Our program is a mix of presentations, workshops, an open lab space, and discussions.  Speakers include our opening talk by Ward Cunningham, best known for inventing the wiki, and our closing talk by Trimpin, a world-reknown kinetic music sculptor and inventor.  See below the schedule for full speaker bios.

SPEAKERS

Ward Cunningham, AboutUs.org (opening talk):  Augmented Ways of Seeing

In this talk, Ward will discuss how we may leverage technology to augment the way we see and process the world in social media, science and in art, drawing from his own experiences as an inventor, developer, and tinkerer.

Ward Cunningham is well known as the inventor of the first wiki and for his contributions to the developing practice of object-oriented programming, the variation called Extreme Programming.  He is also an active member of Portland’s Dorkbot.  Ward is currently the Chief Technology Officer of AboutUs.org, a growth company hosting the communities formed by organizations and the people they touch.   Learn more at: http://www.aboutus.org/Ward_Cunningham

Trimpin, Artist (closing talk):  Inventions in Music and Kinetic Scuplture

Trimpin  is a Seattle, Washington-based kinetic sculptor, sound artist, musician, and composer.   Most of his pieces integrate both sculpture and music in some way, and many make use of computers to play these instruments.  He will be talking about his history of work, exploring inventions in music and kinetic sculpture.

Trimpin has invented machines to play every instrument of the orchestra via MIDI commands.  His mechanical cello can achieve virtually unnoticeable bow changes, and his MIDI timpani can be rubbed quickly by the mallet, for a timpani drone unachievable by human hands.   Indeed, his pieces do not generally try to imitate human playing.[2] “What I’m trying to do,” he as remarked, “is go beyond human physical limitations to play instruments in such a way that no matter how complex the composition of the timing, it can be pushed over the limits.” Although most of his music is computer-driven, Trimpin almost never uses electronic sounds—not because he objects to them on principle, but because he thinks that loudspeaker design, basically unchanged for 100 years, has lagged behind the rest of electronic music technology.  His one work to use electronic sounds was commission-mandated, a tornado-shaped column of electric guitars called Roots and Branches, installed in Seattle’s Experience Music Project. Difficult to reach, the guitars tune themselves automatically, their tuning pegs turned via computer whenever pitch sensors register too flat or sharp.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimpin

Robin Oppenheimer, University of Washington:  A Brief History of the Interdisciplinary Collaborations of the E.A.T. (Experiments in Art ad Technology) and their connection to the NW

Learn how avant-garde artists and Bell Telephone engineers collaborated in the 1960s to create “9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering” performances that led to the formation of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) — a non-profit organization established in 1966 to support collaborations between artists and engineers. Chapters were formed around the world, including Seattle and Portland. Historical videos from these histories will be shown as part of the presentation.

  Robin Oppenheimer is an internationally recognized media arts consultant, historian, curator, writer, and educator who has worked in the field since 1980. She is currently a professor at the University of Washington.  Ms. Oppenheimer was the first Media-Arts-Historian-in-Residence at Bellevue Art Museum, near Seattle (2000-2). As Manager of the Seattle Art Museum’s Open Studio Project (1997-2000), she oversaw Web production and literacy training for almost 60 Seattle artists and arts organizations. She is also a former Executive Director of 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle (1989-95), and IMAGE Film/Video Center in Atlanta (1984-8), where she directed the Atlanta Film & Video Festival.

Jeff Brice, Cornish: Philosophy in Motion

What is the relationship between language and our sense of self within our associational communities?  ‘Philosophy in Motion’ is my current body of work that visualizes diagrammatic movements of conceptual sequences and singular moments of conceptual framing. Basically I am exploring narrative aesthetics of living within our complex information environment. The narrative element connotes an illustrative approach in bringing a visual understanding to complex ideas.  The use of technology brings the medium of our social discourse to form a philosophy in motion.

Jeff has been involved in technology and art since he graduated from Carnegie Mellon University. After he received his MA from NYIT in Computer Graphics, he started one of the first digitally based illustration studios in NYC. He is currently an Associate Professor in the motion design concentration within the Design Department at Cornish College of the Arts. He teaches visual narrative, gaming theory, complex systems and semiotics. Using motion design to visualize philosophical principles in narrative form, Jeff is currently working with a clinic to visualize neurofeedback therapy on brain waves.

Susie Lee, Artist:  To Breathe in the Digital Realm

Lee will present an overview of her works which incorporate new media into sculpture, installation and performance. The strength of these technologies lies in its interactive, temporal, iterative and combinatorial possibilities. The question, with digital media, is how to make work that is technologically compelling, yet still intimate and poetic.  The challenges are to develop experiences that will not be dated and to close the gap between the digital and the analog. New media works that transcend their technological form has the potential
to create, for the viewer, a singular and heightened awareness of transience, motion and stillness.

