The Exchange at 100 Federal Street
Boston Cyberarts is pleased to have commissioned new digital art for Boston Properties’ new video wall in the courtyard at 100 Federal Street, their 37-story, Class A office tower located in the heart of Boston’s Financial District. They have constructed a new street-level glass atrium adjacent to 100 Federal Street along Congress Street. Open since late February 2018, the glass atrium features 8,500 square feet of retail, 500 square feet of kiosk space and a 8,990 square foot year-round garden. Boston Properties asked us to commission five original artworks, four hour-long digital animations and one hour-long video meditation to be displayed on their thirty five foot by sixteen foot LED wall.
Dark Thought, Karl Sims, 2018
Seven Experiments In Procedural Animation, by Karl Sims, (2018) These animations were created directly from custom computer code that employs various fractal algorithms, procedural noise, and reaction-diffusion techniques. While the moving images are purely defined by mathematics, they still manage to evoke a biological aesthetic by resembling sea creatures, neurons, or other microscopic structures that transform from one emergent pattern to another.
Schedule for Seven Experiments in Procedural Animation: Monday at 7:30pm, Tuesday at 6pm & 4am, Wednesday at 4:30pm & 2:30am, Thursday at 3pm & 1am, Friday at 1:30pm & 11:30pm, Saturday at 10pm, Sunday at 9:30am & 8:30pm (note: schedule is subject to being overridden during sporting and other events)
Vox Populae, Dennis H. Miller, 2018
Vox Populae by Dennis H. Miller (2018) is a site-specific, computer-generated animation created on commission by Boston Cyberarts and Boston Properties. The title of the work (Voice of the People) refers to the sounds created by the “public” who will view it – it will have a real-time audio accompaniment that will constantly change depending on the ambient noise and the sounds made by the people in the atrium at the time it is being displayed. The work opens with a scene vaguely resembling the shapes of people and works its way to a conclusion 60 minutes later after presenting a sequence of variations on the opening that use different color schemes, screen layouts and modified forms. The imagery was created using generative processes developed by the artist.
Schedule for Vox Populae: Monday at 5:30pm & 3:30am, Tuesday at 4pm & 2am, Wednesday at 2:30pm & 12:30am, Thursday at 3pm & 11pm, Friday at 10:30am & 9:30pm, Saturday at 9am & 8pm, Sunday at 9:30am & 4:30am (note: schedule is subject to being overridden during sporting and other events)
Film Haiku: Water Cycle, Georgie Friedman, 2108
Georgie Friedman, Film Haiku: Water Cycle, Four Corners of the Earth: 120° W | 120° E | 65° N | 65° S, (2018) Film Haiku: Water Cycle is a meditative video that focuses on various details and observations of water forms. Over sixty minutes, the video advances through several sections: fog filling the blue sky and landscape; a summer rain and hail storm; a rainbow that lasts through sunset; a quiet pond with minimalistic rings and ripples created by aquatic life; icebergs moving through a glacial lagoon; thunderhead clouds from above; mesmerizing reflections in river swirls; and the scale defying landscape of Antarctica and its giant icebergs. Friedman created the custom piece with the intent of foregrounding and adding to the light, airy, and natural ambiance of the 100 Federal Street atrium. She filmed the footage in Oregon, Massachusetts, Iceland, Thailand, Borneo, and Antarctica (in order of appearance) from 2008-2017.
Schedule for Film Haiku: Water Cycle, Four Corners of the Earth: 120° W | 120° E | 65° N | 65° S: Monday at 5:30pm & 11:30pm, Tuesday at 9:30am & 10pm, Wednesday at 2:30pm & 8:30pm, Thursday at 7pm & 5am, Friday at 5:30pm & 3:30am, Saturday at 4pm & 2am, Sunday at 2:30am & 12:30am (note: schedule is subject to being overridden during sporting and other events)
Sigils for Storms, Christen Shea, 2018
Sigils for Storms by Christen Shea is a meditation on digital divination and different forms of mysticism and ritual in new media using 3D simulation and animation. Based on readings from the iching and sigils both generated through online platforms, Sigils for Storms reimagines rituals of activation and manifestation in virtual space through 3D simulated bodies of water and symbolic animated affirmations.
