Scalable City:
A VR Game, Installation Data Visualization Project
Sheldon Brown
Professor of Visual Arts
Director, Center for Research in Computing and the Arts
UC San Diego
Date: Friday, November 2,
2007
Place: Buchanan 1940
Time: 2:00 pm — 3:00 pm
Abstract:
Sheldon Brown will discuss the concepts, aesthetics and development methods of his current project "The Scalable City" - real-time, multi-user, 3D computer graphic environment, which extends contemporary computer game methods. With this work as an example, Brown will describe the ways in which the nature of the artwork and of art practice are transformed via the undertaking of extensive software development as the primary artistic methodology.
The "Scalable City" has been exhibited in various versions around
the world in the past two years, from pre-visualization alpha versions
to multi-screen, multi-user game environments. Works have been shown in
places such as the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Ars Electronica
Museum, The Kitchen in NYC, the National Center for the Arts in Mexico
City, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and many others.
He has received grants, awards and commissions from numerous foundations,
corporations, and national agencies in the US, Japan, China, Mexico and
Europe.
The project is developed by Brown's Experimental
Game Lab at UCSD and is supported by grants from IBM, Intel, Sun, Vicon
and others. The UC Discovery Grant is with IBM: Cell Processing Methods
for Resolving Computational Constraints in Real-time Graphic Environments,
IBM Corp.
SHELDON BROWN is professor of Art at UCSD, taking over the senior position as head of Digital Media developed by Harold Cohen. During his tenure, student enrollment increased from a few to over 500 undergrads through the ICAM (Arts-Music-Computing) program: http://digitalarts.ucsd.edu/icam/default.htm
He is director of the internationally known Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA http://www-crca.ucsd.edu/). He has been the co-leader in the arts for the Cal IT(2) sector at UCSD, and has been nominated as the first Artist-in-Residence in the CalIT(2) - http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/release.php?id=832. His personal website documenting his work can be seen at: http://www.sheldon-brown.net/
Host: Prof. George Legrady, Media Arts and Technology
