The Arts Meet Technology

Real Accolades for a Virtual Tour
This spring, thousands of people came to the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), put on funny 3-D glasses, and admired the creative work of UMBC's Imaging Research Center (IRC). They came to walk through rooms that no longer exist-taking a "virtual tour," created by the IRC, of the Baltimore apartments of Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel Cone--rooms that were filled with the paintings of the Impressionist masters and the works of struggling modern artists named Matisse and Picasso. (more...)

Dance Tech
The pleasures of performing--and watching--dance have taken on new technological twists in the UMBC dance department. Employing video cameras, rear-projection screens, motion sensors, and even robots, faculty choreographers are adding new dimensions to the poetry of motion, and making new demands on dancers. (more...)

Pixar Gets UMBC's Best
UMBC grad Tim Best's name will soon be up on the big screen at a theatre near you. As technical director at Pixar Animation Studios in California, Best is working on the lighting for Disney/Pixar's forthcoming animated feature, Monsters Inc., bringing to Hollywood the creative zest and technical derring-do he displayed while on the staff of the Imaging Research Center. (more...)

Sound Art From a Low-Tech Source
UMBC music department chair Linda Dusman has listened to hundreds and hundreds of answering machine messages--the "sonic residues" we leave, as she calls them‹and from them, she has fashioned a performance of anonymous individuals who become characters that meet and interact with one another. It is found art--none of the messages was recorded for performance--and for Dusman, the piece represents a blurring line between public and private space. (more...)

Ideas in Focus: Listening to Baltimore
"If these walls could speak, what tales they could tell" isn't just an old saying for Teri Rueb; it's an artistic challenge. The assistant professor of visual arts creates interactive sound installations that allow visitors to explore a terrain on several different levels--listening to its stories, songs, and history--while walking and looking. (more...)