BRIAN KNEP'S VIDEOS

ASSIGNMENT 1: CASE STUDY-INTERACTIVE ART AND INSTALLATION DESIGN

INSTALLATION DESIGN

BIOGRAPHY

Name: Brian Knep

is a new-media artist who uses science and technology to explore change, healing, struggle, and acceptance. Often his works are dynamic and respond to changes in their environment. Some are simply aware of the passage of time while others are interactive, sensing and reacting to the people around them.

Knep has had solo shows at the New Britain Museum of American Art, the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and Arizona State University and has been part of group shows at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Laval Virtual in France, MobileArt in Sweden, and the Insa Art Center in Korea, among others. His works have won awards from Ars Electronica, Americans for the Arts, AICA/New England and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2005 Knep became the first artist-in-residence at Harvard Medical School in a program co-sponsored by Harvard's Office for the Arts. Knep lives and works in Boston and is represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NY and Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston.

CHOICE OF MEDIA

He uses:

mixed media

interactive video

and multimedia

ARTIST CONCERN OF HIS WORK

The artist says “I strive to create work that pulls people out of their daily experience into a new way of feeling, understanding and seeing the world. Using the tools of our time I explore universal themes and in the process address the role of science and technology in our lives.

Behind all his work is a desire to explore and address these conflicting themes by using cutting-edge science and high-technology to make works about connection and change. He uses juxtapositions, using a tool to create something outside of its normal application to discuss values and assumptions.

He creates work that feels organic , often borrow from emergent processes in biology and mathematics. Emergence describes a complex system that arises out of lots of relatively simple interactions, like the way flocking arises out of the individual behaviors of many birds. He uses these systems to pull complexity out of simplicity, the infinite out of the finite, the organic out of the inorganic, and explore the boundaries between.

RESEARCH

ARTWORKS

Future Music Blender(2000)

in collaboration with Tod Machover, the MIT Media Lab, and Propeller Z

The Future Music Blender is a permanent exhibit at the Haus der Musik in the heart of Vienna, Austria. It was designed to complement Tod Machover's Brain Opera and provide an experience where users could collectively explore and shape sounds.

The room, resembling the inside of a classic string instrument, is filled with several thousand colorful, hand-sized chips. Each chip holds a specific sound snippet, and is colored according to the type of sound (e.g., rhythm, opera, funny). At stations around the room, visitors plug in the chips, listen to the sounds, and modify these sounds. The chip remembers the changes for the next visitor. At one station, visitors add their modified sounds to a large virtual instrument. This instrument—a two-dimensional xylophone—is projected onto the wall and played with hand gestures, much like those a conductor might use. Visitors can explore how individual sound snippets can become musical through repetition and rhythm.

Trinkets(2002)

in collaboration with Rick Borovoy and Diane Willow

The trinket project was developed for a four-day workshop exploring craft, technology, and community-building. Using a simple drawing program and an engraver, participants design and create trinkets for themselves and others. The designs can be new, or they can be modifications of existing designs. Each modified design keeps a record of the design on which it is based. By tracing these connections, users can trace the genealogy of a given design.The entire family tree can be mapped, highlighting the propagation of design ideas through the community.

The Eye is the Window(2002)

in collaboration with Henry Kaufman

An exploration of technology, soul, and craft: An elegant, hand-crafted end table has a single, life-like eye that looks around the room and responds to human faces. When you look at it, it looks back at you and follows you as you move around. Does the technology, with its imitation of a life-like eye, make the table more soulful? Does the table, hand-crafted by artisans, make the technology more soulful? How do such combinations change viewers' responses?

Big Smile(2003)

interactive video installation, 4'x4'
computer, video projector, video camera, custom software, plexiglass, vinyl

An archetypal smiley face blinks, looks at viewers, and smiles only when no one is looking directly at it. Viewers get a glimpse of the smile as they look away, but when they look back the smiley no longer smiles. The piece is mounted on a gallery window and can be seen from both sides, but interacts only with visitors outside the gallery.

As much as viewers are looking at the piece, the piece is looking at them, and by smiling only when no one is looking, the piece is disdainful of the viewer's participation. It asks, "why are you looking at me," when of course, without viewers the piece wouldn't exist.

There are two ways to view this piece. From outside the gallery, viewers interact directly with the smiley face. From inside, viewers watch this interaction between the computer and the outside viewers.

CHOICE OF MEDIA

He uses many media to show his works like:

: Frog time- he used non-repeating video installation, 7'x5'
computer, video projector, custom software

: Deep wounds-he used a three-channel interactive video installation, 45'x11'
computers, video projectors, video cameras, custom software

: Drift wall-interactive video installation, 20'x8'
Computers, video projectors, video cameras, custom software

: Drift (gala)-non-repeating video installation, 25'x5'
computer, video projectors, custom software

: Flower (revealed)-interactive video installation, 5'x5'
computer, video projector, video camera, custom software, wood, paint

: Drift grid- interactive video installation, 7'x7'
computer, video camera, video projector, custom software

:e.t.c

CONCEPT

His concept is to make art works that pulls people out of their daily experience into a new way of feeling, understanding and seeing the world. Using the tools of our time .He explores universal themes and in the process addresses the role of science and technology in our lives.

Behind all his work is a desire to explore and address these conflicting themes by using cutting-edge science and high-technology to make works about connection and change. He uses juxtapositions, using a tool to create something outside of its normal application to discuss values and assumptions.

Before focusing on art he spent fifteen years studying technology, learning its potentials and limitations. Flexible and powerful, digital tools have an enormous pull, promising productivity and happiness. Yet they have a way of leaving us cold and removing us, rather than connecting us, from our environment and ourselves. Likewise, we seek salvation in science, hoping to ease our fears. Afraid of pain, we research disease; afraid of death we research aging. Yet regardless of the progress we make, pain is inevitable and life is impermanent.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE FORMAL QUALITIES OF ART WORK

ANALYSIS OF THE INTERACTIVITY IN THE WORK(FUNCTIONS)

His work would be analyzed as “emotions and expressions”. User has to use his eyes, hands or feet to interact with the art work.

Interaction with the hands works when the user rubs his/her hands across the installation which gives back a response of molecule particulars reacting back.

MATERIALS/TECHNOLOGY/EQUIPMENT/GADGET/SYSTEM

- interactive video installation

-computer

- video projector

- video camera

-custom software

-wood

-paint

PERSONAL COMMENT

I think Brian s work is more into feelings, expressions of any living thing. He says that flexible and powerful, digital tools have an enormous pull, promising productivity and happiness. Yet they have a way of leaving us cold and removing us, rather than connecting us, from our environment and ourselves.

He continues to add that we seek salvation in science, hoping to ease our fears. Afraid of pain, we research disease; afraid of death we research aging. Yet regardless of the progress we make, pain is inevitable and life is impermanent.

So all this proves how in touch he wants people to get with their inner beings to coincide peace within.

DESIGN GAMMA 3 PROJECT

Gamma 3, my final year. This blog is to serve as my report/progress page for the people in-charge and my former colleagues.