Raefer and Camberley's "Living Pond" screensaver was featured in a New York City art exhibition on January 31st, 2004.
"Living Pond" was displayed on a 42" plasma screen, and an interactive version of the screensaver was shown on a smaller touch-sensitive LCD screen. The screensaver was featured alongside oil and acrylic paintings by Anton Kandinsky (great-grandson of Wassily Kandinsky), Marina Shterenberg, Tom Caggiano and Vladimir Aituganov.
"Living Pond" is the first computer program to be exhibited in a 5th Avenue art gallery. The event marks the first recognition of the software medium as a legitimate art form.
Pictures from the exhibition:
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Raefer and Camberley with "Living Pond" on a 42" plasma screen
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Attendees at the exhibition
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Anton Kandinsky (great-grandson of painter Wassily Kandinsky) with two of his paintings
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Representatives from Academy of Muse, the arts philanthropy organization which hosted the event
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Camberley holding a print of a screen capture taken from "Living Pond " (ink on rice paper)
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"Living Pond" on a smaller, touch-sensitive screen. Observers could touch the screen to ripple the pond water.
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"Living Pond" is an elaborate simulation of a Japanese koi pond in which brilliantly-colored Japanese koi fish swim gracefully in rippling, refractive water, creating an entrancing kaleidoscope of colors and patterns.
The virtual water in "Living Pond" exhibits the physical properties of real water, including the reflection and refraction of light, as well as wave propagation behavior. The fish in "Living Pond" are endowed with real-world fish behaviors, allowing them to swim about and interact with one another, while also entering states of rest and excitement. In the interactive touch-screen version, an observer can ripple the digital water with the mere touch of a finger, transforming the world inside the screensaver.
The exhibition (www.academyofmuse.com/invitation) was hosted by The Academy of Muse, a non-profit think tank dedicated to fostering interaction between artists, musicians and philanthropists. www.academyofmuse.com
It was held at the Ukrainian Institute, a non-profit cultural organization promoting the visual arts and music. The Institute has been housed for nearly fifty years in one of the most magnificent and regal turn-of-the-century mansions in New York City, located diagonally across from the Metropolitan Museum on the southeast corner of 79th Street and 5th Avenue. www.ukrainianinstitute.org
about the artists:
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Camberley
3D artist and animator
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Raefer
Effects artist and developer
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Camberley is a digital artist and animator who strives to bridge the gap between digital and traditional artistic styles and methods. Camberley began experimenting with digital art at the very outset of the personal computing era, using nascent paint and animation programs to create rudimentary drawings and animations. In her teens, she studied early computer graphics techniques with pioneering digital artist Jim Sachs, and created the artwork and animations for two Nintendo games. In her current work, Camberley strives to create compositions that both imitate life and augment it. Painting with both color and motion, she aims to strike a
visual balance in both space and time, while still preserving the essence and behavior of her subjects. In the future, Camberley hopes to adapt diverse styles of painting and drawing to the digital medium, while also developing techniques that are unique to this emerging form. Camberley has a degree in computer science from Harvard College.
Camberley designed, painted and animated the koi fish and scenery for ScreenGardens Living Pond.
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Raefer is a physicist and computer scientist whose digital creations push the boundaries of technology and artwork. His initial interest in digital artwork came in his teenage years, when he became fascinated by creating expressive works within the constraints and limitations of specific computer domains. His early works consisted of images constructed out of multicolored text characters, commonly known as "ASCII art", and demonstrations of early full-color, full-screen still images combined with sound and transitional effects. He currently works on expanding the capabilities of computers to create lifelike and surreal effects and experiments with the constantly evolving capabilities of modern 3D computer graphics hardware, borrowing technology from the world of computer games to create virtual worlds that alternately engage and surprise the viewer. Raefer holds a degree in physics from Harvard College.
Raefer designed and developed all the special effects and animation software in ScreenGardens Living Pond, including the 3D graphics engine, water simulation and fish behavior and animation system.
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