WORKING CONCEPT: Ben Rubin was recommended by the Lights On Tampa jury to design a major iconic sculpture for the City of Tampa. This project will not be completed in time for the January 10th 2009 kick-off date, however a prototype of the sculpture is expected to be unveiled by this date.

BRIEF BIO: Ben Rubin is a media artist based in New York City. He completed two major public artworks in 2006: "San Jose Semaphore" for the city of San Jose, California, and "Four Stories" for the Minneapolis Public Library. Mr. Rubin's work has been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the MIT List Visual Arts Center, the Skirball Center in Los Angeles (in a show organized by the Getty Museum), the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the San Jose Museum of Art. He has been a frequent collaborator with artists and performers including Laurie Anderson, Diller+Scofidio, Ann Hamilton, Arto Lindsay, Steve Reich, and Beryl Korot. Rubin's installation Listening Post (2002, with statistician Mark Hansen) won the 2004 Golden Nica Prize from Ars Electronica as well as a Webby award in 2003. Mr. Rubin received a B.A. from Brown University in 1987 and an M.S. in visual studies from the MIT Media Lab in 1989. Mr. Rubin teaches at the Yale School of Art, where he was appointed critic in graphic design in 2004.

www.earstudio.com

WORKING CONCEPT: Using conservation photography, and focusing on Tampa Bay, artist will work with the Florida Aquarium and other environmental groups in messaging environmental concepts for the Portal prototype, which will be installed at the Tampa Convention Center.

The Portal prototype will consist of three (3) LED screens, each 4’ x 8’ and will feature three, ten minute loops of art, one of which features the work of Carlton Ward, Jr. The Portals are artistic and educational in function and intent, providing user groups with a variety of content that focuses on Arts and Culture, Environment, and Well Being. This strong educational component includes a coalition of specialists from each of the core content areas and is part of the Riverwalk Cultural Plan.

BRIEF BIO: Carlton Ward Jr. is an environmental photojournalist from Clearwater, Florida, with graduate training in ecology and anthropology. Through his photographs, he aims to promote conservation of natural environments and cultural legacies. Carlton 's passion for nature was born from the Florida landscape, where eight generations of family history have grounded his perspective. He sees cultural heritage and the natural environment as two of society's greatest yet most threatened resources. He regularly produces stories for newspapers and magazines including recent features in Smithsonian, National Wildlife, Africa Geographic, and Outdoor Photographer. In 2004, Carlton founded the Legacy Institute for Nature & Culture (LINC), a non-profit organization for conservation communications. LINC's mission is to raise awareness for natural environments and cultural legacies, educate about important connections between human societies and natural ecosystems, and promote conservation of natural heritage.

www.carltonward.com

An installation by Casa Magica will kick off the opening of Lights On Tampa’s on January 10th, 2009 at the south-end of the Ft. Brooke Parking Garage. The complete south façade of Fort Brooke Garage will be temporarily illuminated by means of classical still image large format projection. At nightfall the image will sneak in and will remain unchanged until close down.

BRIEF BIO : Friedrich Förster was born in Reutlingen and lives in Tübingen/Germany. Forster studied natural sciences and neurobiology at the University of Tübingen and at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. Since the 80s, he has developed specific slide projection and laser technologies for the creative application in artistic intermedia and multimedia projects. He was recipient of Ars Electronica/A-Linz and International Laser Display Association/USA in the 90s. He collaborates with musicians, dancers and visual artists on his diverse art projects and events in Europe, USA and Arabia.

BRIEF BIO: Sabine Weissinger was born in Göppingen and lives in Tübingen / Germany. Weissinger studied art history and science of religion at the Universities of Stuttgart, Florence and Tübingen, accompanied by training in visual arts and work on cultural projects of the SDR-TV (South German Broadcasting) Stuttgart. From 1989-91, she was the curator of art exhibitions and cultural events at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and from 1992-95, she served as the managing director of the cultural centre "Sudhaus" in Tübingen. Since 1995 she has been a journalist for art and architecture (deputy editor-in-chief of the specialist review glasforum) and project partner of Friedrich Förster specially in the design of projects related to architecture.

www.casamagica.de

WORKING CONCEPT: The artist proposes Ecstatic City, a series of urban projects where the landscape of the city is transformed or animated. For Ecstatic City, he would like to make use of available existing street lighting experienced every day and transform the mundane infrastructure into a giant magic lantern through attaching a rotating mirror ball to as many downtown streetlights as possible, concentrating in and around the area of the Convention Center. Part of this temporary project, located at the entrance to the Convention Center, will be left behind as a permanent addition to the city.

