Soyun Kim – Looking Outwards – 02

I was intrigued by the Aaron Koblin and Janet Echelman’s collaboration, “Unnumbered Sparks”. Janet Echelman created a large soft sculpture made out of fiber and Koblin and his team created a system where people can “draw” and “paint” on Echelman’s sculpture. Using python, WebGL, Chrome and more, they were able to let people connect to their specific wifi near the sculpture and interactively create a digital mark and generate sounds by using their phone. Both artists believed that it was the public who created and finished the art work, not them and was aiming for an essentially a large scale collaboration with people. They broke people from their usual routine with their phone and invited them to participate in their art work.

From this project, I was able to physically see the creative side of coding. The process of creating the fiber sculpture was obviously a creative act but considering such curved and unique sculpture as an aerial canvas and creating a moment where people can interact with each other was something I  have never heard or seen before. Another thing which I have never heard of before is called WebGL. After a brief research, I learned that WebGL is a ‘web technology that bring hardware 3D graphics to the browser without installing additional software’ and ability for ultra fast graphic processing.

After seeing what they have done, collaboration between technology and art seems almost vital in our time and limitless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JGzPLZrVFU