Kolluris spiritual sojourn through digital art

IBN Live (India) - S R Kolluri a retired petroleum geologist has a penchant for art. And not just any art but digital art.

The 70 year-old who took voluntary retirement, was always interested in painting.

He had interest in visual arts right from childhood days, he had attempted to paint in acrylic and water colours.

Later, the self-taught artist discovered computer graphics would be a much more easier and relatively less messier affair.

He started his spiritual sojourn with his project for painting Ramayana with the help of computer in 2001.   Read more.

Art & Wellness: Issaquah Highlands hospital emphasizes community outreach

Issaquah Press (Washington) - The atrium, all blond wood and glass, resembles a mall or airport concourse more than a health care facility. Crews installed a dozen screens just inside the entrance to function as a digital art piece designed to display nature scenes from the Pacific Northwest. Nearby, baristas prepare cappuccinos and proffer scones.  Read more.

Digitally Meditated Surveilance

Current Intelligence - DIGITALLY mediated surveillance (DMS) is an umbrella term that includes a myriad of social data mining practices and monitoring techniques. The tracking of our purchase habits by credit card companies, Facebook's deliberately opaque privacy settings and the web of CCTV networks discretely filming our movements are familiar examples of how our daily navigation of the urban environment and online networks exposes our interactions and private data to unwanted scrutiny. DMS was the subject of a recent Toronto workshop that brought together a roster of international scholars to discuss how to increase awareness of ubiquitous personal security vulnerabilities, and promote accountability and transparency by their corporate and governmental instigators.  Read more.

Your Paintings: The secret artworks ordinary people own

BBC News Magazine - Of the 200,000 paintings owned by British taxpayers, most are in storage, or on walls few see. A new online gallery throws open the vaults so at least digital versions can be seen. Here are five hidden gems in this collection - and a few more familiar works.

There are works by firefighters and by professional artists. By GIs stationed in schools, and by bon vivants daubing paint on canvas. By local landscape painters and by artworld luminaries.

Many of these publicly owned paintings are in well known galleries and museums, but many are in offices, schools and even fire stations.  Read more.

Alden Trust Donates $150,000 to Clarkson University Digital Arts & Sciences Program

Clarkson University News (New York) - The George I. Alden Trust of Worcester, Mass., has awarded Clarkson University a gift of $150,000 for the University’s award-winning Digital Arts & Sciences Program (DA&S).

A frame from Marty’s Night, a 3D Digital Animation by Mike Ledda '10, inspired by his experiences during his time in college.Though the program is only five years old, the gift represents a major vote of confidence that Clarkson’s vision for 21st century education is headed in the right direction.  Read more.

10 of the best independent galleries in Amsterdam

Guardian UK - Amsterdam has a vibrant contemporary art scene, showcasing up-and-coming talent as well as young stars from abroad. Russell Joyce of Unfold Amsterdam picks his favourite galleries.  Read more.

Music in the Digital Age | Gear evolves, love of tunes still remains

Courier-Journal (Kentucky) - Conor Oberst can imagine a time when technology has advanced to the point where we leave the physical world behind, our consciousness uploaded and allowed to roam free. A desire for art will result in art.

“You just have to imagine a record, and it'll exist,” said the Bright Eyes musician, who has become deeply interested in the work of Ray Kurzweil, a technology philosopher who has written about an intelligence explosion that could redefine existence.  Read more.

Juan Downey at MIT's List Center for the Visual Arts

Boston.com - In the mid- to late-19th century, being an avant-garde artist meant being rejected by the official salons, going hungry, and espousing anarchist or socialist views.

What, if anything, did it mean a century later in, say, the 1970s?

One possible answer is offered up by close examination of a group of artists who were affiliated with the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT.  Read more.

Stratford plans digital art show

IFpress (Canada) - Stratford has long been known as a centre for the arts.

It’s fast becoming known as a digital centre of excellence.

Why not bring the two together?

The Stratford Tourism Alliance plans to do that next winter, with an exhibit of digital art projected onto city buildings.

