennium Film Workshop, New York, NY curated by Marco Bruer
"Domesticity" Donut Shop #3, Portland, OR curated by Chris Moss
"Artist Trust Exhibition" Bank of America Gallery, Seattle, WA.
2000 "Terraform1" Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA.
2000 "Annual Show" NoodleWorks, Seattle, Washington
2000 "Pacific Northwest Annual" - Bellevue Art Museum Bellevue, WA.
2000 "Top Heavy" - Southern Exposure - San Francisco, CA.

research associate activities in music:

9/1-7-8-14-15/2001. Argentine premiere of UOM in "La Fabrica", Buenos Aires. Press interview and review (with pictures! :) at: http://www.clarin.com.ar/diario/2001-08-26/c-01001.htm, http://www.clarin.com.ar/diario/2001-09-07/c-00601.htm
8/17-24-31, 9/7-14/2001. Seminar on Spatial Techniques and Composition at University of Quilmes, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
8/15-22-29, 9/5-12/2001. Seminar on Algorithmic Composition using Common Music at University of Quilmes, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
7/30-31, 8/1-2-3/2001. Workshop on Algorithmic Composition using Common Music at Escuela Universitaria de Musica, Montevideo, Uruguay.
7/17/2001. World premiere of UOM, at the Summer Arts Festival, Meany Theater, University of Washington.
5/15/2001. Performance of Skin Heads by Matt Kocmierosky, Rob Tucker and Vanessa Tomlinson at the Annual Computer Music Festival Concert, Meany Hall, University of Washington.
3/17/2001. Performance of Metal Hurlant by Pilar Subira at the Festival Phonos/UIA, Metronom, Barcelona, Spain.
12/8/00 to 4/19/01. Terraform I installation at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington.
8/27 to 9/1/2000. International Computer Music Conference in Berlin, Germany. Performance of Metal Hurlant by Michael Wertmuller, and presentation of CARTAH's Studio Report.
8/2/2000. World premiere of Jonathan Harvey's Mothers Shall Not Cry, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers, at the Albert Hall, London, UK. Juan Pampin: technical director (Multi-channel tape part and live processing for the piece realized at CARTAH. Broadcasted live by BBC Radio 3).
7/18/2000. Performance of Toco Madera by Matt Kocmierosky, Rob Tucker, at the Summer Arts Festival, Meany Theater, University of Washington. (http://depts.washington.edu/smccweb/events/saf000718.html)
5/26/2000. European premiere of Skin Heads, by Sinfonia 21 as part of the "ElectronIC" concert series at St. John's, Smith Square, London. Concert recorded and broadcasted by the BBC (Music Live).
5/24/2000. Performance of Metal Hurlant by Rob Tucker at the Annual Computer Music Festival Concert, Meany Hall, University of Washington. (http://depts.washington.edu/smccweb/events/cmc000524.html)
3/7/2000. World premiere of On Space by Les Percussions de Strasbourg, opening concert of the Musiques en Scene festival 2000, Lyon, France.
2/3/2000. World premiere of Interstices by Sinfonia 21 as part of the "Style and Ideas" concert series at Imperial College, London.
11/6/1999. Concert of Computer Music from Argentina at Brechmin Auditorium, University of Washington. (http://depts.washington.edu/smccweb/events/cmc991106.html)
10/19-24/1999. International Computer Music Conference in Beijin, China. Paper presentations: "ATS: a Lisp environment for Spectral Modeling", "Common Lisp Music update report" (with Fernando L.Lezcano, and Bill Schottstaedt), and "Data compression of sinusoidal modeling parameters based on psychoacoustic masking" (with Guillermo Garcia).

The Tools for Tranformation funded program, built upon upon much collaborative work that preceeded the grant, enabled students and faculty to extend their creative spirit further than had ever been possible at the University of Washington in technology-based art. The results have been recognized, not just on the UW campus, but in the region, nationally, and internationally. The post-docs and students funded by the grant have received wide acclaim for the quality of their art work and the genious of their technological imagination. The seamless passage from Tools for Transformation to the UIF funded Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media puts the UW on center stage in this area of the Arts for years to come.

Tools for Transformation Funded Proposals