The Capacitators

The Capacitators digital media student art exhibit was varied and dynamic for a student show. There were different art pieces vasting the full spectrum of the digital media field of study, exhibiting works in photography, animation, Second Life audio/visual interaction, interactive video receptors and short film collaborations.
I first interacted with Galashton, a World of Warcraft animation character brought into the world of Second Life, brought into the real world in this gallery to interact and chat with the gallery visitors. Galashton was projected on to the wall large enough to make it feel like he was truly right there in front of you. Viewers could speak into a microphone and have a casual conversation with Galashton, the speaking animation, who had witty and intelligent remarks to whatever questions or comments thrown his way. I enjoyed this piece, the ability to carry on a conversation with a projection onto a wall is a remarkable feat, and I must admit, I enjoyed attempting to make Galashton blush by telling him how handsome I thought he looked.
"Videos for Small Viewing" was a collaborative piece of connected short film clips from the Digital Media 345 class. The footage reel ran to a soundtrack of audio that was created by the students from handmade objects. This project reminded me of the project we did earlier this semester in our class, with the animation collaboration to audio, it was very similar except they used video clips and we used animation.
"Displace" was a projection performance, a receptive piece reacting to how people are effected by their location. A girl, dressed in all white, stood in front of a projector with a large projection being shown on the wall behind her of different settings: an aisle in a grocery store, the library, and a gym in the midst of a basketball game. Depending on the movement of the girl, the projection in the background would change. If she was moving in bigger motions, such as stretching, or moving her arms around above her head, the background would change to the gym scene. If she was still and had her head slightly downward, the library setting would come up and it would look like she was reading a book. If she would walk back and forth towards the projector, she would be in the grocery store isle. I thought this project had a really strong idea, but it could have been taken farther. It didn't quite connect all the way for me, but I understood the artist's intention after speaking with him about it, I just think it would have been more successful if there were more scenes, or if the project was more interactive and everyone could participate, and not just the one girl.
"Star Tear: The Gift of the Dream Dragon" was an animation piece created by a student who used an iPad to do majority of his artwork. I found that fascinating when he told me that all but one of the drawings in his video animation was done on the iPad... like Joe said "make it all the way to college just to learn how to finger paint"... but on an iPad. This artist had a nicely published book aside his project to explain his processing and detail behind the project, which was really helpful for the viewer and just interesting to read to see how he went about creating this project.
"Legends of Broadcast" was another interactive projection piece, but this piece reacted to light displayed in certain areas. With a flashlight, you would aim the light beam to photos hung up on the wall, and with a webcam aimed at the wall which was hooked up to a program on a laptop, the pictures on the wall would cause a reaction by the amount of light on the picture. The more light on the photo, the faster the video reel would go of a talk show host talking politics. The less light on the photo, the slower the video would go. I found this the most fascinating of the projects. I had a difficult time trying to follow how it all worked together because I was unfamiliar with the computer program he was using, and how it worked, but I think it was very successful and entertaining as an interactive piece.
In the back of the Holland Project there was a photography piece regarding the issues of "pixels". The meaning and objective behind this piece was that social media sites and outlets have made relationships less meaningful and the usage of the over exaggerated pixel in these enlarged photos of faces were to emphasize the way our generation interacts with one another. I thought it was an interesting piece because the social medias have changed the way people react with one another, and the relationships we understand now are different, and photos are a huge part of that. The pixels are the tiny objects that create the bigger picture of ourselves and that is how we choose to represent ourselves these days. It is a fascinating way to look at this cultural critique.

Lastly, there was our classes "Then Me, Now Me" which was just wonderful. Some people in our class were really successful in their recreations, and others seemed as if they just took two photos of themselves that looked similar and didn't even try. Even on a personal level, I wish I could have recreated mine even more than I had tried to. It was a nice feeling to see our classes work posted in a gallery like that, I just think we all could have put some more effort into perfecting our recreations more than we had.

Overall, The Capacitators was a very successful exhibit and I was surprised at the works I saw. It's inspirational to see students in our program doing such innovative work, I look forward to doing more and one day have a project in an exhibit similar to this.