Mimi Jiao – Looking Outwards 8 – Section E

Eyeo 2016 – Kyle McDonald from Eyeo Festival on Vimeo.

Kyle McDonald is an artist, philosopher and computer scientist whose artistic medium consists mainly of code. He is heavily involved in creating and collaborating on initiatives that blend engineering with art and through that he hopes to bring connectivity to visual processing and computer libraries. He specializes in new media and uses coding systems such as openFrameworks to create systems with elements of playfulness. His works mainly revolve around the idea of interaction and visualization through code – many of his works adhere to his visual brand of glitchy aesthetics. However, he has also created many larger and higher fidelity works including installation and performance art. I admire his works because it very clearly shows his exploration in having fun and pushing the boundaries of what coded art can become. His smaller scale works like the glitchy renderings are the ones that I personally enjoy the most from an aesthetic standpoint, and it is something I have been trying to render throughout this course. Since creating these glitchy graphics don’t necessarily take up a lot of resources and is very accessible, I want to really try and push myself to see what I can create. His larger installations, like Social Soul, are also works I really respect and appreciate. Many of his installations emerge the visitor in a whole-body experience where the digital and physical come together to create a hybrid experience. These two worlds come together and the perception of space, time, and physicality is heavily altered. I really enjoy this type of isolation and eeriness that McDonald’s installations create and it pushes me to ponder the influence of technology on the physical existence of all matter. Especially in this hybrid age with the integration of digital and physical experiences, it is really interesting to see McDonald’s take on bringing coding into real life. If I ever had access to the resources to make large scale installations like these, I would love to design experiences that play on the idea of blurring the line between reality and the digital realm.