Visual Arts Briefs

Jennifer Phillips, director of the Office of  Career Development, was part of the SVA contingent attending the 2010 edition of SIGGRAPH, the premier international event on computer graphics and interactive technique. She sent this dispatch from the event in Los Angeles:

This week, a team comprised of members of the College’s MFA Computer Art Department; BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Department; Office of External Relations; and Office of Career Development attended SIGGRAPH 2010, which took place July 25 – 29 in Los Angeles, CA.

One of the conference’s many appeals is the annual “SpaceTime” exhibition and competition, which features some of the best creative computer-based work from students around the globe. Recent graduate Anis Haron (MFA 2010 Computer Art) was one of the few chosen to participate this year. Elsewhere at the conference, alumnus Isaac Kerlow (BFA 1981 Media Arts) directed this year’s Computer Animation Festival (CAF), and MFA Computer Art Department faculty member Steve Rittler was on the CAF jury.

In addition to the vibrant exhibition and festival scenes, the SVA team was part of an exclusive group of colleges and universities invited to partake in education symposiums at DreamWorks Animation Studios, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Walt Disney Animation Studios. These events allowed us to learn directly from top industry figures about new trends and technological developments that may affect the skills students need to ensure optimal success as professionals. Overall, the SIGGRAPH conference also gives the College an opportunity to promote the talent of its recent graduates to hiring managers throughout the digital arts industry.

Visit siggraph.org/s2010 for more information about SIGGRAPH, and watch videos from the event on SIGGRAPH’s YouTube channel.

Video: Anis Haron, Relations

Discussing the potential of computer viruses as a creative strategy, MFA Computer Art Department faculty member Joseph Nechvatal also talks about his work with images and music on the radio show ArtOnAir. Click here to listen to the broadcast.

Mark Kendall, a student in the MFA Social Documentary Film Department, continues to pick up awards for his film The Time Machine; the film recently received a CINE Golden Eagle Award in the student category, as well as the award for Short Documentary in Telegraph 21’s Best of Student Docs 2010. The CINE Golden Eagle Award acknowledges high-quality production in a variety of content categories for professional, independent and student filmmakers, and has recognized filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Ken Burns and Ron Howard in previous years. Kendall was joined by alumnus Dustin Grella (MFA 2009 Computer Art), whose narrative stop-motion animation Prayers for Peace about his brother’s death while on deployment with the U.S. military in Iraq, also won a CINE Golden Eagle. Telegraph 21 is a video magazine that features documentary films; the contest winners were selected from an international pool of filmmakers.

Kendall spoke with the Briefs about his  film and the recognition its been receiving:

The Time Machine profiles Wil Alvarez, a man from Honduras who works as a watchmaker in Grand Central Terminal. Tell me about the genesis of the film.
The Time Machine is a short documentary that I made for my first-semester directing class. Our assignment was to create a film about a process, and my mind immediately began thinking of ways that I could explore the idea of a process through visual metaphors. The first things that came to mind were to follow a jigsaw-puzzle cutter, someone who embalms corpses or someone who builds watches. I ran the idea past my instructor, and she mentioned there was a watch shop in Grand Central Terminal that might fit well for the kinds of ideas I was interested in exploring.

How do you think the recognition this film has received will influence your future work?
I think every filmmaker wants an audience, and film students are no exception.  I’ve been submitting The Time Machine to a variety of festivals and contests because many of them concentrate on sharing and celebrating the work of film students whose work focuses on documentary storytelling.  All the successes along the way have really been a vote of confidence that, if I continue to follow my intuition in my work, my films will continue to resonate emotionally with audiences.

What do you find interesting or challenging about the documentary genre?
One thing that I will forever find fascinating about documentary filmmaking is that the filmmaker ultimately is responsible for creating a world—a world that must be explored, reported and imagined. The magic of the cinematic illusion is that the images all become ‘real’ from the perspective of the audience as they are watching.  I find it fascinating that this is something we can explore in documentary as well.

Image: Poster for The Time Machine, designed by Danny Preslar.

Toy Story 3 opened last week, breaking the box office record for an animated feature, and one of the animators recently spoke to the Philippine Daily Inquirer about the project. Alumnus Gini Cruz Santos (MFA 1996 Computer Art) discusses animating the main character Andy, as well as a paso doble dance between toys Buzz and Jessie as an homage to her late father. Cruz Santos also worked on Disney Pixar movies Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2 and Up. Read the article here.

