Sync

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Sync 07, the annual digital and multimedia show sponsored by the University of Michigan School of Art and Design draws cutting edge art from around the country. I took DNA of Blue to the show and made camcordings of participants as they put together their arrangements. I wanted to move the project into the platform of internet connectivity. 

Large mounted photographs of single pieces and strands, long strings of photos mounted together, were shown at the same time. 

Further plans include making a version that can be done on the web, saved and sent in to be added to the collection.

During the opening, people were invited to participate by making their own arrangements.

Many participants were not art students but engineers and scientists. They liked to use the pieces to build in three dimensions.

The year before, at Sync 06, I'd shown my digital print series, Temple, a portfolio of 16 prints that meditated on the search for spiritual transformation. Recent travels to China and India had introduced me to Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Jain and Hindu temples, whose confined and intensified spaces seemed to echo in the new interior space of the computer. What could be made with mouse and screen that speaks to our most inarticulate needs? Using the layering abilities of Photoshop and some scanned brushstrokes, I repeated and transposed images from composition to composition. It felt like I was scratching the first art into the walls of the computer cave. 

Winter Gates, 2004, image 12" x 12", edition of 20

First Ring, 2004, image 12" x 12", edition of 20

Transmigration, 2004, image 12" x 12", edition of 20

Break of Day, 2004, image 12" x 12", edition of 20

The DNA of Blue project took the moving and transposing of pieces to the radical step of inviting the public to make the transformations themselves. This time I used the computer and internet to reach a wide new audience. The first youtube project I tried was of people from the Sync 07 event adding their designs to the ongoing DNA of Blue project.

Kids love to get into the act. Few art shows engage kids in the art making process.

Two visitors from China got busy and made an arrangement.  With very limited English, they made me understand that it spelled "China." This got me thinking more about how cross-cultural presentation of this project could discover new uses for the shapes and colors.

The people at Sync produced a stream of designs which made an elegant strand.

They also enjoyed throwing together designs in a scattered and seemingly haphazard way.