ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVE AT BOSTON CYBERARTS FESTIVAL
What's It All AboutOn the Street Where I Live is an immersive 3-dimensional environment of sight and sound. This surrealistic world of was inspired by the paintings of Joan Miró and constructed in part with designs and colors from Jennifer Woolcock Schwartz's oil paintings. Schwartz's Street is the kind of street possible only in our dreams, and like a dream, this virtual world freely mixes elements of the real world such as recognizable street signs with strange and out-of-place objects and sounds.
What You Will See: The residents of this world are bizarre and eccentric. There is Ralph, a blind con man who offers to take you on a tour; the Mookies, creatures who live in a sewer pipe and who put on an aerial display when approached; Maxie, who chases after his bed with a ladder only to be gobbled up by a large mouth; and three squid-like creatures that plop out of a pink teapot in the sky and swim into an aquarium.
The street is only a guide, a path that you may choose to follow as you explore. You may squeeze down a drain in the ground to find a beach ball and pursue it across the underside of the world or you may enter a maze attracted by the sound of children at play.
How It Works
On the Street Where I Live is a real time experience made possible by a multi-channel audio system with positional sound, 24 computers and 24 rear screen projectors working together to project 18-million pixel images onto a 15' x 8' stereoscopic display wall that requires only simple, light-weight polarizing glasses for viewing and a remote for navigating.
Who Made It Happen
On the Street Where I Live is a collaboration between the artist Jennifer Woolcock Schwartz and a 3-person team from Boston University’s Scientific Computing and Visualization group: Laura Giannitrapani, Manager of Graphics Consulting, Robert Putnam, Systems/
Artist Jennifer Woolcock Schwartz views immersive world
Where and When
On the Street Where I Live will be shown at the Boston Cyberarts Festival, www.bostoncyberarts.org, an international biennial festival of art and technology in all media. It includes visual and performing arts and explores how artists throughout the world are using computers to advance traditional artistic disciplines and create new interactive worlds.
Street will be seen in 2 venues:
- For The Big Screen Experience: on the stereoscopic wall at SCV’s facility at Boston University, 111 Cummington Street, 2nd floor, 4/30, 5/1, 5/7, 5/8. Hours 1 - 4pm. And by appointment. Call 617-353-7800. http://scv.bu.edu
- On the Street Lite: at the Sherman Gallery, 775 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston from April 23 to May 1. Reception April 28, 5:30-7:30 pm. Gallery hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 1 – 5. 617-358-0295.