February 9, 2006: Volume 66, Number 6

Union dedicated to digital arts

Oliver Majer '06 had a free period in his schedule, usually crammed with mechanical engineering courses, so he signed up for Fernando Orellana's new digital arts course. On Friday afternoon, Majer found himself displaying the fruits of his artistic labor – an image of the Eiffel Tower created from structural engineering equations.

"I've been making structural equations for four years, and I always look at them from a mathematical perspective," Majer said. "Now I can look from an artist's point of view."

Majer's work was one of many examples on view in the F.W. Olin Center Room 102 during the official christening of the John E. Kelly III '76 Digital Arts Lab.

Kelly, a Union Trustee and IBM senior vice president of Technology, earmarked part of his contribution to the College's $200 million "You are Union" campaign for support of the digital arts program, an interdisciplinary endeavor between the visual arts and computer science departments.

"When I was here in the mid-70s, I had to scratch together my own converging technologies, with classes in physics, math, political science and psychology," said Kelly, addressing a crowd of about 60 at the dedication ceremony.

"My Union experience meant so much to me; it was such a tipping point in my life."

Following remarks by Steve Ciesinski '70, chairman of the board of trustees, and Valerie Barr, professor and chair of computer science, Kelly was joined by Interim President Jim Underwood in the ribbon-cutting in the Olin rotunda.

The group, which also included Trustees, faculty members, staff and students, then toured the lab, with its high performance computing work stations, high-resolution displays and state-of-the-art software.

With digital art a hot "new media" field – encompassing everything from Web design to 3D modeling and animation – and converging technologies a pillar of a Union education, there couldn't be a better time to explore this latest cross-disciplinary approach, said Kelly. He holds a B.S. in physics from Union and an M.S. in physics and Ph.D. in materials engineering from RPI.

"I hope this program becomes a poster child for converging technologies at the College," he said.

Barr noted that few of Union's peer institutions offer a digital art program; those that do generally offer it through their arts department.

"The College's earlier CT phases have seen a lot of success between science and engineering," Barr said. "It's a bigger step to bridge over to humanities from computer science. There's always been a lot of interest, but it also takes money and resources.

"Fortunately, we've had tremendous support."

In addition to thanking Kelly for his contributions, Barr lauded the efforts of Chris Duncan, associate professor of visual arts; Martin Benjamin, professor of visual arts; David Ogawa, professor visual arts; Louisa Matthew, chair of visual arts; David Hemmindinger, professor of computer science; Dave Cossey, chief information officer; Mary Partlett-Sweeney, associate director of academic computing; and Lance Spallholz, lab manager and instructor, in making digital arts a reality at Union.

But it was not until Professor Orellana came to campus last summer did the program truly ignite.

Recalled Kelly: "I said to Valerie, ‘You've got the idea, I've got the money; now we need someone who's got the spark.' That someone is Fernando Orellana."

Orellana joined the Union faculty as a three-year visiting professor after a national search. He was selected as "someone who will be able to make connections across arts and the hard sciences," Barr said. 

He holds a BFA in art and technology (1998) from the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the Ohio State University Art & Technology program, where he continued his research into machine/sculpture automata, robotics, artificial life and painting.

He has exhibited nationally and internationally, including in Sotheby's/Artlink galleries in Tel Aviv, London and New York, and he has received numerous scholarships and fellowships.

His introductory digital arts course focuses on the fundamentals of creating two-dimensional art using the computer – "essentially a painting class with pixels."

Topics include essentials of digital graphics/imaging and Internet art. Class lectures and hands-on studio work incorporate a range of demonstrations, discussions, technical exploration and historical information relevant to computer multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications.

After the first successful fall course, he now finds himself teaching two sections, both full with students from all fields. He encourages them to experiment with new ways to connect digital technology to their own way of making art and their own experiences.

That was certainly the case for mechanical engineering major Oliver Majer, who took a photo of the Eiffel Tower while studying abroad and used it as the inspiration for his course work last fall.

"I never considered myself an artist before taking this course," Majer said. "Now I look at these engineering equations and I see the beauty in them."

For more on Union's exciting new digital arts initiative, visit the program's Web site at http://cs.union.edu/digitalarts/.

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