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Cyber artworld offers limitless possibilities

By Daily Bruin Staff

April 13, 1995 9:00 p.m.

Cyber artworld offers limitless possibilities

Juan T. Alvarado

Hold on to this copy of The Bruin! In the not-so-distant future
it will be a relic, an antique, an article of interest and
amusement but not of much practical value. I’m not saying that The
Bruin will no longer exist ­ perish the thought of your
inability to read my words ­ but it may no longer be printed
on paper. Instead it will be published by computer.

Computers are becoming the most versatile, powerful, friendly
and economic means of communication that this ball of dust has
witnessed; in the future, they will be the best way to communicate.
The trends are easy to see: Last year, Americans spent about as
much on personal computers as they did on TVs.

It’s inevitable. Get used to the idea that a computer will play
a major part of your life. You’ve seen the commercials: You wake up
in the morning and your "personal assistant" fills you in about
what you need to do today. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Computers make it possible to send information from place to
place almost instantaneously. You can read the latest issues of
newspapers and magazines practically as soon as journalists finish
their articles. And as Gary Larson once said, "On the Internet,
nobody knows you’re a dog." The computer is the great
equalizer.

Your "voice" can be heard by more people for less money than
ever before. The prices of good computers are going down at almost
the same rate as their quality is increasing. And even Newt
Gingrich, with whom I normally disagree, thinks it would be a good
idea for the government to subsidize computer purchases by the poor
and middle class by giving tax breaks. In the future, if you’re not
using a computer, then you’re not really communicating.

It won’t stop at conventional communications, either: Computers
and art will have a long and prosperous future together. Have you
ever wanted to see the art in the Louvre but couldn’t afford the
trip to France? The Louvre has gone digital and you can get on-line
and enjoy great works photographed and scanned for your viewing
pleasure. No, it’s not the same as being there, but just wait,
virtual reality isn’t that far off.

The Louvre is not the only museum going on-line: Galleries are
popping up on the net to showcase talents new and old.
Photographers and painters are creating their own Web pages
(information sites on the World Wide Web, a graphic interface to
the net) to advertise themselves and reach people that might not
have seen them otherwise.

The best part: new types of art are forming. Artists are
composing music based on data generated from receiving radio noise
from distant galaxies and they’re creating virtual performance art
by wearing headsets and playing virtual instruments like the
CyberSax and CyberXylo, pantomiming motions and letting the
audience view what the artist sees and hears through view screens
on stage.

Last October I personally experienced a new form of
computerized, interactive art that blew me away. I went to a
meeting at the offices of Omnivore Multimedia Design Consultants,
where they decorate walls with art to make the area look like a
gallery. The artworks were collages of words with wheat stems and
portions of bodies in different earth tones, some dark and dreary,
others light and festive.

Further into the "gallery" were computers and, opposite them
against the wall were telephones on pedestals. People gathered
around the screens, watching images that were similar to the art on
the walls but much more fluid. The scenes changed from one thing to
another with a slow and purposeful movement, like the T1000
morphing at the end of T2. The effect was like tripping without
drugs, but instead of random hallucinations, there were peaceful
scenes conveying a meaning I wasn’t quite getting yet.

I found out that the whole event was a poetry reading, but
because of the computers there was a new twist. Another computer
had the words of a poem on scroll-like sheets of paper; another
section of the screen showed changing snapshot images that looked
exactly like the works on the walls, no morphing involved. When I
got my turn at the computer and realized there were earphones
attached, I understood more. Earphones on, I was enveloped by the
peaceful tones of computer-synthesized music

I grabbed the mouse. Music played while a voice recited a poem
about a woman wanting to be closer to a distant love. The images on
the screen merged and morphed, changing tones with the music to
match and enhance the emotions conveyed by the poem and the woman’s
voice.

I took off my earphones and walked over to the other computer
where one of the hosts was describing the whole experience. At the
scrolls, you could read the poem at your leisure. A small window
showed which images would be on screen in the full audio/video
show. The phones against the wall played recordings of a man
reciting his response to the first poem.

The show’s three portions gave me much more of an insight into
the artist’s heart than simply reading the poem in a book. You
can’t share yourself, as an artist as well without the computer’s
help as you can with it.

I finally got to meet the artist herself, and told her how I was
affected by her poem. She had seen me interacting with her work and
that I did it backward from how she meant it to be experienced.
That didn’t matter though, because unlike a book, you can start in
the middle and still understand the whole, maybe even in a unique
way.

As I left the meeting, I realized that computers and art have
the potential to become so intertwined that neither will be truly
complete without the other. Neither detracts from the purpose of
the other, and the two complement each other so well that those who
do not take advantage of the mix will not be able to compete with
those who do.

That night I also realized that I want to design multimedia art
and "edutainment" so I can touch someone as much as that poem
touched me. The future may look all digital, but thankfully the
arts and artists will benefit from it and not pass quietly into a
cold cyberworld.

Alvarado is a fifth-year computer science and engineering
student. His column will appear on alternate Fridays.

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