Seattle based new media artist Susie J Lee merges digital technologies with physical objects, to create systems of experiential art forms from material phenomena. The interstitial moments of human connections are evoked through metaphorical touchstones in the time-based activation of light, sound, and water.  Exploring the potential of experimental technologies to evoke poetic experiences, her installations and sculptures  hover between the physical and the ephemeral. Lee’s work has been exhibited locally, throughout the US, and internationally in Korea and Italy, and has been collected by many prominent private and institution collections.  She has taught at the Frye Art Museum, Centrum Arts Organization, and the University of
Washington and has received a number of grants, awards and public commissions.  Her background is in Molecular Biophysics andBiochemistry at Yale University with a Masters in Science Education at Columbia University. She received her MFA at the University of Washington. Susie is represented by Lawrimore Project in Seattle and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro in Italy.  Learn more at:  http://www.susiejlee.com/

Sumit Basu, Microsoft Research: Technology Shaping Art

Having worked on a variety of projects that use technology as an element for auditory and visual artwork, as well as having used a variety of commercial tools for my own music and visual art, I’ve been intrigued at the ways in which the tools we use shape the art that we create.   I’ll walk through several examples from my own work and commercial tools to help us think about the effects that new technologies have on the way we make – and the way we think.

Sumit Basu is a Researcher in the Knowledge Tools Group at Microsoft Research, Redmond.  His research focus is on developing interactive, machine-learning based tools to assist users in understanding and extracting answers from complex data – from finding malicious packets in their network data to helping them with their creative endeavors.  His recent work includes Songsmith: a songwriting tool that takes melodies as input and uses statistical modeling to help users develop accompaniments for them.  http://research.microsoft.com/~sumitb

Mark Zirpel, University of Washington:  Bird Translator

In this talk, Seattle and Alaska-based Mark Zirpel will present a recent work titled “bird translator”.  It is an investigatin into the relationship between language and music, the process of transduction, and the attempt to move the surface of water with the song of a bird, all orgranized via the structure of a neural pathway.  Although Zirpel comes from a printmaking background, over the years he has turned his focus to producing mixed-media kinetic sculptures.  Previous works focused  the notion of time,  lunar and tidal cycles, as well as corollary timekeeping systems within the human body.

Mark Zirpel is an Assistant Professor at UW, where he was recently selected as the inaugural holder of the Dale Chihuly Endowed Chair.  Mark holds a BFA from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and an MFA in Printmaking from the San Fransico Art Institute.   Zirpel returned to Alaska in 1990 to teach at the University of Alaska , anchorage. Moving to Seattle in 1993, zirpel taught drawing at Cornish College of Art for five years and also began a long and productive working relationship with Pilchuck Glass School. Since moving to Seattle his work has become primarily 3 dimensional and often incorporates glass as a material of focus. Zirpel has traveled extensively and taken part in many art residencies around the world. The last 10 years have been marked by prodigious studio output, numerous exhibitions and being recognized as an artisit who is making a contribution to the field of glass art. Zirpel was recently nominated for a Tiffany grant, was awarded the Rafael Founder’s Prize from the Socieity for Contemporary Craft, was awarded the Stephen Proctor fellowship from the Australian National University in Canaberra. He was recently hired by the University of Washington in seattle as the dale chihuly endowed chair of glass, charged with introducing glass into the university’s three dimensional program.  See recente work at:  http://www.travergallery.com/gallery_artist_details/Mark-Zirpel.aspx

Robert Campbell, Cornish:  Collaborative Video for Dance

In this talk, Bob Campbell will describe recent work exploring collaborative video for dance.   Bob works as an installation artist, digital printmaker, documentary filmmaker and video artist, and is also currently a Professor of Video/Experimental Studio/and Digital Imaging at Cornish School of the Arts.   Since 1984, he has exhibited internationally in Europe, Japan, Canada and the U.S., including the WRO 90 Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, Montbeliard International Video Competition in France, the Tokyo International Video Festival in Japan and IMAGE Film and Video Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 1992 his collaborative video-for-dance work has premiered in On The Boards’ New Performance Series, Northwest New Works Festival Series, and Artist Access Series. His dance-on-video work has been presented in the Dance on Camera Festival at New York’s Lincoln Center, and in Seattle’s New Dance Cinema Festival.

WORKSHOPS

Joshua Kopel, KolaborationStudio: Intro to the Arduino

It’s the Year of the Arduino, with this small, easy to use microcontroller appearing as the tool of choice in new media and electronic arts.  Get a brief intro to the Arduino in this hands-on workshop.

Josh has been hacking electronics since he first discovered BYTE magazine in the early 1980’s In between then and now has acquired degrees in sculpture and metalsmithing, and built a career developing web sites and flash applications.  He moved to Seattle in 2008 after spending 20 years living in Philadelphia where he helped found a hacker space (http://thehacktory.org), and co-organized the monthly MakePhillymeetings.  He currently teaches Arduino classes at 911 Media Arts Center.

