EVA LEE created "Lux Flux," a light portrait of the city through video animation. The video begins with the David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts and wraps around the Tampa Riverwalk to the Tampa Bay History Center. When approaching the project, Lee stated “…I will film all manner of lights that I encounter, from daylight to evening, on land, and by water via boat. Some examples are natural light, such as sunlight reflecting on water; man-made lights, such as navigational lights on boats and cars; architectural lights on bridges and buildings, including art projects such as the Villereal façade of Tampa Museum of Art.Tampa’s luminous vitality from both natural and man-made sources of energy will be presented as a living system. Using digital collaging and special effects, the viewer will see a tableau of recognizable Tampa lights, colors, sights, and sounds alternately morph into abstract images that suggest organic changes, all in the context of day passing into night and then day again on a loop, hinting at an ongoing life cycle."
The resulting video animation is a light portrait of the city, which captures the city’s signature Riverwalk personality, as seen along the banks of its waterways through the lens of art.
Eva Lee's animation is featured on the Portal. The Portal is a digital gateway through the arts. Located on the Riverwalk, it provides an ever-changing and engaging platform for cultural and educational opportunities. Content on the Portal is expansive; in addition to commissioned artwork, a wide net is cast to include content from archival sources, scholars, health and environmental specialists. In addition to Lee, artists Juliet Davis & Stephanie Tripp and Molly Schwartz were commissioned to create new work for the Portal.
Eva Lee studied painting at Bard College (BA) where she first learned to see from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attending Hunter College (MFA) she was awarded a travel grant to conduct research for her thesis with scientists at the University of California in Davis, CA. The artist's studies there in methods and visual systems of science culminated in a signature series of large-scale drawings described by The New York Times as "striking works...ovoid spaces shaped from deep black ground by thready white lines that pattern themselves into showy networks...[They] suggest cellular and body structures, as well as the vast abstractions of the universe.” These later developed into digital animations that are abstract experimental shorts. She continues to be inspired by science, collaborating recently with neuroscientist Dr. James Coan of the University of Virginia to create 3D animations based on his data from studies on the brain basis of emotions.
In addition to original drawings, Eva Lee's repertoire includes archival prints of stills from animations, limited edition DVDs, and digital video installations. Among other venues, her work has been on view at The Decordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; P.S. 122 Gallery, New York, NY; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY. Recent awards include fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council, Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, and The MacDowell Colony.
Shedding Light: First used as a reference to mental illumination in the 15th century, the term “shedding light” entertains two meanings: “to pour light over” and “to let go of light.” By undertaking the work of “shedding light,” we acknowledge our position within the Western “enlightenment” tradition and its attendant narratives of progress, including the promotion of community development, tourism, and “the arts.” At the same time we strive to embrace letting go of our urge to shine light on others and instead invite them to shed some light of their own. In an appeal to the Tampa Bay area’s rich and diverse cultural history, “Shedding Light” asked schools and community organizations to create still and moving images that shed light on their Tampa—their neighborhoods, pastimes, vistas, memories, joys, and concerns. Artists Juliet Davis and Stephanie Tripp will mixed these community contributions with their own video light samplings from around the area. The resulting video brings a collage of culturally and geographically diverse perspectives on light into a shared public space.
The video will be featured on the Portal. The Portal is a digital gateway through the arts. Located on the Riverwalk, it provides an ever-changing and engaging platform for cultural and educational opportunities. Content on the Portal is expansive; in addition to commissioned artwork, a wide net is cast to include content from archival sources, scholars, health and environmental specialists. In addition to Davis & Tripp, artists Molly Schwartz and Eva Lee were commissioned to create new work for the Portal.
