I’ve long considered the possibility that pursuing a PhD might be in my plans. It is quite an attractive idea… However, there is sort of a controversy surrounding the MFA in, say, painting or what-have-you, being considered a terminal degree. This means that you can get a university level teaching position which in-of-itself is a good thing. But you could also get that with a BFA in some instances…
Anyway, there are a growing number of international PhD programs focusing in Interdisciplinary and New Media studies, all of which are producing stellar work and theory. Another thing that is happening is artists going and getting PhDs in fields related to their work, while not necessarily being directly connected. How about the guy who got a PhD in electrical engineering to make radio control police cars? Or the pianist who got a degree in chaos theory in order to compose unconventional sonatas?
See where I’m going? Maybe not…
If you’ve followed this blog or have been aware of my past projects, you’ll notice that the predominant form my art has taken is installation. But not just installation with passive observation; interactivity has become a major component. Interactivity suggests some sort of interface to information; some object or screen reassembling itself in response to stimuli given by the viewer. What that information is can be considered the “message” of the art… I have to be careful here not to say that the interface or plane at which the interactivity exists is nothing but a doorway to the meaning…sometimes it is and sometimes not….it depends on the work. A successful piece is one that blends the two seamlessly.
The interactions performed by the viewer within the installation must in some way be an analog to the information brought forth by such interactivity.
Oh, you want a more solid example? Ok, here goes: my thesis installation. The basic structure was a black box filled with fiber optics that light up in direct relation to the proximity and movement of the viewer. Those movements also triggered various audio samples. What information was present? Beginning with the sound: the samples were taken from radio astronomy. So if a viewer walked through a certain location within the installation, they triggered the sound of a pulsar or something to that effect.
With the lights it gets a little more congested because this is also where the driving metaphor for the piece lives: the human as dark matter. What I mean by this can first be explained by the theory of dark matter. Essentially it is the gravitational force that binds the universe and the constituent galaxies. Hell, it might even be the binding force between the particles in our own bodies…Anyway, as dark matter in the universe coalesces galaxies begin to form, condensing particles into atoms into molecules into dust clouds into suns into planets, etc etc. The main part of that is star formation. The most abundant areas in the galaxy where star formation happens are at these dark matter “nodes”, where it has gathered enough to have some gravitational compression thing going on.
This is what the human is in the installation. As they move though, the fibers light up in proximity and fade as the viewer moves past. It’s like a halo of points of light creating a silhouette of the person. A static viewer on the sidelines would really only see the lights reacting to a “dynamic” viewer’s presence. (AH THE POINT!! Sometimes I drag this too far for even me…) This is how an interactive installation can be presented as an interface to information. By making scientific knowledge experiential, theoretical and even things existing on a cosmic scale can be brought down to focus and into an understandable field. It’s about using the form of interactive installation to create an entry to ideas and information that is typically accessed in more “clunky” ways. No offense to television…but TV is not experiential.
So moving on to the larger point…PhD. Northwestern has a program called Media, Technology and Society. I’ll bet I can make a case (highlighted above) for admittance into the program. It’s a place were I really could do a lot of the theoretical framework for another big installation…one that not only has clicking pulsar sounds, but a single fiber optic stand that lights up accordingly in correlation to someones acute presence! Now that would be something…
Posted in News and Updates, Finer Slices of Life
Tags: sound art, science and art, art and science, art and astronomy, new media, hybrid art, sound installation, nicholas sagan, sagan, columbia college chicago, interdisciplinary arts and media, art, science, experiments, art experiements, installation art, art space, video art, video installation, time, aesthetic experience, experimental cartography, experimental astronomy, Experimental Stellar Cartography, fiber optics, interdisciplinary, nick sagan, Nicholas Anthony Sagan, Interdisciplinary Arts, PhD, New Media PhD, Northwestern
Print order going out first thing in the morning. Should have everything back by Monday or Tuesday.
