The gallery features 14 virtual installations representing an international slate of artists; highlights include Academy Award-nominee ‘Opera,’ Best in Show ‘Cangjie’s Poetry,’ and interactive lighting installation ‘Isle of Reflections.’
SIGGRAPH 2021 will present the latest innovations in digital art as part of its online exhibit this summer. The Art Gallery will feature 14 virtual installations; the virtual exhibit and corresponding sessions will run August 9-13, with content available on-demand through October 29.
“As we continue to navigate ways to present and showcase digital art virtually, I am thrilled to preview the important work that the jury has selected for the conference this summer,” shared SIGGRAPH 2021 art gallery chair Angus Forbes, of University of California, Santa Cruz. “Creative exploration and contemplation is more important than ever, and SIGGRAPH will always be a place where creativity thrives.”
Chosen by an expert jury from more than 150 submissions, this year’s Art Gallery selections represent artists from seven countries: U.S., Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, South Korea, China, and Switzerland. In addition to opportunities to engage with and review content on-demand, conference participants can attend live sessions with the artists beginning the week of August 9.
Highlights from the virtual program include:
Opera - Erick Oh, BANA
The Academy Award-nominee is a massive, 8K-size animation installation project that portrays society and its history - filled with beauty and absurdity. The ambitious piece can be defined as a contemporary animated edition of the Renaissance fresco mural paintings, driven by the spirits of Bosch, Michelangelo, and Botticelli.
BEST IN SHOW:
Cangjie’s Poetry - Weidi Zhang and Donghao Ren, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
An interactive art installation that provides a conceptual response to the semantic human-machine reality. In the installation, the intelligent system (Cangjie) constantly observes surroundings through the lens of a camera, writes poetry using its symbolic system based on its interpretation, and explains the evolving poem in natural language to audiences in real-time.
Isle of Reflections - Chaeeun Lee, Myeongseong Kim, and Hyunjung Kim, KAIST
An interactive lighting installation that can only be remotely explored via videotelephony. Viewers can visit the island filled with iridescent lights and colorful reflections through Zoom.
Hexells: Self-Organising Textures - Alexander Mordvintsev, Google
A self-organizing system of cells that was trained to build textures using neighbor communication only. This work exposes the relation between the life of an individual cell and the cell collective as a whole.
“It was inspiring to be part of this year’s Art Gallery jury among such talented individuals,” noted SIGGRAPH 2021 Art Gallery Juror Behnaz Farahi, of California State University, Long Beach and USC Annenberg. “I learned a lot from other jurors’ perspectives and am truly impressed by the selection process,” added “I am happy that the chosen works each represent diversity of background and creative practice.”
Virtual access to the SIGGRAPH 2021 Art Gallery is open to the Enhanced and Ultimate registration levels. All Art Gallery content is now available for browsing here.
Additional information and registration are available here.
Source: SIGGRAPH 2021
