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>.
