Wired in

By Melissa Mitchell

After three decades of experimentation in the medium loosely defined as
"electronic art," artists who prefer computers to canvas, clay or other
conventional tools and materials are breaking the borders and redefining
the medium.

Works by some of the mavericks of the so-called "second-generation" of
electronic art are currently featured in "Art as Signal: Inside the Loop,"
an exhibition on view Nov. 18 through Jan. 21 at the UI's Krannert Art
Museum. Works showcased in the exhibition range from two-dimensional print
images and video to interactive installations and art work created for
sites on the Internet's World Wide Web.

"Unlike their predecessors, 'second generation' artists using computers and
other electronic devices are investing their art with a wide range of
issues unrelated to process, creating technologically generated work that
prioritizes empathetic, human content and contact," curators Kathleen
Chmelewski, Nan Goggin and Joseph Squier write in the catalog that
accompanies the exhibition. The entire exhibition, including panel
discussions and interviews by the artists - conducted by students in
Squier's "Artists on the Internet" course - will be documented on a CD Rom,
which will be distributed for use by other museums and art educators.

The curators - all professors in the UI's School of Art and Design - note
that while early experimentation involving computers "made significant
contributions to the visual arts," the resulting work was derived "only
through concerted efforts between scientists and artists; no mechanisms
were in place to facilitate the merger of artistic concept and
technological tool."

Today's digital imagists have taken the art form to a higher plane, the
curators maintain. And, they say, "ultimately what makes the work in 'Art
as Signal' is its content, not the technology employed."

Out of nearly 300 responses to a call for submissions, works by 18 artists
from the United States, France, Germany and Japan were selected for
inclusion in the show. Among them:

 * San Francisco artist Jim Campbell's "Hallucination," which creates a video
   "mirror that distorts the reality of live images by engulfing the viewer in
   flames images in image and sound."
 * European artists Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau's interactive
   computer installation, "Phototropy," which invites visitors to enter a
   darkened room, and - using a flashlight - "awaken virtual insects, born in
   cocoon-like forms."
 * San Jose State University art professor Joel Slayton's "Telepresent
   Surveillance," which features three robots - actually video cameras
   attached to helium balloons - that display "idiosyncratic behavior" and are
   "capable of autonomous navigation and video transmission." In other words,
   the robots follow viewers around the gallery and relay interior images of
   the exhibition to a Web site, allowing cyberviewers the opportunity to
   "visit" the show.

Coinciding with the exhibition is "Electronic Empathy: Encounters With
Interactive and Digital Art," a lecture by Margaret Morse at 8 p.m. today
at the Beckman Institute auditorium.