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New classes at Virginia Tech are marrying
the arts with technology, something that will help create new avenues for
research on campus.
By Greg Esposito
The Roanoke
Times
BLACKSBURG
-- Sculpting a self-portrait bust takes a certain amount of precision and a
little bit of whimsy.
Virginia Tech students in Dane Webster's Art 2984 Digital Sculpture course
spent hours of class time last month shaping and stretching their art, getting
the details precisely right. But they showed no fear in experimenting with
carving and adding to their works, most of which were self-portrait sculptures.
Mistakes could be remedied with a quick tapping of the keyboard made
possible by that modern-day miracle: the "undo key."
Because their medium was "digital clay" shaped by ZBrush digital
art technology being used for the first time at Tech, students could shape
three-dimensional designs on the computer screen without getting their hands
dirty. They could rotate each bust and change the appearance of the material
from clay to plastic to the silver sheen some would recognize from characters in
"Terminator 2."
The students' experience in art and in technology, as well as their future
career plans, vary widely. But whatever their motivation for taking the class,
their general consensus was pretty basic: This stuff is cool.
But Webster sees the work being done in his class -- held in a dark studio
between Draper and Main streets that he refers
to as "home to the mole people" -- as more than that. To him, it's
symbolic of a larger trend merging art with technology. Tech's School of Visual Arts is reacting to that trend
with new classes, a new master's degree program and collaboration with other
departments.
"What you're seeing is a creative arts mind-set leveraging the
flexibility of these digital tools," Webster said. "And because of
that flexibility, it allows you to connect to other disciplines."
The university brought Webster on board in 2005 as part of a cluster hire
for the Collaboration of Creative Technology in Arts and Design, an initiative
started about five years ago to promote collaboration between disciplines such
as art, computer science and music.
Those faculty established new courses that marry the arts with computer
science, music and even biology. A video game design class, a cyber arts class
and a computer music class are a few examples of courses that didn't exist at
Tech five years ago.
CCTAD faculty "invented this programmatic direction at Tech,"
Webster said.
Several faculty hired through the initiative have also come together on a
new media art installation that will be part of next month's opening of
Roanoke's Taubman Museum of Art. The artists who produced the six-piece exhibit
were purposefully vague on some of the details of the work. But the concept is
so different from conventional art, with pieces engaging multiple senses and
interacting with one another and visitors, that it would be tough to clearly
explain to the uninitiated even if they tried.
The work will be unveiled as a 24-by-36-foot space in the museum with a
slanted wall and ceiling. It will be heavy on technology with features such as
infrared sensors and speakers hanging from the ceiling making it sound as if
those walking in the room are waist-deep in water.
"The installation itself, it has, on first entering, like a 'gee whiz'
factor," said Simone Paterson, a professor in the School of Visual Arts.
"Like, 'Wow, look at all this stuff. We can interact with it.' But the
longer you stay in the room you begin to make connections and to see the
network between all the pieces."
Paterson,
whose contribution to the work is a glowing dome that interacts with images
projected on a wall, said that using technology to create art is anathema to
some but not at Tech.
Webster said Tech's technology emphasis makes it well-suited to the
developing genre.
"Tech obviously has had a huge focus in engineering and technology and
is now trying to go and infuse money and energy into the arts," he said.
"And they're doing that by using what they know best, which is
technology."
But the art installation is more than using new technology. It will
encourage people to interact with it through touch and sound. Truman Capone,
director of the school of visual arts and CCTAD, said the interactivity of the
work and the use of technology in general present advantages in using the art
to educate.
"It's giving a new paradigm to where art's going," he said.
"I'm not saying it's for everybody, but it's unique. Children are going to
find this fascinating."
The focus on new technology and collaboration has opened up research
opportunities as well. Capone said Tech faculty are working on virtual medical
training and grants to study the use of interactive technology in education.
Another CCTAD hire, music technology professor Ivica Bukvic, is working on a
project to help blind people connect to objects through sound.
"I'm seeing things that I didn't expect," Capone said.
Capone is hoping a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Technologies degree
approved by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors in August will help him
continue to see those things. If approved by the State Council of Higher
Education for Virginia,
the degree program could begin in 2010.
It would encourage collaboration between undergraduates and graduate
students in different departments. The 60-credit program would focus on
interactive new media and design and digital fabrication and imaging. Capone
said the program would be unique in the state and the digital fine art market
has seen major job growth -- from 550 million in 2006 to a projected 960
million by 2010. Jobs cut across several fields, such as advertising, gaming,
entertainment, health and consumer services.
As she worked on her three-dimensional digital sculpture, Tech senior Lauren
Martin, a studio art major, talked about the type of job she hopes the class is
preparing her for.
"I'm a nerd, so video games, movies, cartoons,
that kind of thing -- of course I would be attracted to making 3-D
things," she said. "In a perfect world, I'd go into video games or
cartoons. In a nonperfect world, any industry needs 3-D models to do their
products."
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