Several SVA students and alumni have received industry recognition for their short films:

• Dustin Grella (MFA 2009 Computer Art) is one of the 37 student finalists in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 37th Annual Student Academy Awards competition. Grella’s film Prayers for Peace is a narrative stop-motion animation about the artist’s younger brother, who was killed in Iraq.
• Ross Bollinger, a current student in the BFA Film, Video and Animation Department, was named the first-place winner in the Animation category of the 31st Annual College Television Awards for his work Hook, Line, and Stinker, a series of comedic vignettes about fisherman that appear to created by a moving pencil.
• Mark Kendall, a current student in the MFA Social Documentary Film Department, is earning praise for his short documentary film The Time Machine. It was selected as the Best Documentary Short of the 2010 Arizona International Film Festival, received the Grand Jury Award for Best Student Film in the Washington DC Independent Film Festival and won Best Student Film in the West Chester Film Festival. The Time Machine is a portrait of Wil Alvarez, a man who came to the U.S. from Honduras 11 years ago and now works as a watchmaker in New York City’s Grand Central Station.
• Jake Armstrong (BFA 2009 Animation) animation The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9! will be part of Best of Ottawa 2009, a series of screenings  from the Ottawa International Animation Festival that will travel through Canada and the United States through July 2010. Armstrong’s animation is also an Official Selection in the Graduation Films category of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2010, which will take place June 9 – 11.

Image: Dustin Grella, still from Prayers for Peace, 2009.

Fans of computer art and digital animation have a number of opportunities in May to see new work from undergraduate and graduate students at SVA. The Westside Gallery is running “Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Senior Thesis Projects,” an exhibition of still images from thesis projects by students in the BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Department, through Saturday, May 22. The exhibition is curated by Department Chair John McIntosh, and the full works will be screened on Wednesday, May 12, 7pm, at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street.

The SVA Theatre will also be the site of the MFA Computer Art Department’s thesis presentations. Screenings take place Friday, May 7, 7 – 10pm (reception: 10 – 11pm) and Saturday, May 8, 2 – 7pm (reception: 7 – 8:30pm). The presentations will begin with a performance by artist/percussionist Meret Koehler followed by thesis projects that reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the program, including 3D animation, video/motion graphics, interactive media, performance, installation and digital fine art. (A full schedule of screenings will be posted on the department’s Web site, mfaca.sva.edu.) The graduate department will follow up two week later when the “MFA Computer Art Department Thesis Exhibition,” curated by Charley Lewis, opens at the Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor. The show will run May 21 – June 5, with an opening reception on Tuesday, May 25, 6 – 8pm, and a special “meet the artists” event on Thursday, June 3, 6 – 8pm.

Images: (top) Jerry Chow, still from Boys Will Be Bears, 2010, from “Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Senior Thesis Projects”; (bottom) Anis Haron, video from Audio Palimpsest, 2010, from “MFA Computer Art Department Thesis Exhibition.”

• The 21st Annual Dusty Film and Animation Festival and Awards are happening May 2 – 7, featuring work by students from the BFA Film, Video and Animation Department and awards presented by famed industry professionals. Various publications have promoted the week-long festival, including Animation Magazine, IMDb.com and WCBS Channel 2’s Web site.
• Department Chairs Bruce Wands (MFA Computer Art Department) and Liz Danzico (MFA Interaction Design Department), along with BFA Fine Arts faculty member David Ross, were interviewed by The Wall Street Journal for an article about the TVs in New York City taxis. The three instructors made suggestions for backseat improvements such as interactive screens for shopping, ports for charging electronic equipment or simply, more likable personalities on the TV screens.
• Alumnus Mark Pernice (BFA 2000 Computer Art) was recently profiled in Wired. In addition to other projects for his design studio Matic Art, Pernice creates rubber masks based on images created using Apple’s Photo Booth software.
• Fast Company featured an infographic created by current MFA Interaction Design Department student Russ Maschmeyer. Maschmeyer created a graphic to map out and rank “die hard” baseball fans in various U.S. cities for a project in the department’s Information Visualization course.

Image: Animation Magazine Web site.

