Thread and Carbon, Oil and Steel From Sally Grizzell Larson, this selection, “No. 6” from this series, is a Lambda print. Digital technology was used to capture (by scanning) and integrate (using Photoshop) the various parts of the image, which resulted from a wide range of sources.
Revolution This CG on paper print was crafted by Mostafa Barakate. It was done with Photoshop, with each channel created separately.
Luminous Presence A reflection hologram by Paula Dawson. To accomplish this image, a virtual camera that captured the scene mimicked the viewer’s eyes. Thus, the camera used to create the final render was not a creative choice.
Not long ago, the seeds of digital art began to sprout in small communities. Today, the roots of this medium have spread across the globe. Yet, the way in which CG technology and art are united seems to vary from culture to culture. This year, the SIGGRAPH 2007 Art Gallery, with the theme “Global Eyes,” celebrated this expanding social awareness of digital media as it shapes, extends, and reflects world views and socio-political issues.
The foundation of this year’s gallery is based on multi-cultural experiences. “We look at how we can understand the world and the human experience in it by using the dialog between the human being and technology,” says the University at Buffalo’s Vibeke Sorensen, who served as this year’s chair. To this end, the committee tried to be as culturally inclusive as possible, looking at how technology is integrated with social issues in various parts of the globe.
The show highlighted 100 juried and 50 curated works. Some of these included projects that fell into new areas, such as artist books. Though some may classify these as traditional, Sorensen maintains that they are developing in different directions. This is mainly due to the way technology is being integrated into the world around us, she says. One example of this is the travel journal, created using paper and a camera. “The beautiful paper and tactile quality of the material is so different from a projection, for example,” says Sorensen. “Yet this extension of print is mobile, which reflects the fact that people are more mobile in our societies.”
A selection of images that were featured in the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery appears on these pages. —Karen Moltenbrey
Sonata Brian Evans created these digital prints on paper. The overall image was crafted by slicing an abstract animation through the time dimension. The score was composed as digital music, and the animation was discarded, leaving the trace behind.
Flow This wall-hung piece by Masa Inakage was produced by deforming 3D models through recursive twisting and bending. Then the models were placed in 3D space to show the inter-relationships among the objects.
Meteor Crater Observatory on Old Route 66, Arizona The images in this digital print series by Dave Poindexter were acquired with a digital camera and then manipulated through the use of masks, filters, and color adjustments.