Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Project 2 Research Artist 1: Eric Sokolofsky



For Project 2, we were asked to design a public projection art piece somewhere on campus. While browsing for ideas, I came across an artist named Eric Sokolofsky has experimented with many types of digital media, including projecting in a large space.




Sokolofsky is currently a professor at NYU and Pratt Institute and has spent time developingeducational games for GameLab, a New York City based game design group. He attended an undergraduate program at Washington University in St. Louis and practiced architecture for several years. After studying architecture, he became interested in NYU's Interactive Telecommunication Graduate Program and was able to experiment with web and game design, as well as user interface design and programming. He also explored interactive generative screen based art and interactive spatial installation.

Sokolofsky has also contributed to the design of a social networking site called Wallop.

One work of Sokolofsky that has influenced the development of my project is a work called Aperture.
This work addresses how sound and light affect spatial perception. In the art piece, a projector is fixed above the ceiling of an installation space and is used to reverse project onto the ceiling. As the viewer moves through the space, arcs of light generate variations in intensity, color, and motion.


The audio/visual textures that appear alter the viewer perception of their movement inside the space and the artwork probes the viewer to think about how elements of composition affect a humans concept of space and motion which could stay with them as they move through other spaces in the outside world.

This piece makes me think about the affects that architecture on a person's freedom of expression. With the use of a public space in project 2, I intend to create a similar change in the viewer's concept of space and how it can be utilized. I hope to utilize graffiti as a means for expression on a new canvas.

From this project, I can deduct that the elements of interactivity on a audio and visual level have to be present in order to create a powerful project that deals with space. These elements both seem necessary in order to stimulate an awareness of the persons movement through the world. In project 2, I would hope to add the element of sound to the discussion of projection graffiti. It would nicely supplement the visual experience of graffiti as well as echo the ties that graffiti has had to music. I would like the expression to be as fluid and free as possible, to contrast the box-like moment that students are restricted to on their passage to class.

Sokolofsky has many artworks that relay the same messages of interactivity between light and sound. The projects advance the concepts of projection and the spatial relationships that we have to media. To me, Aperture appears in a formal art setting which may limit the idea of freedom and creativity. However, the projects all carry a huge element of experimentation and innovation.



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