Gil Weinberg’s Jam’aa for Haile presents a robotic drummer doing sessions.

There is also a category for web art. Scott Draves, from California’s Spotworks, developed a program distributed on the Internet called The Electric Sheep that is known by most people as a screensaver. Conceptually, what he does is everyone that downloads this screensaver become part of a huge parallel processing community where the participant’s processor — with their permission and when they are not using it — is used to create art. Thousands of people around the world that have downloaded this program have become collaborators in the process. Their systems are used to help render out one element of a larger animation. These elements are collaged together at the server to create beautiful images full of depth and transparencies. The Electric Sheep Dreams in High Fidelity, the best of these animations/motion paintings, is being displayed on a large plasma screen at the art gallery.

The show also includes a few sculptures, most of which use the stereo-lithography, rapid proto-typing processes to produce the sculptures that started out as 3D models. Another is comprised of electronic laser engraved boxes.

In selecting the jury, Mitchell tried to choose artists whose work she admired from each area to be represented in the show. Discovering that the artists that she wanted as jurors did not want to accept her invitation because they also wanted to submit work to SIGGRAPH, one of the things that Mitchell did differently this year was to include her jury artists in the show as invited artists. This allowed each of them to display one piece of work, along with their bios, in a special section at the entrance to the art gallery. This also allows attendees and artists to know the backgrounds and sensibilities of those who decided on the artwork to be exhibited.

Krakow: a woven story of memory and erasure is a weaving by Joanna Berzowska that deals with the disappearance of women in Krakow due to political problems in the society.

Jury artist, Shawn Decker, from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, works with electronics and audio. Much like the way singing of crickets at night build to create a larger sound, in the concept for Green, small sounds combine to become greater immersive sounds. Tiny speakers surround the viewer, but unlike normal speakers, electronics turn these on and off to create a random chirping sound field around the viewer that takes over the senses.

The Art Gallery also bridges over into other areas of the conference presenting theoretical papers by authors from around the world. Art sketches are also part of the show. These short presentations by artists and animators accepted into the Gallery cover processes, concepts and the interesting aspects of the work that might not be apparent from just looking at the art.

There are additional art panels such as Beyond Brush and Easel: The Computer Art of Charles Csuri that deal with historical perspectives; Generative and Genetic Art featuring leading experts in generative and genetic art from the past 25 years, including inventors/developers Karl Sims from GenArts in Massachusetts, and William Latham from Leeds Metropolitan University in Leeds, U.K., as well as newcomer Andy Lomas from Framestore CFC in London, U.K., and Locative Media: Urban Landscape and Pervasive Technology Within Art, which deals with the current issues of omnipresent electronics — from smart homes, to automatic doors to surveillance cameras — looking at them as an art form.

The SIGGRAPH Art Gallery 2006 runs from Aug. 1-3 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. If you can make it to Boston, don’t miss this unforgettable experience.

Mary Ann Skweres is a filmmaker and freelance writer. She has worked extensively in feature film and documentary post-production with credits as a picture editor and visual effects assistant. She is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.