Conference combines technology, creativity

The School of Arts and Sciences yesterday presented a discussion of technology's influence on visual art, language and music, as part of an effort to integrate computers with more creative subjects. SAS's contribution to the ongoing ENIAC celebration, "Computers and the Creative Mind: A Celebration of the Arts, Humanities and Technology" included three speakers. An audience of almost 50 attended the event, which took place at the Institute of Contemporary Art. The presentation was the brainchild of SAS Associate Dean Eugene Narmour, along with a committee of three University professors, according to Executive Assistant to the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Janine Sternlieb. Music Professor James Primosch, English Professor Craig Saper and History of Art Graduate Chairperson David Brownlee formed the committee. Seattle video artist Gary Hill, whose work is on display at the ICA until April 14, made the first presentation, showing "the visual arts side" of computers, according to Sternlieb. His presentation included the showing of an excerpt of two videos entitled "Full Circle" and "Cut Pipe." He also read a passage called "Between One and Zero." "Cut Pipe" showed moving hands in front of an audio speaker in one half of a pipe from the perspective of the other half. Dialogue accompanied the film. Hill explained that the halves of the pipe were placed a foot away from each other and a video camera was placed in one half to tape an audio speaker in the other half. Hill called the video "a cross-section of materiality, media and meaning." University of Florida English and Media Studies Professor Gregory Ulmer focused on "Cyber Pidgin." "Cyber Pidgin," was derived from the idea of "pidgin" languages that developed when cultures with different languages began communicating for the first time, according to Ulmer. Ulmer said he is using these pidgin languages as a model for a new worldwide vernacular involving the Internet. Ulmer then showed a clip from the movie My Stepmother is an Alien to show an encounter between a "literate civilization" and a "post-literate" or "electric" civilization, which was portrayed by the aliens in the scene. He compared the first encounter between the "electric" and "literate" civilizations with colonial times, when a culture based on an oral tradition met literate colonists. Primosch, who directs the University's Presser Electronic Music Studio rounded out the program. He said the presentation showed "how I refine and create some of the sounds I use in my music." He first used computer-generated chime sounds through a special program and showed their "varying possibilities." He modified the sound and pointed out how there was "still something chime-like about it"-- but it was "very different." Later that evening, Laetitia Sonami, "a gestural performing artist," performed. "By virtues of her gestures, she creates music," Primosch explained. The second part was a piano concert by Aleck Karis, during which he performed three works, including one by Primosch. Some of the concert, however, also involved computer-generated music. "I thought it was wonderful," Narmour said after the first event. He added that he found it particularly interesting having "three such diverse people" presenting their "three different mediums."