February 12
In collaboration with The Alternative Museum, Harvestworks hosted “Network Activity,” a launch of new network projects by TAM’s Digital Media Commissions recipients. The recipients included Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Yael Kanarek and Tina LaPorta. The TAM Digital Media Commissions is a series of network-based artist projects commissioned by The Alternative Museum, made possible with the support of a NYC DCA Challenge Grant. “Network Activity ” is organized by Cristine Wang, Curator of New Media Arts Initiatives at The Alternative Museum. http://www.alternativemuseum.org
“The Technophobe & The Madman”
February 20
A live “Simultaneous Internet-2 Performance” of “The Technophobe & The Madman” at NYU’s Frederick Loewe Theatre amd IEAR Space (DCC174) at the Rensselaer Polythechnic Institute in Troy, NY. “The Technophobe & The Madman” was the first Internet-2 Distributed Musical. Featuring performers Maya Azucena and Tyrone Henderson, the work combines music, video, text and interactivity by artists Robert Rowe, Neil Rolnick, Nick Didkovsky, Don Ritter, Quimetta Perle and Valeria Vasilevski.
February 27
A festival of new computer-based performance art in collaboration with Jeanette Vucolo. Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center presented three artists/artist groups who had participated in our programs. Troika Ranch artistic directors, composer Mark Coniglio and choreographer Dawn Stoppiello, spoke about the ways they integrate interactive new media into their dance theater group. Their presentation included a demonstration of Coniglio’s MidiDancer, a wireless sensory system that allows a dancer’s movements to control video imagery and music. Interactive media developer and artist Tennessee Rice Dixon presented her award-winning, full-length CD-ROM entitled “Scrutiny in the Great Round”, an interactive collage of images, sounds, and poetry. Val Jeanty is an experimental artist and engineer from Haiti who has worked with such artists as jazz pianist Geri Allen, word artist Tracie Morris, Greisha and Beth Coleman, and Wallace Rooney. She performed a DJ set using her digital sound-sampling technology, turntables, and effect boxes with video artist Anne Bonney.
“The Technology Trend”
March 12
In collaboration with Dance Theater Workshop, Harvestworks co-hosted a seminar for those working in mixed digital media within the fields of music, theater, and dance/choreography.
Leroy Jenkins and Mary Griffin
April 2
Leroy Jenkins and Mary Griffin will present an excerpt from “Jenkins2,” a cantata for live performance and interactive video. The subject matter of “Jenkins2” is based on the artists’ personal and familial biographies (African-American and Welsh) and the possibility that, sharing a Welsh surname, they may also share a slave-owner ancestor. Also on view, a video by Kylie Wright, Harvestworks Interdisciplinary Certificate Student.
Karlheinz Essl
May 23
A workshop and presentation on the interactive MSP-based improvisation environment “M@ze2” of Karlheinz Essl. Dr. Essl is a composer, musicologist, computer-based musician, and double-bassist.
Zoe Beloff and Nayda Collazo-Llorens
October 23
Zoe Beloff presents “Shadow land or light from the other side, ” a Stereoscopic film based on the 1897 autobiography of Elizabeth d’Espérance, a materializing medium who could produce full-body apparitions. The story traces the complex interaction between the birth of cinema and the ideas of conjuring and mediumship. Zoe Beloff is a digital media artist living in New York City and on the Web at http://www.zoebeloff.com. She was a “Y2K Artist In Residence.” Nayda Collazo-Llorens’ digital animations “Time” and “Light,” from her “Memories Series,” deal with the concepts of time and memory through the use of densely overlaid images, repetition, and a dreamlike sense of movement and sound.
Andrea Polli and John Pilson
November 13
Andrea Polli, a 1999 artist in residence, demonstrated “Gape,” a performance work that includes a simple spoken language system which is controlled by an eye-tracking device. John Pilson presented his video “Interregna,” which is concerned with lapses in continuity or control within the structured environment of the modern corporate workplace. John was a “Y2K Artist in Residence” and was included in the Greater New York Show at PS1 Contemporary Art Center.
Ricardo Arias
November 20
Ricardo Arias presented his “Interactive Mapaphone(s),” a music system utilizing “mapaphones” (hand-held magnetic playback heads) reading prerecorded audio from strips of magnetic tape in conjunction with a variety of sensors. Ricardo was a 1999 Artist In Residence who has performed recently at Roulette Intermedium in New York City.
Amy Jenkins
December 4
Amy Jenkins presented a recent multi-channel video installation at the Kohler Art Center. Amy was a 1999 Artist In Residence and has shown her installations at the Alternative Museum and the Anna Kustera Gallery in New York City.