LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s Studio 300: Digital Art and Music Festival offers up the cutting edge of art in the digital age with seven exhibitions, three concerts, two lectures and over 20 musicians and artists from eight countries.
The festival, which is free and open to the community, runs Friday and Saturday, Sept. 28 and 29. The mission of the festival is to explore creative manifestations of technology through concerts and exhibitions of digital art and music.
Digital art has expanded artistic and musical mediums far beyond paint brushes and pianos. “Studio 300 is an exciting event because all the artists and musicians involved are also technologists that build their own tools, instead of using preexisting tools in traditional ways,” says Timothy Polashek, director of the festival and music professor at Transylvania.
Exhibitions include interactive art, pre-recorded tracks created in electronic music studios and music that is generated by original computer programs. The festival will give Transylvania students and the community “an exclusive front row seat,” Polashek says, to experience the newest developments of international digital art.
Studio 300 begins with an artist’s talk on Friday at 10:30 a.m., an afternoon of open art installations across campus and a concert. Friday night offers two concerts. The first begins at 7:30 p.m. in Haggin Auditorium and the second at Al’s Bar starting at 11 p.m. Each concert features six different artist-composers offering the audience a wide exposure to unique video, audio and other digital media music varieties.
Saturday’s events include an artist’s talk at 11 a.m., art installations until 7:30 p.m. and a concert in Haggin Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. For a detailed schedule please see below or the Studio 300 website.
Friday’s artist’s talk by Richard Hoagland and John Meister of Super Soul’s will discuss games and interactivity as artistic expression. To learn about electronic music composition, go to Saturday’s artist’s talk, “Integration and Confusion” by Hans Tutschku, professor of composition at Harvard University. Both include demonstrations.
Notable exhibitions that feature international works are Vox Novus’s “60×60” and the BYTE Gallery International Exhibition. The “60×60,” 2011 International Mix collection and Athena Mix are each one-hour music extravaganzas that string together 60 musical composers by artists from around the world who have composed pieces of 60 seconds or less. BYTE Gallery International Exhibition will feature 34 works, narrowed down from 200 internationally submitted entries, competing for inclusion in the BYTE Gallery. The BYTE gallery features video, audio and still images.
Among the panel of internationally, nationally and regionally acclaimed artists and musicians are Transylvania faculty and students. Art professor Zoe Strecker will debut a large multimedia sculpture made of video, wood, steal and coal. The exhibit “Ink In The Cage: The Stories Behind MMA Fighter Tattoos,” by Barbara LoManco, vice president of student affairs and dean of students, and Angela Baldridge, freelance photographer and Transylvania alumna, includes large images and interview excerpts. Larry Barnes, professor of music and Bingham Fellow for Excellence in Teaching, will perform “Sound Mirrors” and Polashek will perform “Micro-Coastings” at Saturday night’s concert. Students Zach Bain-Selbo, Kaleb Allen and alumnus Caleb Ritchie will perform as well. Works of students Jennifer Lancaster, Joey Perkins, Ethan Campbell, Molly Crain and alumna Nadia Smith are included in the “60×60” and BYTE Gallery Installations.
Transylvania offers a degree in music technology and encourages art majors to incorporate digital mediums by using the Fine Arts Technology Lab and computer science programs. Technology is one of the university’s five core values integrated into the campus’s academic, social and extracurricular activities.
Schedule of Events:
Artist Talks
Friday, Sept. 28, 10:30-11:20 a.m. — “Elephants Paint and Dogs Play Games: Interactivity, games, and artistic expression,” demonstration by Super Soul’s Richard Hoagland and John Meister, Coleman Recital Hall, Mitchell Fine Arts Center (MFA)
Saturday, Sept. 29, 11 a.m.-12:00 p.m.— “integration and confusion: ‘Zellen-Linien’ for piano and live-electronics,” demonstration by composer Hans Tutschku, Haggin Auditorium, MFA
Exhibitions
Faculty Lounge:
“sEqual” by Brad Decker, Sept. 28 and 29, noon – 7:30 p.m.
“Direction” by Super Soul, Sept. 28 and 29, noon – 7:30 p.m.
“Vox-Novus 60×60” by Various Artists, Sept. 29, noon – 7:30 p.m.
Rafskeller Foyer:
“BYTE Gallery Int. Exhibition” by Various Artists, Sept. 28 and 29, noon – 7:30 p.m.
Coleman Recital Hall:
“Open Source” by Super Soul, Sept. 28 and 29, noon – 7:30 p.m.
Haggin Foyer:
“Crib” by Zoé Strecker, Sept. 28 and 29, noon – 7:30 p.m.
Concerts
The three main concerts are distinguished in waves, in homage of the electronic wave inspiring the digital festival. All are free and open to the public.
WAVE 1 Concert: Friday, Sept. 28, 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Haggin Auditorium, Mitchell Fine Arts
“Phyllotaxis” by Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz, Kimberlee Goodman, Flute
“Sound Mirrors” by Larry Barnes, Piano
“Disinformation Indistinguished” by Michael Wittgraf
“beneath” by Tohm Judson
“First Punch” by Benjamin D. Taylor, Bryan Andrews, Double Bass
“Flux” by Mei-Fang Lin, Jonathan Sharp, Marimba
WAVE 2 Concert: Friday, Sept. 28, 11 p.m. – 12:30 a.m. Al’s Bar, 601 N. Limestone,
“Diving Bell – “Kalimba”” by David McDonnell, saxophone and electronics and Jerod Sommerfeldt, laptop computer
“Bodywork” by Michael Sikora
“The Lens” by Zach Bain-Selbo
“A.M. Freedom” by Kaleb Allen
“Trance No. 1” by Caleb Ritchie
“X-Rated Plaza” by Space Genetics with Paul Scea & Eric Haltmeier, laptop computers & woodwinds
WAVE 3 Concert: Saturday, Sept. 29, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. Haggin Auditorium, Mitchell Fine Arts
“St. Vitus Kyrie” by Liza Seigido, Voice
“Pushing Buttons” by Andrew Walters, Joseph Murphy, Saxophone
“Firmament-schlaflos” by Hans Tutschku
“Fluid Dynamics” by Adam Scott Neal
“Micro-Coastings” by Timothy Polashek
“Pamuk” by Young-Shin Choi, Gayageum