“We think that we’ll create a whole new reason to come to Stratford during the wintertime,” Stratford Tourism Alliance executive director Eugene Zakreski told city council last night. “It’s something that’s very unique, and a very big idea.”  Read more.

Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton to showcase new printmakers and jewelry designers

NJ.com - The Hunterdon Art Museum is pleased to announce the opening of "Up & Coming 2011: New Printmakers Make Their Mark" and "Art of Adornment: Studio Jewelry" on Sunday, June 19, with a reception planned for the following Sunday, June 26, from 2 to 4 pm.

Both shows will run through Sept. 18. "Up & Coming 2011: New Printmakers Make Their Mark" is funded in part by the International Fine Print Dealers Association.  Read more.

Steampunk Meets Minimalism in Amazing "Rotary Mechanical" Smartphone Concept

Core 77 - In what is surely a preemptive response to Amid Moradganjeh's "Rimino" concept, New Zealand-based designer/photographer Richard Clarkson has developed a prototype of "Rotary Mechanical," a hypothetical smartphone design that is as much an art object as an exercise in form. Yet Clarkson's original point of departure is remarkably similar to Moradganjeh's endeavor to create "technology that is more integrated and more sensitive to the human experience.":  Read more.

Are Indies the new Mainstream?

Manila Standard Today - If you had a few hundred thousand pesos, a video camera, an interesting story, struggling actors and some friends who have the skill to record the action as a professional director and a camera operator would do, then you are good to go in making your own small production.

Advances in digital technology are instrumental in the proliferation of indie movies. One thing, filmmakers can access advanced technology at a cheaper cost allowing them to shoot for several days and do the post production with minimal efforts. Hence, it is no longer surprising that local film industry, which death has been predicted decades before, still clings to its so-called last lifeline.  Read more.

Art review: 'Marco Brambilla: The Dark Lining' at Santa Monica Museum of Art

LA Times - "Sea of Tranquility," the hypnotizing single-channel video at the start of the Marco Brambilla survey exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, is and isn't what its title says. A dramatic, silvery landscape does show the famous broad plain of that name on the Earth's moon; to see it, however, leaves a viewer anything but tranquil.

The Sea of Tranquility is the site where Apollo 11, the American manned lunar module, touched down in July 1969. The first time Earth-bound humans stepped onto another natural satellite, the event also marked the climax of the furious "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union.  Read more.

Comprehensive city vision gets approved with broadband objectives

Technically Philly - The Philadelphia City Planning Commission voted unanimously last evening to approve the city’s comprehensive planning vision, Philadelphia2035, during an event honoring the process and officially kicking off implementation of the plan.

In front of more than 150 people at Moore College of Art & Design on the Parkway, Mayor Michael Nutter stopped by to congratulate the Commission, community groups and citizens on a visioning process that included months of interviews, planning, public comment and revision, before Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger called the Commission to vote.

Perhaps more relevant to our audience of technology users in Philadelphia, the evening also marked the official acknowledgment and inclusion of a plan for broadband as a vital public utility.  Read more.

Can You Feel The Beat Nation?

The Providence - Tradition meets the future in Beat Nation Live.

Beat Nation Live is an assembly of aboriginal acts that incorporates hip hop, rap, electronics, video, performance art and digital technology.

As such, it is a multimedia presentation that is a projection of indigenous First Nations culture into a still being explored new world.

Yet the starting point remains the drum beat.  Read more

Despite losing use of arms, CSULA student achieves bachelor’s degree in graphic design

Alhambra Source - Alhambra resident Todd Tostado, who lost the use of his arms at age 14 as a result of spinal muscular atrophy, received his bachelor’s degree in art at Cal State Los Angeles this past weekend.

Tostado, who also has been using a ventilator since he was nine due to chronic respiratory failure, enjoyed drawing as a child, but eventually could not use his hands to draw due to the neuromuscular disease that progressively weakened his muscles.  Read more.

Digital Media Arts Community Coming to Woodstock VT for Festival

VT Digger (Vermont) -The Woodstock Digital Media Festival on June 18th is turning out to be a major gathering for the digital media arts community, drawing artists, gallery owners, curators, and commentators from far and wide.  The Festival, which takes places in multiple venues in the historic village from morning to late evening, has an open exhibition of digital media art as its afternoon focal point.  Both the morning sessions and the afternoon exhibition are free to attend.  Read more.

