UMaine Art Exhibit, Without Borders 3, Melds Traditional Art, New Media
Contact: Owen Smith, 581-4389; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — W/O3 without borders re: build / re: work / re: place, the third in a series of annual exhibits by UMaine art and New Media students, currently at the Lord Hall art gallery on the Orono campus, is an example of where art is going these days through the melding of art theory and technology.
An opening reception for artists and the public, and a performance by Ascona, is scheduled Thursday, Sept. 14, from 5-7 p.m. at the new Lord Hall gallery. The show went up Aug. 18 and runs through Sept. 22.
Six UMaine graduate and two undergraduate art and new media students have assembled a collage of “intermedial” art pieces, some of which are audience-interactive both physically and virtually, and others convey meanings that differ with the perspectives of viewers.
This year’s show is a collaborative effort curated by the university, Le ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts de Cergy-Pontoise in Paris and the UMaine-connected MARCEL Network, an international network of artists and scientists exploring the possibilities of ultrahigh bandwidth cultural exchanges. One exhibitor is a former student at the French art school and several of the UMaine artists recently have been exchange students in France.
The work, says Owen Smith, director of new media and professor of art, reflects new directions in art based on a solid grounding in traditional art approaches and concepts. It explores the boundaries between the arts, as well as art and technology, he says.
“It is cutting-edge. It is pushing the envelope,” says Smith, “but all the work is grounded in a historical knowledge of art and culture. And all of the artwork is grounded in basic art and design skills, which are fundamental to the art department.”
Intermedial art, he explains, is “everything between sculpture, dance, theater and all of the arts. We’re interested in the space between them.”
Take, for instance, an installation piece by Yeshe Parks of Winthrop and Paul Arnaud of Fort Collins, Co., “Mobile Distinctions,” an interactive performance piece based upon a projected video of individuals posing mime-like in every-day situations. A camera positioned on the ceiling senses a viewer’s movement and motion, which triggers a second video that plays within the silhouette of the on-screen person.
Or consider the whimsical installation, “Things Boys Say,” by Master of Arts in Liberal Studies graduate student Sheridan Kelley of Cherryfield. Kelley has filmed and recorded comments, compliments and criticisms she recalls from her past.
Not all exhibits involve movement. Several of the work includes a cluttered desk chemistry lab, a series of laser print transfer photographs that become clearer as the viewer steps back, an array of lights and wiring on a wall, a vending machine that dispenses trinkets, miscellaneous objects and text encapsulated in small plastic containers, and a table with dozens of demitasse cups of espresso, each of which is refilled daily.
The artwork and the collaboration by UMaine, Le ecole Nationale and the MARCEL Network is additionally significant because it will form the basis for a new master of fine arts degree based on this type of work, according to Smith.
“By drawing together the diverse skills and emphases of the partners, we will create a stronger whole, not by aiming to create a uniform system, but by creating a shared structure that recognizes, even makes use of, our programmatic differences,” Smith says. “It is our aim to create an educational experience in which the work stands as a marker and as a suggestion of things to come – an expansive reconsideration of art and creativity.”
Smith says the new program will establish “a hands-on interdisciplinary system, one that highlights an interweaving of cognitive and practical matters as a means to push the creative ways that artists engage with the profession and the world around them. Additionally, the program will aim to focus not on a singular media or material, but a multiplicity of media, even inter-media, and an experimentalist approach that is based in the production of both ideas and projects.”
The International Masters in Intermedial Arts degree could be ready in two to three years, Smith says.