(10 spots available, with 15$ materials fee.  You must register for this workshop at http://frayedwire.eventbrite.com. )

Joseph Gray, Grauwald Design: Processing

This workshop is an overview of the Processing programming language.  Processing is an open source Java based programming language designed for artists and visual designers to both learn coding techniques for their own work and to rapidly sketch ideas for visual coders already familiar with other languages.

Joseph Gray earned a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in 1999, focusing in video and sculpture. Since then his work has primarily been seen as live video accompaniment to musicians from the Seattle area, playing in various venues in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. The imagery is often completely generated on-the-fly during the shows and draws from a large repertoire of abstract and ornamental styles. His work has also taken the form of internet and e-mail art, and sculptural video installation. Joseph works as a graphic designer and web developer by trade.  Learn more at http://grauwald.com/

(12 spots available email shelly@wagglelabs.com to reserve a spot.)

Christopher Prosser, Dorkbot:  Basic Electronics for Artists

A crash course in basic electronics to get you started incorporating electronics into your art.

Chris Prosser received his BS in Computer Science at UMASS Amherst. While living in Inman Square he joined Adobe to work on Imagestyler.  With a four month stay in Tahoe, snowboarding and working on robotics, he finally moved to San Francisco in April of 1999. While in SF, Chris was involved with the Crucible, Cellspace metal collective and learned more about kinetic sculpture. He also was one of the first members of the Shipyard, a unique colloborative build space in Berkeley. He then spent some time at the Cataclysmic Megashear Ranch.   Chris moved to Seattle in April 2004. He currently works at Adobe Systems as an Engineering Manager on Adobe After Effects. In his spare time he works on kinetic sculpture exploring the relationship between people and their pets and any other mad scientist ideas that come his way. He also helps organize Seattle dorkbots.   Learn more at:  http://www.nart.org/

(10 spots available with 5$ materials fee: You must register for this workshop at http://frayedwire.eventbrite.com. )

Mike Begley, SeattleLumin:  Electroluminescent Wire (EL Wire) for Beginners

Electroluminescent Wire is wire that glows brightly when fed electricity. It’s incredibly useful for supplemental lighting, costumery and all sorts of neat hackish projects. It’s easy to work with, once you get some basic soldering techniques under your belt.  In this workshop you will learn the basics of working with electroluminescent wire. You will learn the basic soldering techniques, information about selecting wire and drivers, and

other helpful hints about adding this medium into your artwork.  This will be a drop-in workshop where I will provide all the equipment and supplies available you’ll need to get yourself started with the art and practice of working with this fun medium. There will be equipment available for about 10 persons to be working at once.

As a 13 year resident of Seattle and a 5 year citizen of Black Rock City, Mike still hasn’t had his fill of pulsing lights, thumping bass and towering flame. A 2007 vow to stop using disposible glow necklaces led Mike to organize a group buy in the summer of 2008 of EL wire and associated accessories with about a dozen fellow Seattle-area burners. He recognized a need for a local resource for EL wire & similar products for area artists & burners, and in early 2009, Mike started SeattleLumin.com, a local resource for EL wire & related accessories.

Have you ever wanted to incorporate electronics into textiles, clothing or fashion accessories?  This workshop will be a hands-on session focused on integrating electronics into soft fabrics and making soft switches out of snaps and hooks.  You will make your own switch turn on and off an LED.  You will also learn a little about the Lilypad (Arduino for fabrics) through a demo. 

(10 spots available, with 25$ materials fee.  You must register for this workshop at http://frayedwire.eventbrite.com. )

OPEN LAB AND OPEN SPACE DISCUSSIONS

Open Lab

The open lab is a space for you to share what you are doing, or work on DIY/Maker projects over the course of the day.  If you prefer a more hands-on experience, come prepared with:

• Your latest cool project  to demo or work-in-progress to share
• Your laptop
• Miscellaneous tools
• “Robot Vomit” for the junk exchange

You can make what you want of this space.  There will be tables, power strips, and some tools waiting for you!

Open Space Discussions

In the tradition of open space meetings, we have set aside a block of time that is dedicated to participant-determined discussion sessions.  You will have a chance to propose a discussion section in the morning, and topics will be chosen by popular vote.

Evening Reception and “Strange Things” Artists’ Ignite

Join us for an evening reception at 911 Media Arts Center, where you will have the opportunity to see Dorkbot’s “People Doing Strange Things with Electricity” art exhibit, and see short, five minute, Ignite-style presentations from selected artists from the show.

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If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to address the program committee at frayedwire@googlegroups.com, or direct your questions directly to members of the committee.