Microsoft's New Software Allows "Immersive Digital Painting"

Race to save digital art from the rapid pace of technological change

Guardian UK - A race is on against the fast pace of technological change as scientists search for ways to preserve today's most innovative artworks.

A team of experts is warning that some of Britain's contemporary artistic landmarks will be no more than memories within a decade unless conservationists can effectively archive digital works and stop them degrading.

"The threat is very real that, unless we do something, we will have a 'lost generation' in terms of our cultural heritage," said Dr David Anderson, who, together with his colleague Dr Janet Delve at the School of Creative Technologies at the University of Portsmouth, is leading efforts to save the more complex artworks of the digital age from oblivion.  Read more.

ANN ARBOR: Laila Kujala to exhibit 'Nature Mandalas' at Malletts Creek library

Heritage.com - Local artist Laila Kujala will exhibit her digital photography "Nature Mandalas" June 17 through July 28 at the Malletts Creek branch of the Ann Arbor District Library, 3090 East Eisenhower Parkway.

The mandala images - a word from Sanskrit meaning "circle" - were created after Kujala took a PhotoShop class at the Life Long Learning Center at Washtenaw Community College two years ago, and the following year took a digital camera class.

The goal of taking classes was to take better pictures of her paintings and jewelry for her website.

"I still haven't taken those better pictures," she said. "I got too busy playing with PhotoShop."  Read more.

Creative world at the Mesilla Valley Fractal Artists show

Las Curces Sun-News - They are artists with their own unique — and some say magical — visions of the world. Share their creative viewpoints at the Mesilla Valley Fractal Artists show this month at the Tombaugh Gallery of the Unitarian Universalist Church, 2000 S. Solano Drive.

The Mesilla Valley Fractal Artists joined forces here about six years ago to express their versions of a growing art movement that has roots in science and the early days of digital art.  Read more.

WCC strategy targets digital realm

Domion Post (New Zealand) - Wellington's new draft digital strategy aims to attract skilled migrants and develop a relationship with Silicon Valley - home to the world's largest technology corporations in California.

To increase digital activity and position Wellington globally as a creative digital city, the strategy focuses on three specific areas:  Read more.

SOLOPSIST: Andy Huang's short film project @ Kickstarter

iPad Artwork

SF Station - In a world where devices, programs and apps are slowly replacing tools, technique and talent, Future/Canvas takes step in the direction of further meshing the world of technology and art without overstepping boundaries.

On display at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, the iPad art show celebrates the emergence of a yet-developing medium with a showcase of highly imaginative and innovative art and apps. This show follows last year's first ever multiple-artist iPad art show also held in San Francisco and features generative art, interactive art, as well as digital art and fingerpainting.  Read more.

England allocates $800M for Digital Innovation in Art and Culture

AHRC - Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) today (Tuesday 7 June) announced the Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture, a new £500,000 fund for projects that will harness digital technologies to connect with wider audiences and explore new ways of working. This follows a speech by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey at the National Theatre in January, calling for cultural organisations to embrace new technology and the opportunities they offer.

Arts and cultural organisations are being asked to work with those with digital expertise to help them understand the potential offered by new technologies and together develop innovative project proposals for submission to the new research fund.  Read more.

Stephen Burns: Mastering art with digital technology

Joe Nalven @ Signs on San Diego - Stephen Burns and I joined the art gallery committee for the SIGGRAPH 2003 conference in San Diego. The San Diego City Council issued a proclamation recognizing the impact of digital technology on the arts, especially how the arts were emerging in San Diego. That was the first ever official proclamation for digital art.

Now, just eight years later, Stephen Burns is heading off to Vancouver as one of the core members of SIGGRAPH 2011 and coordinating the digital artistry sessions. Worth noting: SIGGRAPH is the granddaddy of conferences for the emergence of art using computer technology.  Read more.

