The Oregon State University campus has seen a number of intriguing questions raised this fall:

  • Imagine an orchestra of musicians, but instead of oboes, violins, and flutes, each person on stage has a networked laptop computer and custom-designed speaker. As a group they are capable of filling a concert hall with evocative and remarkable sound. What creations are possible for such a “laptop orchestra”?
  • Consider also how technology can help us visualize and understand in new ways the tremendous volume of data we can now collect about our world — can this data be “art” and how in that sense can art help science?
  • Everyone gets that technology evolves at a breakneck pace. But what about the ways in which this pace of change transforms how we see and understand the world around us, through our cities, and houses, and daily activities? Continue reading
dreamingfids1
Dreaming FIDS, a public art installation by Shona Kitchen, sits in the departure lounge at Mineta San Jose International Airport in California.

The college will host a visiting artist lecture series as part of a new partnership between arts and engineering on the Oregon State campus.

Acclaimed visual artist Shona Kitchen kicks off the series on October 10 with her lecture “Technological Landscapes.” Kitchen is an internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist/designer with a passion for technological advancement and architecture/interaction design. The talk will take place October 10 on the Oregon State campus in Owen Hall, Room 102 from 6-7 p.m.

“In this seminar series we have invited artists who have successfully integrated technology into their art work to discuss the process, what questions they address and how working with interdisciplinary teams drives and informs the artistic process,” said Cindy Grimm, a robotics professor at Oregon State who has been instrumental in planning the series along with colleague William Smart and other faculty from both the colleges of Engineering and Liberal Arts.

The series is just one of many efforts between the colleges to foster common ground between the creative and technical disciplines.

“The landscape between art and technology can be challenging to navigate – but it provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore how humans come to terms with our ever-changing, technology-driven world,” said Grimm.

Lecture Details

Shona Kitchen

“Technological Landscapes”

October 10 from 6-7 p.m.

Owen Hall, Room 102

–Charles Robinson