BIOME, a dynamic interactive installation featuring THEODORE WATSON, EMILY GOBEILLE AND MEREDITH DITTMAR Curated by Tatiana Arocha
Opening Reception Thursday July 17, 2008, 7-10 p.m. Gallery hours: Saturday - Sunday, Noon - 6pm, or by appointment
Meredith Dittmar, Emily Gobeille & Theodore Watson have taken the Riviera Gallery space and transformed it into miniature worlds containing invented fantastical flora and fauna.
Viewing portals bring visitors into a world where they can interact with the animated creatures who live there. Visitors can use their voice, cell phones, keys - any object - to communicate with and 'feed' the creatures. They will react differently to the various sounds that are made, learning and building a sound memory over time. When people are not interacting with the creatures they carry on with their normal behaviors.
Surrounding the portals, a larger world has been created, invading the space with vines and plants that guide visitors through Dittmar's world of polymer creatures, great and small.
Theodore Watson http://muonics.net/
Theodore Watson is an artist and designer based in the Netherlands whose work is born out of the curiosity and excitement of designing experiences that come alive and invite people to play. He enjoys transforming the physical space around us into a new interface for seemingly impossible interactive experiences. Theodore's work ranges from creating new tools for artistic expression, experimental musical systems, to immersive, interactive environments with full-body interaction. Each of his projects call for a unique approach and requires him to work as both an artist and an engineer; developing code and custom hardware to realize and achieve his vision.
Theodore Watson is well know for his work on the open-source laser graffiti system Laser Tag which has been shown all over the world and was featured in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The system allows users to write their 'tags' and messages across the face of huge buildings, walls and bridges from up to a kilometer away. Recently Theodore worked with the acclaimed director Michel Gondry on designing interactive installations for the gallery exhibition of Gondry's feature film 'The Science of Sleep'. The pieces were designed to break the boundary between the viewer and the exhibition, inviting people to touch, play and explore the fantastical world of the film.
Theodore's other recent work includes Funky Forest, an interactive ecosystem for young children, which lets the children manage the virtual forest around them by creating trees with their body and then diverting digital water across the floor to keep the trees and the forest healthy and brimming with life. Vinyl Workout is an installation, which allows you to run across the surface of a projected vinyl record in order to play it. The system uses the movement of your body to control the speed and direction of the music.
Theodore's work has been presented at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria; The Sundance Film Festival; the 2006 Res Fest, the Cinekid children's media festival and Montevideo's (invisible space exhibition all in Amsterdam; the OFFF media festival in Barcelona; the SHIFT art festival in Basel, Switzerland; the Transmissions exhibition at the ICHIM festival in Paris; The Creators Series, Deitch Projects and Eyebeam Art and Technology Center all in New York and the Pixel Gallery in Toronto, Canada.
Emily Gobeille http://zanyparade.com/v8
Emily Gobeille is an artist and award-winning designer who is intrigued by the way that children think and play and enjoys their energy and spontaneity. The ability to think like a child shows in her work. It is always playful, imaginative and teeters on the line between reality and fantasy. Emily has an affinity for telling stories and is interested in every bit of design in nature.
In 2000 Emily received her BFA in design from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston and began her professional career as a print and interactive designer working with companies including Razorfish and Big Blue Dot, a studio specializing in design for children. After working for three years she moved to New York to attend the Design and Technology MFA program at Parson's School of Design.
During her studies she focused on interactive and educational media for young children, including projects for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in NY and her Master's thesis project, The Best Fort Ever, an interactive DVD fable for children which she created a story, puppets and animation and developed a new interaction experience by extending the interactivity of the DVD platform for young children's development.
Since completing her Masters degree in 2005, she has been working in the motion graphics industry as an art director and designer - including work for Nickelodeon, MTV, Food Network and the Smithsonian channel. She also continues to work on her own projects, designs and creations. A recent project is Funky Forest, an interactive ecosystem that allows children to experience an immersive environment, where they manage a virtual forest by creating trees with their bodies and then diverting water flowing from the digital waterfall to feed the forest. The types of sounds and creatures that inhabit the forest depend on the amount of water the forest receives.
Meredith Dittmar http://www.corporatepig.com
Meredith Dittmar is an artist living and playing in Portland, OR. Born near Boston, MA, she grew up in a world of pet pigs, horses, hay-forts and spy games. Follow this with an education in computer science, a career in interactive design, a compulsive need to create, and you get the major elements of her person and work.
Dittmar's human-animal-plant-energy amalgams contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union across themes of biology, technology, and consciousness . Her characters are frequently involved in quiet expressive moments, or lounge facing their audience so they can share their inner space. Dittmar believes it is this space we recognize in ourselves, and through convening in that space, the interconnectedness of all things is revealed. She sees the act of spontaneous artistic creation as part of a larger practice of being present, and a way to better understand herself and reality.
Dittmar's work is featured in the books Dot dot Dash and Mascotte 2, along with numerous magazines and online publications. In conjunction with her artwork she works as an independent character designer and maintains her company Corporatepig, through which she continues to create thousands of unique handmade characters called "My Guys".
Tatiana Arocha is a versatile and accomplished artist, graphic designer, director, photographer, and illustrator from Bogota, Colombia living in New York City.
After contributing to many award-winning projects at several top design studios in New York, Tatiana became an in-demand freelance designer and creative director. With a personal client list including Wieden + Kennedy, Sundance, Vh1, and MTV, Tatiana made her mark on the burgeoning motion-graphics industry and was recognized as an icon of the design world by ResFest.
Under the moniker T+A, with musician/filmmaker Alex Moulton, Tatiana has directed music videos for Funksțrung, Tosca, Mocean Worker and others. Her photographs have been published in magazines such as Fader, XXL and the cover of The Village Voice. Tatiana's illustrations can be found in close to a dozen books (most recently Die Gestalten's 'Illusive 2' and Victionary's 'Fashion Wonderland'), and have been incorporated into a variety of mediums, from apparel for Burton Snowboards to her own line of products for Nookart.
Defying artistic categorization, Tatiana's range continues to evolve. In 2007 she was commissioned by Sundance Channel to create an animated art piece based on her illustration series entitled, "Rainforest Sanctuary." In 2008 Yale University requested she show the expanding series of work to coincide with the International Society of Tropical Foresters conference and the subsequent United Nations-hosted Conference on Environmental Governance and Democracy.
In addition to commercial-oriented work, Tatiana is heavily involved in the arts community as a curator. Her online gallery Servicio Ejecutivo is a forum she initiated to support other artists who share her passion for exploring new modes of communication. Since 2001 she has curated over eighty exhibitions.
RIVIERA 103 Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. L Train to Bedford Avenue stop. Walk south 5 blocks and take right on to Metropolitan Avenue. Walk 2 blocks to corner of Wythe and Metropolitan.
