Sculptural User Interface


Chris Burnett

Artist Bio

Michael Rees

Artist Bio

Chris Burnett and Michael Rees developed their software apparatus, Sculptural User Interface and created an installation using the program. SUI lets users enter a string of language (a poem, list, or paragraph) that generated sculptural diagrams. These diagrams were then realized in three dimensions using traditional materials to re-conceive virtual reality as a creative tool rather than as spectative environment, and to combine concepts of art and computing in a meaningful way. The SUI builds upon, and diverges from, conceptual art and sculpture in the age of electronic reproduction. There is no question that sculpture as discipline has extended into virtual space. Inevitably, online art confronts dilemmas of language-as-form and form-as-language at various levels. Using the SUI creates forms that can be interactively experienced and shared across networks. The pragmatic aspect of this project is the fluid interaction of information as form and form reinterpreting language.


Discipline
Sculpture, Software
Award Year
2001
Status

Completed

Chris Burnett

Ottawa Hills, OH

Chris Burnett has exhibited, taught, lectured, and published widely. His solo exhibitions have been presented at Iowa State University, The Space in Boston, and San Francisco’s Eye Gallery, as well as at galleries and universities in Europe. Burnett has taught at Harvard University, the University of New Mexico, and the Kansas City Art Institute, where he is currently Associate Professor in the New Media Department.


Collaborator

Michael Rees

Michael Rees

North Bergen, NJ

Michael Rees’s solo installations include Artificial Sculpture (developed with Chris Burnett using an earlier version of Sculptural User Interface) at the Forum for Contemporary Art in St. Louis, Digital Psyche at the Gorney Bravin & Lee Gallery in New York, and The Ecstatic Body at Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Oberlin College, and Yale University. He has published widely, often on digital technology and art, in the U.S. and Europe. His work was included in the BitStreams exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.


Collaborator

Chris Burnett