Week 2 Assignment/Part 2: ACM SIGGRAPH

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is known as the world's first and largest computing society. A special interest group within ACM is known as ACM SIGGRAPH, a community of researchers, artists, developers, filmmakers, scientists, and business professionals who share an interest in computer graphics and interactive techniques.

ACM SIGGRAPH brings people together both physically at events and on-line with a hope to invent, inspire those who are working within the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Although this is not a gallery, museum, or institution, it is a fascinating community of people who are passionate about what they do with media and technology and want to share it with others. I also like the idea of bringing together not just artists, but a vast variety of creative people.

ACM SIGGRAPH is best known for their two annual conferences.

Other examples of events sponsored or co-sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH include:

i3D 2015
A conference for real time 3D computer graphics, games, and human interaction.

PerMln 15
A conference on perception and machine intelligence.

FMX 2015
A conference on animation, effects, games and transmedia.

Week 2 Assignment/Part 1: Ashley Pigford

I was lucky enough to have Ashley Pigford as one of my professors during my undergraduate degree at the University of Delaware. He is still a professor there teaching Graphic Design and Interaction Design. He also carries out workshops and speaks to audiences all over the world.

His personal artwork often has a connection between human and robotic or hand made and computer generated.

More specific details about his biography, publications, and work can be found on his website:
http://designisgoodforyou.com/

The following project of his stood out to me:

twoLovers

twoLovers is a series of works that is in development but the first phase of the project is documented on Pigford's website. It is in collaboration with Troy Richards and was shown at Greeleaf Gallery, Whittier College in California. Two robots move around a gallery space creating short phrases on a 14x18 foot sheet of paper. The phrases are: find me, looking, searching, lost you, where are you, no time, is there someone else, can you see me, can you hear me, where to look.
The two robots never come in contact with one another, essentially always searching for each other but never finding each other.

The result is a combination of human qualities and robotic qualities. The hope is to make the viewer question how we as humans today can now relate to robots in a way we once related to animals.

Pigford quotes philosopher Joel Marks, "Today it seems plausible to postulate that we are material mechanisms of a high order, who have evolved from common ancestors with the other animals (and plants) and may eventually merge with our digital creations to become 'trans-human' cyborgs."

 Photo of the robot.

Photo of the gallery space

Video of robots in action

 After two weeks of mark making

Pigford has many projects which explore this relationship between humans and robots. By doing so his use of media in his art work is relatable and eye opening and often fun. I admire his ability to create something that is highly technical but simple. The following images show a few other projects of his which stood out to me:

The Cursive Machine

Bright Type Installation

CNC Router in action at Modular Type Workshop

as part of the Technographic Research Project

Lockup of an "R" at Modular Type Workshop

Introduction

Hello,

My name is Hannah Lokken.
This is my second semester here at Teacher's College and I am in the MA Init program in the Art Education department. I am from Delaware and received my undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware. However, since graduation and up until moving to NYC to attend TC, I lived in Philadelphia working a combination of jobs that have varied from letterpress, graphic design, illustration, and eventually shifting towards teaching art to children.

My undergraduate degree is in graphic design, so I have been lucky to have had quite a bit of experience with New Media and technology. However, it has now been four years since my last course involving new media and as we know, technology changes very quickly.

I am looking forward to re-familiarizing myself with forms of new media and to consider how it might be used with students in the classroom. I'm most curious about video and sound, as that is what I have the least amount of experience in.