William Staffeld/AAP

"Polyphony," an interactive media art installation in John Hartell Gallery, reacts to movements in the gallery to create new patterns and distortions of sight and sound.

‘Polyphony’ in motion

Viewers can interact with a new art installation conceived by three graduate architecture students and teaching associates in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP).

On display through Sept. 9 in John Hartell Gallery, Sibley Dome, “Polyphony” blurs the boundaries between different forms of media through human-technology interactivity, generating a simultaneous feedback loop between performance, image and sound. The installation reacts to visual disturbances, vibrations and motions in the gallery that affect and distort musical tones and create target points with which to interact.

Liu Jingyang, M.Arch. ’15; Shining (Christina) Sun, B.Arch. ’17, and Yue Gu, M.Arch. ’16, designed the installation to explore their interests in interactive media and reactive systems based on custom algorithms. The exhibition is supported by the Cornell Council for the Arts.

AAP hosts a reception Sept. 2 at 5 p.m. in Hartell Gallery. The exhibition is free and open to the public; gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Also on display: “Homo Ludens: The Architecture of Play,” through Sept. 16 in Milstein Hall’s Bibliowicz Family Gallery. 

Bust a move

Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon, a member of the famed Rock Steady Crew and a visiting scholar at Cornell this fall, will lead a five-week series of hip-hop dance workshops starting Sept. 7 at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

Workshop sessions will include dance instruction and also cover the history of the evolution of hip-hop culture in New York City. The workshop meets Wednesday nights (Sept. 7, 14, 21, 28 and Oct. 5) from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in Schwartz Room SB10, and are free and open to everyone. Register online.

The workshop series is sponsored by the Cornell Hip Hop Collection at Cornell University Library and the Department of Performing and Media Arts with support from Ronni Lacroute ’66.

Campus Club

The Campus Club at Cornell begins 2016-17 member activities Sept. 8 with Fall Coffee, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Ramada Ithaca, 2310 N. Triphammer Road.

Attendees can register for activity groups in the upcoming season.

The volunteer organization, for all women of Cornell and Ithaca, has been bringing together women in the community for more than 100 years through social and educational interest groups, activities and public lectures.

Club programs and activities this fall include a guided Cornell campus architecture tour on Sept. 27, a weekly bird study group and monthly book groups. Other activities include dining, games, crafts, geocaching, cycling, hiking and skiing. 

Love, war and nature

Cornell Cinema will screen two Ithaca premieres this week – “Homo Sapiens,” Sept. 6 and 8 as part of a four-film Eco Docs series; and “Sunset Song” Sept. 7 and 9 in the Contemporary World Cinema series.

Released this year, Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s “Homo Sapiens” depicts the manmade world being slowly won back by nature, and is a film straddling genres: post-apocalyptic science fiction and contemporary documentary.

Terence Davies’ 2015 epic drama “Sunset Song” is set in the rural Scotland of 100 years ago, as a young woman survives a cruel upbringing and loses her true love to war.

Japan at the Johnson

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art features its fall exhibitions at a free public reception, Thursday, Sept. 8, from 5 to 7 p.m. Four new displays focusing on Japan include “JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876–1970;” curator Nancy Green gives a special tour of the exhibition at 4:30 p.m.

“JapanAmerica” includes paintings, prints, decorative arts and sculpture from major public and private collections around the country, and explores the roles of art, design and display in Japanese-American relations. An illustrated catalogue will be published this fall and the exhibition is traveling to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California, in February.

Three related exhibitions complement the themes of “JapanAmerica” with works from the Johnson Museum’s permanent collection: “American Sojourns and the Collecting of Japanese Art,” “We Went to the Fair” and “Japonisme: The First Wave and Beyond.”

All are on display through Dec. 18; museum admission is free.

Civic Leader Fellows

The 2015-16 Civic Leader Fellows at Cornell will report on their continuing community and economic development projects at an event Sept. 9 at 3:30 p.m. in Mann Library 102. The event is free and open to the public, and food will be served.

Sponsored by the Cornell Public Service Center with support from Student and Campus Life and the Office of Engagement Initiatives, the Civic Leader program fosters connections between the Cornell community and the local community.

The presenters are Clara Butler, on the Backpack Program at Southside Community Center; Ross Haarstad on The Democracy Project, an initiative of Theatre Incognito; and Edward Moran on the Technology for All Initiative.

The event also welcomes 2016-17 Fellows Nomica Arambulo, Damon Brangman and Avis Frasier.

Family science program

The Cornell Center for Materials Research will co-host a science program for families, Saturday, Sept. 10, at 1 p.m. at Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green St., Ithaca.

The free program, “Families Learning Science Together,” will be held in the library’s BorgWarner Community Room and is designed for children ages 5 and up and their families. Registration is required; to register, email ccmr_outreach@cornell.edu.