Digital Art shown at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation party

Tech Flash - The opening reception for the new campus of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation the evening of June 2 was an occasion of pure joy. In the parking garage, even the attendants were jazzed at the huge numbers of business, civic and community leaders- about 1,000 of them, streaming towards the outstretched arms of the campus buildings.

“Bill Gates is in there,” said one uniformed parker, pridefully pointing the way. “He made this!”

You could feel the joy in the crowd as they entered, and then as they pooled in groups buzzing about the event, oohing over some the art and architecture itself.  Read more.

Arts and the city: A conference looks to the future

Chicago Tribune - A single word kept bubbling up all day: democratization.

It was spoken – or hinted at – by scholars and architects, artists and urban planners.

They had come from around the country and across the pond to participate in "Future of the City: The Arts Symposium," which unfolded Tuesday at theChicago Cultural Center.  Read more.

The future of 3-D moviemaking

MSNBC - Two years ago, "Avatar" defined the state of the art in 3-D moviemaking, becoming history's top-grossing film and winning a visual-effects Oscar in the process — so how is the "Avatar" team going to top that for "Avatar 2," "Avatar 3" and beyond?

"I'm overhearing some things that are really exciting," actor Giovanni Ribisi, who played the corporate bad guy in the sci-fi blockbuster, told me last week during the opening of an "Avatar" exhibit at Seattle's EMP Museum.  Read more.

Product's green-ness often in eye of the beholder

USA Today - Ask most people buying computers, TVs, wireless phones and other electronics gear if they'd like to be more environmentally responsible when making such purchases, and they will almost certainly say yes. But if you ask how they plan to go green, many won't have a clear answer.  Read more.

CMS Technology Grant Prints Works of Art

Crofton Patch - Crofton Middle School is enhancing its art technology program thanks to a community grant and an Annapolis business.

The Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County in partnership with the Balanced Life Skills selected Crofton Middle among several county schools for 2011 Grants 4 Teachers.  Read more.

Smart Robots, Digital Dollars Lure Collectors as Internet Rocks Art World

Bloomberg - Almar van der Krogt was surfing the Internet in 2009 when he happened upon a website featuring shifting waves of neon colors.

Its simplicity and constant motion captivated him. Over the next weeks, he returned to gaze at the site almost every day. Soon, Van der Krogt, an Internet consultant and art collector, realized he wanted to own it.

“I didn’t even know if it was possible to buy such a thing, but I had to try,” he says. “The thought that someone might just take it offline really worried me.”  Read more.

New fund to support digital research launched for arts sector

The Stage UK - A new £500,000 fund has been launched for cultural organisations to research and develop opportunities offered by digital technology.

The Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture has been created by Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.  Read more.

One in four US hackers 'is an FBI informer'

Guardian UK - The underground world of computer hackers has been so thoroughly infiltrated in the US by the FBI and secret service that it is now riddled with paranoia and mistrust, with an estimated one in four hackers secretly informing on their peers, a Guardian investigation has established.

Cyber policing units have had such success in forcing online criminals to co-operate with their investigations through the threat of long prison sentences that they have managed to create an army of informants deep inside the hacking community.  Read more.

U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

Wired - A United Nations report said Friday that disconnecting people from the internet is a human rights violation and against international law.

The report railed against France and the United Kingdom, which have passed laws to...read more.

Subtle Technologies Festival 2011

Subtle Technologies - Subtle Technologies is a gathering of artists, scientists, technologists, engineers and the general public. We share cross-disciplinary ideas, explore new technologies, showcase creativity and incubate the next generation of practitioners at the intersection of art, science and technology.  Read more.

The new generation of digital artists

Calla Cofield @ New Scientist - Arriving at an art exhibition and finding, instead of canvasses, a dozen flat-screen TVs covering the walls, I must confess I felt relief. I'm not much of an "art person", and always feel unprepared or out of place when I stare at paintings and sculpture. The TVs on show at Digital Manifestations, in the School of Visual Arts in New York City, on the other hand, seem to put me right at ease.

