A couple weeks ago I had a chance to attend one of the "Art Papers Live" lectures. Art Papers hosts presentations by prominent artists a few times a year, and every one of the handful I've been to has been fascinating. Mind you, I didn't go to art school and don't have any training in the fine arts, so I'm sure the things these guys talk about is old hat for most art scenesters, but it's all great brain fodder for me.
This time the presentation was by Daniel Canogar, a Spanish artist who works with light and projection, primarily through the use of fiber optics in large (sometimes public) installations. His modest demeanor hid a sharp intellect and he provided fascinating insights into his own processes and art in general.
A while back I was able to go to another Art Papers Live and see Christian Marclay give a talk on his work. I was already familiar with him through my exposure to the music underground. We had one of his records at WREK -- it was a vinyl LP that consisted of 4 LP fragments that had been joined together to form one LP, and of course when you played it you'd get this blip-blip-blip channel-changing effect where you were listening to four different recordings interspersed with each other, about half a second of each one at a time.
Anyway, back to the thing with Daniel Canogar, it happened to be held at the Institute for Paper Science and Technology (IPST), an industrial research operation located in the far corner of Georgia Tech campus. They've got a little museum off the lobby that showcases the history and technology of papermaking. It's interesting enough although a bit ... dry.
Coincidentally, Dorkbot ATL was holding one of their meetings the same night in the same area of campus, so when Canogar finished I hoofed it over to the Dorkbot meeting. Alas, I got there just minutes after they'd finished. I don't kow if this is representative across the nation, but the Atlanta chapter of Dorkbot is mostly focused on using electronics in new ways for the purposes of music composition. This is probably the case because the leader and founder of the chapter is a music professor at Tech (yes, they exist). So at these Dorkbot meetings you get less dorky robots and more dorky music electronics. It's alright, I'm just usually underwhelmed by it.
Walking back through the west campus dorm area to get back to my car at IPST, I was struck how artless Georgia Tech campus is. I mean, I spent five years of my life living in that exact spot (in the west campus dorms) and I didn't really find it objectionable, but I guess now with my greater exposure to .. the world, it just seems ... uglier. Of course, this is what architecture critics are alwasy jumping up and down and screaming about. It all just seems so completely devoid of imagination or human expression.
There was another annual Listening Machines event at Eyedrum; this annual event has Georgia Tech music technology students presenting their creations. Occasionally I get to go see Sonic Generator (yet another Georgia Tech music operation, hmmm); actually, I've only seen one so far. I'm giving these short shrift because I'm not sure whether I actually like them. I go, but I'm not sure I really enjoy it. But I go anyway.
A similarly minded event from a couple years ago involved a visiting artist from Australia. Guy Ben-Ary was doing a residence at Georgia Tech and had a one-night installation at Eyedrum. What he did was take a culture of neurons (rat cells, if I remember correctly), maintain them in a culture, and wire them up with fine wires with which to sense and stimulate them. Then those sensed signals were connected to robotic arms that moved according to the signals. With pen in hand, the arms drew patterns on paper. The results were not particularly compelling visually, but it made for a thought-provoking evening. He also did a presentation at Dorkbot which was actually quite fascinating.
Attending events like these often gets me thinking about life in Atlanta in general. It seems to be perpetually balanced between middle-American cheese (Shoney's, megachurches, discount outlet malls, W stickers, OTP) and "real" urban city life (music subcultures, art cinema, actual pedestrian street life, F stickers, ITP). Most of the time Atlanta is just provincial, lacking in serious art presence, public art, or any kind of street character. But if you try a little bit, you'll find plenty going on under the plastic sheen.