Schedule for Sigils for Storms: Monday at 2pm, 3:30pm &1:30am, Tuesday at 12am, Wednesday at 10:30pm, Thursday at 10am & 9pm, Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 6pm & 4am, Sunday at 4:30pm & 2:30am (note: schedule is subject to being overridden during sporting and other events)
Mixing Simulation, Mark J. Stock, 2017-2018
Mixing Simulation #155 by Mark Stock was created using custom software and algorithms. Some of the very first computer-based generative simulations (of weapons physics in the 1950s and 1960s) used a method within which information is exchanged between neighboring cells in a regular grid. While general “cellular automata” that emerged from that research can use any set of rules, simulation of natural phenomena requires specific algorithms. To create this computational generative work, the artist developed a novel scheme to simulate virtual fluids with effectively no viscosity, and another algorithm which treats color as a dimensional space. The result is this hour-long video of virtual fluids in perpetual interaction and shimmering color.
Schedule for Mixing Simulation #155: Monday at 10:30am & 9:30pm, Tuesday at 8pm, Wednesday at 9am, 6:30pm & 4:30am, Thursday at 5pm & 3am, Friday at 3:30pm & 1:30am, Saturday at 2pm & 12am, Sunday at 10:30pm (note: schedule is subject to being overridden during sporting and other events)
About the Artists
Georgie Friedman (USA) is an interdisciplinary artist whose projects include large-scale video installations, single and multi-channel videos and several photographic series. She is interested in our psychological and societal relationships to mild and severe natural phenomena. She investigates a wide range of powerful atmospheric and oceanic conditions, and is fascinated by the power of these natural elements in relationship to human fragility. She utilizes photography, video, sound, installation, engineering and the physics of light, all in order to create new experiences for viewers. She earned her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in conjunction with Tufts University and her BA from UC, Santa Cruz. Professionally, she has taught at Massachusetts College of Art and Boston College, among other institutions. Friedman was one of the first Artists-in-Residence with The City of Boston (Boston AIR, 2016). In 2017 she traveled to Antarctica via a SMFA/Tufts University Traveling Fellowship, the results of which will be shown in a solo exhibition at the MFA, Boston in 2019. Friedman has been commissioned to create site-specific video-based public art pieces and has exhibited in national and international venues including: Geneva International Film Festival, Virtual Territories: 360° Immersive Fulldome, Switzerland (2017); City Hall Park, BCA Gallery, City of Burlington, VT (2017); City Hall (exterior), Boston, MA (2017); The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH (2016); Union College, NY (solo, 2016); Strand Theatre (exterior), MA (Boston AIR project, solo, 2016); Shelburne Museum, VT (2016); College of the Holy Cross, MA (solo, 2015); Roberts Gallery, Lunder Art Center, Lesley University College of Art and Design, MA (solo, 2015); The Armory Center for the Arts, CA (2013); Peabody Essex Museum, MA (2011); deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, MA (2010).
Dennis Miller received his Doctorate in Music Composition from Columbia University and is a Full Professor Emeritus from Northeastern University in Boston, from which he retired in 2018 after 37 years of teaching. His mixed media works, which illustrate principles drawn from music composition applied to the visual domain, have been presented at numerous venues throughout the world, most recently the London Experimental Film Festival, the Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival, the Punta y Raya Festival (Karlsruhe, Germany), the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Festival 2 Visages Des Musique Électroacoustiques (Brussels), the Free Spirit Film Festival (Himachal Pradesh, India) and the Largo Film Awards screening (Lahksa, Tibet). Exhibits of his 3D still images have been held at the Boston Computer Museum and the Biannual Conference on Art and Technology, and are published in Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound (Rizzoli Books) and Art of the Digital Age (Thames and Hudson).
Christen Shea is a visual artist based in Boston and Chicago, working with 3D simulation, animation and sculpture.
Karl Sims is a digital media artist and visual effects software developer. He was the founder of GenArts, Inc., a creator of special effects software tools for the motion picture industry. He previously held positions at Thinking Machines Corporation, Optomystic, and Whitney/Demos Productions. Karl studied computer graphics at the MIT Media Lab, and Life Sciences as an undergraduate at MIT. He is the recipient of various awards including two ARS Electronica Golden Nicas and a MacArthur Fellowship Award.
Mark J. Stock is an artist, scientist, and programmer who creates still and moving images and objects combining elements of nature, physics, chaos, computation, and algorithm. Mark eschews the ‘black box’ nature of commercial software—his work is exclusively created with scientifically-accurate research software, mostly of his own design. He has been showing work since 2000 and has been in over 90 curated and juried exhibitions since 2001, including Ars Electronica, ASPECT Magazine, and seven SIGGRAPH Art Galleries. He has spoken at numerous scientific, graphics, and art conferences and workshops, and has published papers in a variety of fields. Mark completed his PhD in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan in 2006 and works out of his studio in Boston, Massachusetts. He is represented in California by SENSE Fine Art.