ABBREVIATED BIO: Chris Doyle is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to recent exhibitions in New York, Miami, and Berlin, his work has been shown at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Queens Museum of Art, P.S. 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Sculpture Center, and as part of the New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center. His work includes temporary and permanent projects in the public sphere including LEAP, presented by Creative Time, Commutable, presented by The Public Art Fund, and 50,000 Beds, a large-scale collaborative video installation involving 45 artists presented simultaneously at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Artspace, New Haven, and Real Art Ways, Hartford. His work has been supported by grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, NYSCA, and the Creative Capital Foundation. Chris received his Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from Boston College, and his Masters in Architecture from Harvard University. In 2007, he completed The Moons, an outdoor three-screen video piece for the new Sprint Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently preparing projects for Tampa, Florida, Melbourne, Australia, and a solo show at Sam Lee Gallery in Los Angeles, California opening December 15th, 2007.

WORKING CONCEPT: The artist will create an animation for a three-screen LED portal which will be installed outside of the Tampa Convention Center. Original music for the animation will be composed and will be made available as a podcast.

The Portal prototype will consist of three (3) LED screens, each 4’ x 8’ and will feature three, loops of art, one of which features the animation of Marina Zurkow. The Portals are artistic and educational in function and intent, providing user groups with a variety of content that focuses on Arts and Culture, Environment, and Well Being. This strong educational component includes a coalition of specialists from each of the core content areas and is part of the Riverwalk Cultural Plan.

BRIEF BIO: Marina Zurkow makes animated cartoons, interactive installations, and printed pop objects.

Recent projects include Karaoke Ice: a box truck, free icies, custom tinklepop karaoke, and a squirrel emcee, with Katie Salen and Nancy Nowacek; and the seven-channel animated installation, Nicking the Never, that overlaid the pitfalls of a young girl onto the Tibetan Wheel of Life. Zurkow also created the award-winning episodic cartoon Braingirl, chronicling a mutant-cute girl who wears her insides on the outside. Her icons and characters have been incorporated into films, hotel design, lightboxes and clothing. Upcoming projects include Funnelhead, a large collection of animated, sculptural installations and their artifacts.

Since 2000, Zurkow has exhibited at Sundance, the Rotterdam Film Festival, Res Fest, Ars Electronica, Creative Time, The Kitchen, the Walker Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Eyebeam Atelier, and other venues. Her videos have been broadcast on MTV, FujiTV and PBS. She teaches at NYU’s Interactive Technology Program (ITP) and lives in Brooklyn.

This is an animation still of "Slurb", the installation proposed for the LED portal for Lights On Tampa. Image courtesy of the artist.

WORKING CONCEPT:  Tampa Public Mood Ring is a performance / installation / internet artwork. It is an  integrated online /   architectural aesthetic NEWS system

BRIEF BIO: Will Pappenheimer is an artist/educator living in at least two places, Florida and NYC. As an educator he is Area Coordinator of Electronic Intermedia (EIM) at the University of Florida, Gainesville. He directs the multimedia and digital video program there and has shaped the EIM curriculum during the past 3 years. He received his MFA from Museum School/Tufts University in Boston and his BA at Harvard in 1978. As an artist he has exhibited nationally since 1985 in a variety of media. He received a NEA Artists Fellowship in 1990. His work has been included in over 30 solo, group and traveling exhibitions including The ICA in Boston, Stedman Art Gallery, Rutgers University, NJ, Exit Art in NY and “Immedia” at the University of Michigan. Recently he has contributed work to collaborative projects such as the “Tallahassee IME Simulcast” for Kristin Lucas’s website, Simulsite.com, Christine Hill’s “Pilot,” Barbara Jo Revelle’s, “Looking for Zapatistas” project at NYU, the Florida Research Ensemble and Terry Adkins’ traveling exhibition, “Deeper Still.” The ongoing interests of his work include ephemera, distance, instruction, shifts in usage and interpretation and dematerialized/corporeal relations. His recent work involves an ongoing series of observations, interactions and representations of particularly chosen sets of Webcams around the world. Current projects utilizes video installation, computerprocessing, performance, serial object installations, light box display images and a website archive.

http://www.willpap-projects.com/