See New Forms of Art at Boston Cyberarts Festival

Logo for Boston Cybertarts FestivalDozens of events at the Boston Cyberarts Festival scheduled for April 22 through May 8 will challenge the public to look at art in whole new ways. For example, events include: an interactive, virtual-reality visit with an Egyptian oracle; an exhibition of dynamic digital paintings; and two demonstrations of how augmented reality can be used for public art projects.

Virtual Reality Exhibit
Commonly used in gaming, virtual reality refers to computer-simulated environments in which a physical presence is simulated in a real or imaginary world. The Egyptian Oracle event at the Boston Cyberarts Festival will use a virtual-reality, interactive narrative based on the Egyptian tradition of the public oracle to help audiences develop a deeper understanding of Egyptian culture.

Vitural Reality
Courtyard of the virtual Temple of Horus

Scheduled from 2 to 4 pm on Sunday, May 1 at the Cyberarts Central headquarters at Atlantic Wharf, the event will focus on an important religious event from the Ptolemic Period.  An expert puppeteer will virtually control an avatar of an Egyptian high priest, who will collaborate with live educators, other figures in the virtual Temple of Horus, and the audience. The event will be filmed for a general discussion afterward.

Augmented Reality Art Projects
Augmented Reality provides rich, interactive experiences to smartphone users by overlaying images, information, and graphics on top of our real-time view of the world around us. During the CyberArts festival, augmented-reality art projects will be demonstrated to smartphone users at two popular sites in Boston.

See Aliens Invade Boston’s Greenway Park: Mark Swarek and Joseph Hocking will present an augmented reality-experience at Boston’s Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Park. Entitled “Occupation Forces,” the art project enables people who have downloaded a special “alien detection app” to see invading aliens that will go undetected by the unsuspecting public. App users will encounter the invaders at multiple locations and watch the occupation intensify as they near the center of the park.

Occupation Forces Augmented Reality Project at Greenway Park

See Virtual Public Art at the Institute of Contemporary Art: The artists’ collective Manifest.AR has produced an augmented reality app that uses geolocation software to superimpose a virtual exhibition of computer-generated art objects in and around Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art. From 3 to 5 pm on Friday, April 22, the artists will be on hand at the ICA to demonstrate how to access the work and talk about individual projects.

Image of iPad showing virutal art at Institute of Contemporary Art
“Parade to Hope” is one of the virtual art projects that will be installed by Manifest.AR and viewed through a Layar augmented-reality app at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Participating artists include Mark Skwarek, John Craig Freeman, Will Pappenheimer, Tamiko Thiel, Sander Veenhof, Virta-Flaneurazine, Patrick Lichty, Lily & Honglei, Christopher Marnzione, Arthur Peters, Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, Nathan Shafer, Joseph Hocking, 4 Gentlemen, and Damon Baker.

Dynamic Digital Imagery
In the “Fluid Perimeters” exhibition of dynamic digital imagery, festival-goers can see examples of dynamic digital painting, digital animations, and algorithmically generated software that explores digital and artificial life.

A dynamic digital painting is one in which a static digital painting slowly, but continuously morphs into something slightly different. (For a demonstration of a dynamic digital painting, watch the YouTube video on the website of the artist San Base: www.sanbase.com)

At the Boston CyberArts Festival, the “Fluid Perimeters” exhibition will feature works by Brian Knep, Robert Arnold, Dennis Miller, Andrew Neumann, Mark Stock, and Dan Hermes.

About The Boston CyberArts Festival
The biennial Boston Cyberarts Festival showcases the rich and vibrant world of art and high technology in New England. Cyberart encompasses any artistic endeavor in which computer technology is used to expand artistic possibilities.

LINKS

The Boston Cyberarts Festival

Egyptian Oracle Virtual-Reality Interactive Narrative

Occupation Forces: an Augmented Reality Experience

Manifest.AR: Interventionist Public Art

Fluid Perimeters: An Exhibition of Dynamic Digital Imagery

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