The latest in a series of one-on-one conversations with SVA department chairs.

For more than 20 years, the MFA Computer Art Department has been providing graduate students with access to the latest tools, technologies and expertise in the many realms of digital artwork, including 3D animation, motion graphics and video, digital fine art, Web design, programming and interactive media. Bruce Wands is a digital artist, musician, writer and educator who joined the program’s faculty in 1988 and has chaired the department since 1998. He recently spoke to the Briefs about the department and the challenges of staying on the leading edge of technology-based creation:

What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in your department over time?
The most dramatic change was the growth of the Internet in the mid-1990s. When we first connected to the Internet, they had to dig up 21st Street in order to install the cable. Now we are using wireless networking more and are seeing a dramatic increase in mobile computing. The capabilities of today’s software and hardware far exceed what we had even five years ago.

The technology of computer-driven artwork must be difficult to keep up with, moment to moment.
We have a dynamic curriculum model, where new courses are added and the old ones updated every year. We also enhance the curriculum through an active guest lecture program, visiting artists and workshops on a variety of topics. I spend a lot of time researching the field for new developments and future trends. For example, we started a Stereoscopic 3D class several years ago, and now Hollywood is producing a lot of 3D films, which provides opportunities for our graduates.

What’s in store for the next academic year?
We’re starting a course in creating apps for the iPhone and iPad. Our 3D stereoscopic HDTV and motion-capture capabilities will be enhanced, along with our multi-channel sound facilities. This will give our students even more ways to express their ideas and creativity.

What most impresses you about your students and their work?
We have seen a dramatic increase in the digital literacy of our incoming students over the past few years. They have grown up with computers, and this gives us the ability to focus more on creativity, critique and theory, rather than teaching them software. They are also not afraid to combine digital techniques with traditional media. For me, creativity is the most valuable commodity, and the students clearly understand that.

Image: Photo by Harry Zernike.

• For its February 25th Brooklyn v. Manhattan issue, Time Out New York commissioned alumnus Rich Tu (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay) to create an illustration of what Manhattan and Brooklyn would look like if all the bridges and tunnels between the two boroughs were disabled. Tu created an illustrated map with icons depicting various Time Out quips, such as “Upper East Siders ask themselves, What bridges?”
• The BFA Film, Video and Animation Department’s 21st Annual Dusty Film and Animation Festival and Awards was also featured in Time Out New York, as well as on BroadwayWorld.com. The Festival will take place May 2 – 7 and includes screenings of short films, videos and animations and an awards ceremony and gala with notable presenters from the film industry.
• Eye blog covered MFA Computer Art Department Chair Bruce Wands‘ presentation at Decoding the Digital, a conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Wands made predictions about the future of computer art and design. Click here to read Eye’s rundown of the presentations.
• GOOD magazine covered faculty member Chris Fahey’s class in the MFA Interaction Design Department. Fahey asked his students to use publicly accessible data about New York City and transform it into something useful for New Yorkers via an application for a handheld device. Final products included an application to find the nearest subway stop and one to help educate parents about local schools.

Image: Rich Tu, illustration for February 25 issue of Time Out New York

• Jonathan Bartlett, a current student in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department, designed a poster for the charity Web site SmallCanBeBig.0rg, which, through small donations, helps families overcome the threat of homelessness. Bartlett donated his time and talent to design and illustrate the poster titled A Joyful Gathering.
• MFA Computer Art Department faculty member Joseph Nechvatal recently published Towards An Immersive Intelligence: Essays on the Work of Art in the Age of Computer Technology and Virtual Reality 1993-2006 (Edgewise Press, 2009). The book is a collection of Nechvatal’s essays about the relationship between art and technology in contemporary life. He will be giving a lecture about the book and presenting new digital animations at the New York Institute of Technology, 16 West 61st Street, on Thursday, February 25, 6 – 9pm.
• MFA Fine Arts Department faculty member Jerry Saltz, who is also the senior art critic at New York magazine and former senior art critic at The Village Voice, recently published the book Seeing Out Louder (Hudson Hills Press, 2009). It is a collection of essays about various aspects of the contemporary art world and a follow-up to his book Seeing Out Loud (Figures, 2003).

Image: Jonathan Bartlett, A Joyful Gathering, poster for SmallCanBeBig.org