CHICAGO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — May 20, 2011 — The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age. SIGGRAPH 2011 takes place 7-11 August at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

From more than 300 submissions, the Art Gallery jury selected 16 pieces to be featured at SIGGRAPH 2011. These include 2D images, audio, video, as well as novel data-driven and mixed-media installations. They explore “home” as both a conceptual category and a physical reality, often blurring the boundaries between the two.

“The interplay of physical and virtual within our lived experience enables simultaneous and discontinuous realities at the touch of a button, echo of a voice, or nudge of a sensor,” said Mona Kasra, SIGGRAPH 2011 Juried Art Chair. “This year’s Art Gallery connects attendees with a unique interactive approach to art that explores this new era of technology, from a platform that captures the story of current world disasters through tweets and stock exchange information to a computer system that allows attendees to remotely control physical aspects of a house in foreclosure.”

The Art Gallery jury includes a wide range of artists, designers, technologists, and critics hailing from academia, industry, and the independent art world. Works exhibited in the Art Gallery are published in a special issue of Leonardo, the Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology. Peer-reviewed SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Papers will also be published in this special issue, which coincides with SIGGRAPH 2011 in August.

SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery Highlights include:

MOSTON

Anya Belkina, Emerson College

A 12-foot-tall suspended inflatable sculpture, MOSTON conjures a technology-driven amalgamation of Moscow and Boston with its three-dimensional form of mutated Russian nesting dolls and two-dimensional surface design of printed artwork and documentary footage projection.

tele-present wind

David Bowen, University of Minnesota

This installation consists of a field of x/y tilting devices connected to thin dried plant stalks installed in the gallery, and a dried plant stalk connected to an accelerometer outdoors. When the wind blows, it causes the stalk outside to sway. The accelerometer detects and transmits this movement in real time to the grouping of devices in the gallery.

Open House

Patrick LeMieux, Duke University; Jack Stenner, University of Florida

Open House is an installation that allows visitors to telematically squat in an actual Florida home undergoing foreclosure after the United States housing collapse. Virtual markets transformed this otherwise livable property into a ghost house. Prior to the collapse, movements of global capital seemed like a distant reality, but it was imaginary systems of value, not bricks and mortar, that asserted ultimate authority. Open House temporarily resists eviction by mirroring the market and creating hybrid subjects who occupy both virtual and physical space. Cross the threshold, open the door, flicker the lights, and rattle the shutters.

The Garden of Error and Decay

Michael Bielicky, HFG/ZKM Karlsruhe; Kamila B.Richter, HFG/ZKM Karlsruhe

Programmer: Dirk Reinbold

Sound: Lorenz Schwarz

In this data-driven narrative of current world disasters, the artist, Twitter users, and stock-exchange information all influence the storytelling.

Wait

Julie Andreyev, Emily Carr University of Art + Design; Simon Overstall, Emily Carr University of Art + Design

The companion-species relationship is the starting point for the critique explored in Wait. Human and canine communication methods are brought to bear within this interactive video installation. Taking cues from the movements of the visitor, the dog (as imaged in the video) points to the relationship of control. The dog appears to be waiting for direction; as the dog looks directly at viewers, a state of suspended agency is implied, and viewers are compelled to ask questions about their relationship to the dog. Wait was produced in co-production with the Banff New Media Institute.

View the entire Art Gallery online. Contact Email Contact for high-resolution images.

About SIGGRAPH 2011

SIGGRAPH 2011 will bring thousands of computer graphics and interactive technology professionals from six continents to Vancouver, Canada for the industry's most respected technical and creative programs focusing on research, science, art, animation, music, gaming, interactivity, education and the web from Sunday, 7 August through Thursday, 11 August 2011 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. SIGGRAPH 2011 includes a three-day exhibition of products and services from the computer graphics and interactive marketplace from 9-11 August 2011. More details are available at www.siggraph.org/s2011 or on the SIGGRAPH 2011 Facebook and Twitter .