Juliet Davis is an artist, writer, researcher, and professor at The University of Tampa, seeking to advance theory and practice in visual culture, particularly in areas where new media and cultural studies intersect. She is interested in studying ways in which technologies raise ontological questions and become part of our constructions of identity; how they manifest in real and symbolic power associated with individuals and institutions; and how we might use them to increase agency and creative expression. Her artwork has exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. www.julietdavis.com
Stephanie Tripp is a digital media scholar and artist, and an assistant professor of communication at The University of Tampa. Her work examines haunting, technologies of inscription, and the role of place in shaping cultural identity. A native of Tampa, she has lived and worked in Florida for most of her life. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2006, and she worked as an assistant professor at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh before joining the faculty of UT in the fall of 2009. Tripp’s most recent media project, Sticks of Fire: Fire in the Sky, is an interactive installation that uses lightning data to create dynamic audio-visual compositions. It is the first of a planned series of projects that will explore various aspects of Tampa’s cultural history as they intersect with myths about how the city got its name. Previous projects include Thinking About the Pyramid, a web-based collaborative art project, and Staging Hauntology, an interactive 3-D simulation. Tripp lives in Tampa with her husband, Thomas Cohen. www.stephanietripp.org/
MOLLY SCHWARTZ created Watershed, a trio of short animated videos that reference the terrain, history and delicate ecology of the Tampa Bay watershed. Each animation takes place within a strata, or level of a re-imagined watershed. The Watershed triplet comes together to describe a world of atmosphere, light and living beings, traversing the screen. The individual videos each standalone but when seen in succession, they contribute to a larger story about the Tampa Bay waterfront.
Molly Schwartz' animations can be viewed on the Portal. The Portal is a digital gateway through the arts. Located on the Riverwalk, it provides an ever-changing and engaging platform for cultural and educational opportunities. Content on the Portal is expansive; in addition to commissioned artwork, a wide net is cast to include content from archival sources, scholars, health and environmental specialists. In addition to Schwartz, artists Juliet Davis & Stephanie Tripp and Eva Lee were commissioned to create new work for the Portal.
Molly Schwartz was born in New York City, raised in Oklahoma and earned her BFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has lived in Chicago, Katmandu, Los Angeles, and since 1999, Brooklyn. Her artwork combines painting, drawing and digital collage computer animation. She is currently studying for her Masters at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Schwartz shows her animated videos and drawings in public art installations, festivals, and exhibitions worldwide, and freelances for independent film and television. Recent public art projects include the UN Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, New York City’s MTA Arts for Transit, the Brooklyn Central Library and the BBC Big Screen in Liverpool.http://www.phlea.tv/
PALBO VALBUENA used light as his primary material to investigate space and perception of space, at a location ubiquitous with urban life: A Parking Garage. In focusing on a structure that is fundamental and basic to our daily lives, his project addressed how we relate and perceive our surroundings.
Valbuena's project titled, N27°57’00” W82°27’41”, served as an investigation of light, space and perception. For this temporary installation, Valbuena used light as a physical material, and gave the perception of building space in the way that bricks build walls.
"I am interested in using light as a physical material, suitable for building space like concrete or bricks. I use video projection with perspective and anamorphosis techniques to build ‘perceptual extensions’ of the actual physical space, extending the limits of what is physically real to what is perceptually real." When projecting the same physical geometry on top of itself, the light qualities of the projection get altered, and it is possible to "physically change how space is perceived". (still image of projection) Pablo Valbuena (Madrid, 1978) develops artistic projects and research focused on space, time and perception.Some key elements of the construction of his work are the overlap of physical and virtual space, the generation of mental spaces by the viewer, the dissolution of the limit between real and perceived, the unity of time and space or the use of light and projection as a the prime matter of his work.
He has presented his work recently at the 5th International Seoul Biennale (Seoul, Korea), Museum of the Moving Image (New York), Ok Center for Contemporary Art (Austria), Laboral Centro de Arte (Spain), Netherlands Media Arts Institute (Amsterdam), BankArt (Japan), Matadero Madrid (Spain), Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (Taiwan), at the gallery Max Estrella in Madrid and other exhibitions and public art projects in Singapore, Canada, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, USA, Brazil and Spain.
His large site-specific interventions in the public space have been seen in The Hague City Hall (the Netherlands), Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), Plaza de las Letras-Medialab Prado (Madrid), Murcia City Hall (Spain) or Vooruit-Ghent University (Belgium). www.pablovalbuena.com