Digital Manifestations displays work by graduate students from the MFA computer art department. Most of the flat screens feature short animated films that will serve as resumé builders for jobs at Pixar and the like, rather than philosophical representations. The works range from bizarre to beautiful, and they demonstrate that digital art is, at its core, still visual art. It should look good; or perhaps, look interesting. What sets it apart is the use of specific, non-traditional tools. Even now, said the exhibition's curator Charley Lewis, the students don't see using the computer as fundamentally different than wielding a paint brush.  Read more.

Tak Young-Kyung's DigiArt World

Industry & Technology Times - Understanding digital art comes with the studying of a pioneer, Tak Young-kyung, who is the first to practice digital art in Korea and has done it the longest too. His challenge is to create art pieces on "digital canvases", which was surprisingly inspired by the purchase of the Power Mackintosh 9700. He purchased the computer at a very high price in the early 90s for its known reputation of multi-functions, but what anchored his eyes on the monitor screen was one of its charming software, Painter 2.0. "This was a time when users had to deal with computer lag, for example, when I drew a line it did not show at the time of creation. Although the speed was quite slow, but I could complete my work much faster than painting with oil," he recalled. From the 9700 to the G3 to the IMAC, he was quick to adapt to the brand new hardware and software for perfecting his art work. Now Mr. Tak uses the professional drawing pad.  Read more.

Tak Young-Kyung: Colorful creations by pioneer of digital fine art

Korean Times - A variety of colors highlight the unique composition and texture shown in Tak Young-kyung’s paintings.

These drawings may resemble other abstract work, but the tool is different — instead of a brush, the artist used a computer to create them.

Tak, 72, is a pioneer in digital fine art in Korea. Previously fine art painter he fell in love with the new technology in mid-1990s.  Read more.

Denton art collective brings artists and community together with exhibit

Pegasus News - Thanks to a group of art lovers, a house became a display of sculptures, drawings, mixed media, and digital art Saturday.

Local art collective Tex Gallery hosted an exhibit called “Textinction” in a small house on Egan Street, demonstrating a variety of art forms.  Read more.

Game Over: Why Cory Arcangel Plays to Lose in His New Whitney Survey

Artinfo - There are plenty of good contemporary artists, but only a handful actually have something approaching a satisfactory theory to explain why they do what they do at this particular moment in history. Cory Arcangel is one of those artists, someone with a lucid set of ideas — in his case, about what visual art can and can't do in relation to the universe of technology that surrounds it — to justify the witty mix-master-of-culture shtick he's known for. This has made his work an important critical touchstone, and at a relatively early point in his career (he turned 33 yesterday). Why, then, does the art in his new show, just opened at the Whitney, feel so mild and merely jokey? Read more.

Digital Art at the Beale Center

Jennifer Ock @ New University - I pulled the glossy handles of the Beall Center’s gallery door and walked into what looked a lot like my living room, minimal, straightforward and lonely, with a ’90s TV set and a vintage patterned armchair accented by a black lamp.

A tad confused but still unfazed, I attempted to analyze the scenery before me with the utmost intensity, searching for any signs of technology, other than the obsolete tube box. Then, I caught a glimpse of chaos to my right.

Rounding the corner, I faced the aftermath of an explosion: paint-splattered, crinkled newspapers and opened bags of Trader Joe’s corn tortilla chips with their original receipts lay at my feet. Strewn on the gray, frigid floor was the ubiquitous Subway bag next to a complete Star Wars DVD set. A royal blue Crayola Washable marker could be partially made out among a Jell-O package, chairs, tables, pots, a hammer, stools, glassware and crumpled paper bags. Read more.

When Technology Meets Art

Shiny Shiny - Technology is not only changing the way art is viewed and distributed, but also how art is being created. Touch-ups in Photoshop is only the very beginning of this, as artists are now starting to carve out new specialties in digital spaces such as virtual reality and holographics. Read more.

NEA new program to fund video games and digital media

death + taxes - The National Endowment for the Arts must be looking to fix its stodgy, old-school image, because they recently announced their plans to fund digital media, which by their definition includes art for the web and mobile technologies, video games, arts content delivered via satellite, and radio and television. Read more.