Final Paper Assignment

Jacklyn Yamine

Clint Sleeper

Digital Media- Art 245

December 15, 2014

Living Artist Compare and Contrast

Robot musician Jeff Lieberman and installation artist Don Ritter are only two of the many well know digital media artists in today’s world.  Both artists are well known for their works and other groups of artists that they have worked with from time to time.

Jeff Lieberman is an artist who explores the connections between arts, sciences, education, creativity, and consciousness. Lieberman is from Miami, Florida and has a Bachelor’s of Science in Physics and Math, and a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering and Media Arts and Sciences.  Today he is best known as the host of Discovery Channel’s show “Time Warp”.  He has done many projects that relate to the human conscious, and is continuously exploring how the evolution of consciousness can cease human suffering (bea.st).  He is a part of the group Hypersonic, Plebian Design, and Knolls in which he composes music with Eric Gunther.  He has built multiple sculptures internationally in order to explore our “unseen interconnectedness and interdependence” (bea.st).  Breaking Wave is one of his collaboration projects with his group Hypersonic that have helped to further explore this unseen interconnectedness by showing how people search for some sort of meaning in most things, in this case patterns.  Breaking Wave is an anamorphic kinetic sculpture of 804 suspended spheres that move in a wave-like formation (Hypersonic).  These suspended spheres hang from a large rotating motor with 36 rollers sliding on a linear track in order to create the different forms with the spheres.  For the most part if one were to stand in the same room as this cloud of spheres there seems to be no point to the project, but there are two hidden points, one within the room and one outside in which two different images can be seen, a floral design and a maze.  This shows how when someone changes their perspective on something they can find and discover new things, such as the hidden patterns in these spheres.

Don Ritter is a Canadian installation artist and writer who is currently living in Hong Kong. He works mostly with large interactive video and sound installations that is controlled by the audience’s body position, body movement, or voice.  Many of these installations are meant to show human behavior when one is put into an aesthetically experienced situation (“Don Ritter”).  Ritter is best known for his installation of Intersection from 1993, which is an interactive sound installation installed within a large dark room.  It contains the sounds of car traffic on a four lane highway that seem to be rushing across the dark space and the only light comes from a dimly lit exit sign on the other side of the room.  When a visitor steps into a lane and a car comes the sound of the car screeching to a halt will be heard.  The longer one stands in the lane more cars will come and can be heard smashing into each other.  When the visitor steps out of the lane the car can be heard accelerating as it drives away.  Ritter’s message behind this project is to show what technology is doing to us every day.  He’s making visible the invisible force-field of technology (“Intersection by Don Ritter”).  As McLuhan states that the “medium is the message” as well as an extension of the human being itself, Ritter is sort of reemphasizing this statement because his installation is meant to show us that all this new technology is coming at us so fast that it is literally crashing into us.  The setup consists of eight speakers that sit across from each other in order to create four “lanes” of traffic.  The installation is entirely computer controlled and is setup at random intervals for when a car will be driving in the lane.  Inferred beams sit on top of the speakers in order to detect when someone is standing in the lane and reports back to the computer.  This installation has been show at multiple exhibitions, including an outside installation of Intersection.

These two projects of Breaking Wave by Jeff Lieberman and Intersection by Don Ritter are similar in the sense that they are both meant to show and tell us something about ourselves and the world around us.  Breaking Wave shows how changing perspective can open new doors and allow us to learn something new.  The hidden patterns that can be seen each have a different meaning behind them.  The maze shows for a search for knowledge and the flower reminds us of the natural order and patterns found in nature (Hypersonic).  Intersection shows how technology is hitting us fast and hard, as cars would do if we were to stand on a highway with speeding cars.  Although in his installation the cars don’t make the sound of crashing into people, technology of the real world is crashing into us and we can’t always keep up with it so we become fearful of the unknown that comes with using high technology.  Jeff Lieberman has made some very interactive pieces of art but Breaking Wave isn’t one of them.  This particular piece of art runs on a motor and requires no sort of movement or interaction from the viewer.  However, for Ritter the entire purpose of the project is for it to be interacted with.  While Breaking Wave does help to show how people look at things this particular project doesn't have quite the same meaning and purpose behind it as Ritter’s installation.  Breaking Wave is meant to change one’s perspective, but Intersection is meant to make people become aware of something altogether.  People aren't necessarily aware of how all the new technology is affecting them.

Lieberman and Ritter are both well-known artists in the digital art world and when researching them I have also learned of many other great artists who continue to enhance the meaning of art and what is does to and for the world, as well as to us as a society.  I liked both of these works and how they are meant to show something to society as well as teaching us that we can learn something new when we really take the time to look and notice the things around us.

Works Cited

"Don Ritter." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Ritter>.

Hypersonic. "Breaking Wave for Biogen- IDEC, Inc." Breaking Wave. Hypersonic, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. <http://www.hypersonic.cc/projects/breakingwave>.

"Intersection by Don Ritter." Intersection by Don Ritter. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. <http://aesthetic-machinery.com/intersection.html>.

Jeff Lieberman. n.d. Web. <http://bea.st>

Nifty Fifty. "Exploring the Mystery of Human Consciousness With Roboticist and 'Time Warp' Host Jeff Lieberman. USA Science Festival. One Web Company, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. <www.usasciencefestival.org/schoolprograms/niftyfifty/771-dr-jeff.html>.