The eyes have it this month as Cornell hosts a monthlong, cutting-edge exhibition of international CD-ROM art projects at electronic sites around campus, in conjunction with a two-day public workshop on the digital arts.
The workshop, titled "Artistic Discourses of Digitality," begins Friday, March 12, at 12:45 p.m. in the A.D. White House, with introductory remarks by Timothy Murray, acting director of the Society for the Humanities and director of graduate studies in film and video.
The workshop leads into the premiere of the exhibition "Contact Zones: The Art of CD-ROM," in Uris Hall G28, Saturday, March 13, from 3 to 5 p.m., followed by a roundtable discussion and reception.
"Contact Zones: The Art of CD-ROM" will be on display from March 9 through April 16, with iMac computers up and running at a variety of campus locations, including the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, the A.D. White House and the following Cornell libraries: Olin, Uris, Carpenter and Mann. The exhibit is part of a joint effort, co-sponsored by the Society for the Humanities, Cornell Information Technologies (CIT), Cornell Library and the Johnson Museum. The iMac computers will be provided through Apple Computers Inc., the Campus Store and CIT.
The workshop, free and open to the public, brings together a wide range of international artists, critics and curators to discuss the innovative artistic and theoretical work created through digital mediums.
"Contact Zones" explores the artistic, theoretical and interdisciplinary possibilities of CD-ROM and digital technologies in the arts, and it features work by well-known and exciting emergent CD-ROM artists from Australia, Canada, Germany, France, the United States, England, Brazil, Holland, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Japan, Mexico and Spain, as well as work created by Cornell faculty and fellows at the Society for the Humanities.
Murray, professor of English and curator for the unprecedented Cornell exhibit, explains the concept behind "Contact Zones": "First, it's meant to suggest how digital art can serve to create 'contact zones' between different campus disciplines -- from art to literature to media studies to computer science to architecture -- and venues -- from the art museum to the library -- that share common interests in the development of and critical reflection on digital visualization. Second, the show will investigate various zones of conceptual contact opened up by artists working in the new media. My hope is that the show will provide new zones of interpersonal contact for groups of users who wouldn't ordinarily understand themselves to share common space."
More than 75 CD-ROMs were submitted for exhibition, Murray said.
"There have been very few international exhibitions of work solely created on and/or for CD-ROM, and this show already has Cornell positioned as a major player in the field of digital arts and visual studies," he said.
Co-sponsors for the two events include the Society for the Humanities, CIT, the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, the Einaudi Center Dissertation Workshop on Comparative Visualities, the Graduate Program in Film and Video Studies and the departments of History of Art, Science and Technology Studies and Theatre, Film and Dance, and the Johnson Museum.
A schedule of events is listed below. For further information, call the Society for the Humanities at 255-4086, e-mail mea4@cornell.edu or view the web site http://contactzones.cit.cornell.edu.
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