/atlas/ en /atlas/2021/11/01/atlas-communitys-work-featured-museum-boulder-exhibit <span>ATLAS community’s work featured in Museum of Boulder exhibit</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2021-11-01T16:18:54-06:00" title="Monday, November 1, 2021 - 16:18">Mon, 11/01/2021 - 16:18</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/atlas/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/article-thumbnail/beat6.jpeg?h=e0baf4d7&amp;itok=gFHyxmp5" width="1200" height="800" alt="Museum visitors interact with Gallagher's Ghost exhibit"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/729" hreflang="en">alistar</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/408" hreflang="en">carruth</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/1385" hreflang="en">corones</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/168" hreflang="en">feature</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/691" hreflang="en">harriman</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/865" hreflang="en">hopkins</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/414" hreflang="en">hoth</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/1381" hreflang="en">isaackim</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/551" hreflang="en">kim</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/731" hreflang="en">living matter</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/1377" hreflang="en">makin</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/34" hreflang="en">news</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/1375" hreflang="en">ofer</a> <a href="/atlas/taxonomy/term/1379" hreflang="en">spangler</a> </div> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p>&nbsp;</p><p> </p><div class="imageMediaStyle medium_750px_50_display_size_"> <img loading="lazy" src="/atlas/sites/default/files/styles/medium_750px_50_display_size_/public/article-image/beat6.jpeg?itok=2xti_tfd" width="750" height="563" alt="Museum visitors interact with Gallagher's Ghost exhibit"> </div> <p>A group of ���ϳԹ� artists and technologists, many of whom share connections with the <a href="/atlas/" rel="nofollow">ATLAS Institute</a>,&nbsp;contributed to the Museum of Boulder’s newest exhibit, “Convivial Machines,” which opened Saturday, Oct. 30.<br><br> The gallery showcase is the first museum installation for Boulder Experiments in Art and Technology (B.E.A.T), says the exhibit's&nbsp;curator, <a href="/atlas/jeffrey-jiffer-harriman" rel="nofollow">Jiffer Harriman</a> (ATLS PhD '16), who started B.E.A.T. in 2019 to “foster creativity and collaboration at the intersection of art and technology.” &nbsp;Museum visitors can expect to see a variety of interactive systems, including musical installations and video art, as well kinetic sculptures, digital games, bioluminescent algae and more, Harriman says.<br><br> “The exhibit highlights a local community of artists and creative technologists looking for new ways to see the world,” says Harriman. “It explores the differences and balance between what people do well—expressiveness and creativity—and what machines are good at–repetition and connection.”<br><br> One of the emerging themes of the show is the tension between the benefits that technology offers and the negative impacts, Harriman says. Some installations imagine new possibilities, while others point toward technology’s negative effects, including an installation of "useless boxes" that contain a single switch, which when turned on, is immediately switched off by a robotic finger, he adds.</p><p><strong>The ATLAS Connection</strong><br> Inspired by bioluminescent algae and the idea of engaging with something “live,” Harriman has blended research led by <a href="/atlas/mirela-alistar" rel="nofollow">Mirela Alistar,</a> assistant professor of computer science with the ATLAS Institute, into the installation. Alistar, also the director of the <a href="/atlas/living-matter-lab" rel="nofollow">Living Matter Lab</a>,&nbsp;and Netta Ofer, an ATLAS master’s student, have created an exhibit, “Bioluminescent Touch,” where visitors can interact in the darkness with dinoflagellates, algae that produce light when exposed to oxygen through physical stimulation.<br><br> “The bioluminescent response to human touch creates unexpected connection and empathy with the microorganism, drawing us into the wonder of communicating and interacting with nonhuman beings,” Ofer says.<br><br> Slaton Spangler, now a software engineer with LASP who, as an undergraduate majoring in computer science was a very active member of the <a href="/atlas/research-creative/BTULab" rel="nofollow">BTU Lab</a>, made the interactive installation, “Amorphous Breeze.” The piece displays a network of undulating “blobs” that fade in and out following a set of underlying rules. When a viewer presses a glowing green button, a fan in the real world appears to blow away the blobs, replacing them with new blobs that follow new rules. The patterns that emerge from the waves of blobs tend to be mesmerizing in the same fashion as a lava lamp, Spangler says.<br><br> Spangler also constructed the installation, “Clear the Void,” which uses an XBox Kinect to create an interactive space of digital images provided by Matt Corones, an ATLAS master's student (Creative Industries)&nbsp;in the <a href="/atlas/acme-lab" rel="nofollow">ACME Lab</a>, Dajira Medić, Jeanne Kipke, Andy DiLallo and Shannon Derthick.&nbsp;<br><br> In a third installation, Spangler created a hardware platform to loop an installation of video art from the B.E.A.T. community that includes a range of experimental techniques and themes. </p><div class="ucb-box ucb-box-title-left ucb-box-alignment-right ucb-box-style-fill ucb-box-theme-lightgray"> <div class="ucb-box-inner"> <div class="ucb-box-title">If you go</div> <div class="ucb-box-content"><strong>Who:</strong> Open to everyone<br><br><strong>What:</strong>&nbsp; "Convivial Machines," an exhibit by&nbsp;Boulder Experiments in Art and Technology (B.E.A.T), including many artists and technologists from the ATLAS community.<br><br><strong>When: </strong>Oct. 30–Feb. 6, 2022<br><br><strong>Where: </strong>Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway, Boulder<br><br><strong>Cost:</strong> adults $10; seniors, college students, youth (5-17) $8; under 5–free.<br><br><a href="https://museumofboulder.org/exhibit/b-e-a-t-boulder-experiments-in-art-and-technology/" rel="nofollow">Info</a> </div> </div> </div>