SIGGRAPH 2001: n-space

• Dena Elisabeth Eber -
  • Bowling Green State University

• Jill Pareti -
  • Bowling Green State University

“Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs…may find their way to the minds of humanity in some dimension, and may stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to be confined to limited dimensionality.” – from “Flatland.” Edwin Abbott, 1884

Introduction
N-SPACE, the SIGGRAPH 2001 Art Gallery, takes viewers to a place where ideas and expression are rich, and artistic freedom is unconstrained by dimension. All the work in the exhibition is in some way created with or connected to digital technology, but the thread of the show is content.

The more than 90 works in the exhibition encourage the SIGGRAPH 2001 audience to become a part of the art; to explore, question, and challenge their own interpretations and critiques. To do this, the N-Space exhibition has a treasure map of valuable ideas to search for in the gallery, as well as a gallery facilitator who holds a number of daily sessions to help engage viewers. The salon-style exhibition entices visitors to seek golden ideas embedded in the nooks and crannies of its turn-of-the-century decor.

The gallery showcases an even distribution of interactive installations, digital paintings, digital images, sculptures, performances, panels, animation, artist talks, Web sites, and interactive desktop programs.

Visitors interact with the performers and the installations: from wondering robots and stock market puppets to stirring-yet-beautiful pieces about women in foreign societies and those in the “have-not” worlds. Through the technology, participants experience a taste of life from distant dimensions.

The Web works further expand the interactivity of the installations to include a larger community, so users can experience a world different from their own. To do this, they traverse layers of exquisite form and complex ideas that exist in distant sites and far away spaces.

Although not physically interactive, the animations, videos, and 2D works captivate viewers through the aesthetic wonders of digital paint, mixed media, 3D models, digital photography, animation, and digital video. The works impel participants to question the distinction of media categories and the so-called “truth” embedded in them.

N-SPACE, the Studio, the Creative Applications Lab, SIGGRAPH TV, and Emerging Technologies
N-Space extends its boundaries into other programs to show aspects of the artists and their work in alternative, more suitable contexts. While some artists talk about preparing documents for print and demonstrate output techniques in the studio, others describe their processes during hands-on sessions in the Creative Applications Lab (CAL). SIGGRAPH TV provides highlights of the gallery, opening up the exhibition experience to viewers in other locations. Many of the innovations showcased in Emerging Technologies might be considered art in and of themselves, with their content-rich applications displayed in the adjacent art gallery. This symbiotic relationship often blurs the distinction between technology and art, further encouraging the viewer to simply experience the work.

Art Discussions, Panels, Art Culture Papers, and Art Talks
The art gallery branches out to the Panels program to open the dialogue of gaming and art in Game Stories: Simulation, Narrative, Addiction. N-Space has two art discussions within the gallery: Erasing Boundaries: Intermedia Art in the Digital Age and The Pixel/The Line: Approaches to Interactive Text along with presentation of the art and culture papers. The essays, published in part here, will appear in full length in Leonardo and Digital Creativity.

It is this expression and representation that N-Space exhibits: art works that are not only technically proficient and novel, but that also go beyond the medium and into the realm of ideas, a place where the medium acts as a conduit for the message.

• 
  Type: [2D & Wall-Hung]
  Xrossings: Tidal Pool
  Artist(s): [Schminke]
  [SIGGRAPH 2001]
  
• 
  Type: [2D & Wall-Hung]
  Yellow Strokes
  Artist(s): [Dehlinger]
  [SIGGRAPH 2001]
  
• 
  Type: [Animation & Video]
  Yuki - The Spirit of the Snow
  Artist(s): [Tohma]
  [SIGGRAPH 2001]
  
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