Ingenuity is all about exploring the space where humanity and technology meet. Artists, inventors, and innovators come together at our annual Festival to explore these ideas and play with literally tens of thousands of people. But Ingenuity is building on this relationship with year-round events that bring together creative technologists, performers, artists, and others. Past presentations have included:
COLLIDER5
The Collider Exhibition Series examines the impact, implications and inspiration of the phenomenon generally categorized under the umbrella term New Media. Immersing visitors in contemporary interactive and media artwork, inviting all to participate, play, and ponder.
Co-curator – Tony Samangy
Assistant Professor in Graphic design at The University of Akron with a focus in Interface, Interaction and Motion Design.
Co-curator – Rod Bengston
Director of Galleries – University of Hawaii
Co-curator – Markus Vogl
Assistant Professor in Graphic design at The University of Akron with a focus in interactive art and design, web design and New Media Art.
Guest-curator – Kinect pieces – Margarita Benitez
Assistant Professor in Fashion design and the Fashion technologist at Kent State University with a focus in interactive art, art and technology, wearables, fibers, and fashion design.
Hybrid Collaboration
Artist: Anthony Castronovo
Post-industrial flowers sprout at Ingenuity with Anthony Castronovo’s Hybrid Collaboration. The glass and aluminum piece illuminates and changes through an array of embedded LEDs that are affected by texts sent by viewers working singularly or in teams. For example, if 13 people text #GREEN to the site then the flowers will change their color to green. If someone also texts #SWIRL to the site, the flowers will light up in a swirling pattern. Through this interaction, Castronovo believes that “a bridge will be formed between the physical and virtual world, causing people to interact with each other in collaboration.”
Castronovo’s work speaks to changing views of nature, what kinds of renewal, rebirth, and hope are possible, and what it takes for inhabitants of the 21st century to stop and text the flowers.
Anthony Castronovo received his B.F.A in sculpture from the University of Florida in 2003 and in 2006 he received his M.F.A from Ohio State. Working primarily in public art, his artistic goal is to actively engage participants and create a dialogue about the environment.
Memory Feast
Artist: James Donovan
Exploring the intersection between myth, technology, and experience, James Donovan’s Memory Feast creates onsite interactivity that feeds on social media imagery. Ingenuity visitors can use the controllerless Kinect gaming system to influence projected images create from images on various Facebook accounts.
Feast explores how images from social media form modern mythology. But are we masters of the universe or merely someone else’s digital puppet? Donovan’s work engages these questions with deft technical skills in several arena’s of programming, insightful commentary on modern interaction, and pure fascinating visuals.
In 2011, James Donovan, in collaboration with Team Dis-Kinect, received an honorary residency from Eyebeam Gallery & The Creators Project. Later that year with the Creators Projects he exhibited “Diskinect” a large scale interactive sculpture.
Soundscape
Artist: James Murray
Create your own soundscape using a dizzying array of inputs. Artist James Murray creates an environment that is both playful and inviting, and with a technical maze of knobs, joysticks, wires and circuits. Murray’s piece presented at the 2011 Festival attracted everyone from the cautiously curious to master sound creators who turned the space into their own DJ experience. Which are you? Give it a try and find out.
Murray is a visual artist, musician, and electronics designer with a BFA in Studio Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has shown both nationally and internationally at galleries and festivals including Nice & Fit Showroom, Alogon, Mass College of Art, as well as the Green Mill in Chicago. His work and performances have been featured in the book and accompanying DVD, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, by Nicolas Collins.
Ingenuity Artists Connecting With Communities
Sound Artist James Murray worked with a group of Cleveland’s young people in collaboration with the Cleveland Public Library (CPL). The program focused on the artistry of creating electronic music from circuitry to soldering to performance. This initiative feeds CPL’s vision of being “a driving force behind a powerful culture of learning.”
To that end Cleveland Public Library has opened a dynamic and interactive technology center called TechCentral in its downtown location. Some of the highlights include a TechToyBox, MyCloud virtual desktop, and a 3-D printer. It is a place to connect, discover, explore, and experience the library of the future.
Periodic Intension
Artist: Sean Procyk
Combining water, light and, sound, Sean Procyk creates otherworldly images born out of discarded materials and obsolete technology. Periodic Intension creates images on the Festival floor by focusing beams of light through translucent bowls of water. Vibration from discarded motors animates the projection creating an environment that is at once organic and mechanical.
Procyk holds a degree in Fine Arts from McMaster University, a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University and a Master’s of Fine Arts from OCAD University. He is currently employed as the Sculpture Facilitator for The Banff Centreʼ’s Visual Arts Department, where he advises artists about fabrication processes, project planning and installation design. Drawing inspiration from construction processes, audiovisual light shows, interactive electronics and computer intelligence, he creates immersive artworks that evoke a multi-sensory experience.
The Game of Life
Chris Yanc
In 1970, a Scientific American article described a mathematical game created by Cambridge University professor John Conway. Today, you can play any number of versions of the game online, in smart phone apps or on iPads. The game creates fascinating patterns that take on a life of their own. Chris Yanc has developed a live LED version for Ingenuity. IngenuityFest veteran and creator of the Digital Graffiti Wall, Yanc is an interactive consultant/artist based out of Northeast OH. Developing work for interactive and new media such as touch and computer vision based interactive technologies, his work includes exhibits in previous IngenuityFests, the Collider Exhibit Series and The Brite Winter Festival. His work can also be seen in permanent installations at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Ripley’s Believe it Or Not Museum in Orlando, FL.
Asizumuth Cave
Artist: Jared Bendis
Enter a world of darkness where your only beacons of navigation are the sounds around you. The Azimuth Cave is a single seat, user controlled, light-proof, sound-proof, 5.1 surround sound hendecagonal prism designed for interactive experiences. Premiering at the 2011 Ingenuity Festival, the Azimuth Cave returns with an interactive audio experience/game Treasure of the Wumpus.
Azimuth Cave was conceived and designed by Jared Bendis. Bendis is an award-winning installation artist, photographer, teacher, playwright and filmmaker. He is a specialist in photography, virtual reality, and computer graphics and serves as the Creative New Media Officer for Case Western Reserve University’s Kelvin Smith Library.
Gamer Zone
The Cleveland Game Developers Meetup Group and Akron Film+Pixel present independently made videogames from around the area and around the world. Featured will be Die Gute Fabrik’s Johann Sebastian Joust, a physical music game involving eight colorful Playstation Move controllers and delicate timing.
Throughout the weekend, local game developers will be on hand discussing their experiences creating for platforms like iOS, Android, Steam, and Facebook.
www.meetup.com/clevelandgamedev/
Artemis
Artemis is a multiplayer, multi-computer networked game for Windows computers.
Artemis simulates a spaceship bridge by networking several computers together. One computer runs the simulation and the “main screen”, while the others serve as workstations for the normal jobs a bridge officer might do, like Helm, Communication, Engineering, and Weapon Control.
Artemis is a social game where several players are together in one room (“bridge”) , and while they all work together, one player plays the Captain, a person who sits in the middle, doesn’t have a workstation, and tells everyone what to do.
Feed Jam
Zygote Press
What Feeds You? Answer the question through print making and become part of Ingenuity at the Zygote Press Feed Jam. ZP returns to Ingenuity with a cross of tech and traditional interactive print workshops. Use a copy machine and other printmaking facilities to create your own copy art. And be sure to check out the roving print makers throughout the fest.