Digital'07: Pattern-Finding

Digital'07: Pattern-Finding exhibition at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, Feb. 13 - March 10.

HOBOKEN, N.J. — Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI) and Stevens Institute of Technology are pleased to announce the opening of Digital'07: Pattern-Finding, ASCI’s 2007 version of its annual, international, digital print exhibition that originated at the New York Hall of Science. The show will be held in the Babbio Center Atrium and DeBaun Auditorium at Stevens, February 13 to March 10, 2008. There will be an opening reception in Babbio on February 12 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. For directions to Stevens, go to:

This international jurored competition with the theme of pattern-finding, challenged artists, scientists and technologists to submit digital prints made on the computer that look at structure and pattern in the universe, whether visible or invisible to the naked eye. More specifically, the exhibition explores how today's scientific fields of systems science, chaos and string theory, fractals, nanoscience, genetics, molecular science, the wavelets or frequency of sound, mathematical data-sets, software programs, and statistical analysis, plus nature itself, are being utilized to create two-dimensional art of provocative and sumptuous pattern.

Of the 116 entrants to the Digital'07 competition, 23 were selected from around the world. Associate Professor Jeffrey Nickerson, Director of the Center for Decision Technologies at Stevens’ Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management, has artwork included in the exhibition. Nickerson’s poster was based on his work on genetic optimization.

The exhibition will also feature work from James Ambrogi (Pennsylvania); Elizabeth Bajbor (Warsaw/Poland); Paul Barrington (Tasmania/Australia); David Bookbinder (Massachusetts); Willa Davis (Michigan); Helen Ferry (New South Whales/Australia); Lis Fields (London/UK); Mark Fischer (California); Peter N. Gray (Chicago); Laura Hewitt (Alaska); Cesar Hidalgo (Connecticut); Sung Dae Hong (Seoul, South Korea); Terry Monaghan (Georgia); Gongbing Shan (Alberta/Canada); Cliff Singer (Las Vegas); Victoria Skinner (Florida); Mark Stock (Massachusetts); StarLight Tews (Wisconsin); Charles Thurston (San Francisco); Zach Vitale (Massachusetts); Lorraine Walsh (North Carolina); and Yvan Rebyj (Saint Florent/France).

The selection process was a collaboration of art and science. JD Talasek, director of Exhibitions and Cultural Programs at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington , D.C. and Cynthia Pannucci, founder/director of Art & Science Collaborations, made the tough decisions based on the criteria of concept, unique sources and aesthetics of pattern.

As Talasek states as part of his juror statement, “The creative practitioners represented in this exhibition only just begin to scratch the surface of the almost unfathomable potential provided by digital technologies to mediate traditional patterns and to discover new ones. In these works, nature is rediscovered; the spiritual path of the Mandala is resolved visually with that of modern psychiatry; and new data-sets, never before imagined, offer the artist a new vocabulary. Visual culture, once again, provides a platform to consider the intersections between technology, science, and culture.”

And in her juror statement, Pannucci makes a prediction when she says, “I found myself seduced by images of sumptuous repeats with many visual layers of exquisite details. In the end, I believe this created a natural counterpoint to those artworks with strong and provocative conceptual frameworks that captured the attention of my co-juror, thus providing two different perspectives that often converged. I predict that pattern-finding will become a highly developed, lively, interdisciplinary artistic genre in the 21st century, at a time when its scientific utilization is rapidly increasing.”

This event is the first collaboratively sponsored exhibition by the Art & Technology program in the College of Arts & Letters, the Howe School of Technology Management and the Schaefer School of Engineering and Science.

For more information, please visit the Digital'07: Pattern-Finding online exhibition http://www.asci.org/artikel910.html or contact Julie Harrison at [email protected].

About Art & Science Collaborations, Inc.

Founded in 1988, Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI) was instrumental in revitalizing the art & technology field in the US during the early 1990s, and also coalesced the art-science collaborative field via four seminal international symposia (1998 to 2002). Its mission is to raise public awareness about artists and scientists using science and technology to explore new forms of creative expression, and to increase communication and collaboration between these fields. ASCI's website is a robust art-science resource with exemplars, project archives, and monthly ASCI eBulletin.

ASCI was one of the first organizations in the world to recognize the digital print as a valid fine art product in 1998 by organizing an afternoon panel discussion, “Collectability & the Digital Print.” The event was held in The Great Hall at Cooper Union, New York City, in conjunction with ASCI's first international digital print competition/exhibition.

About the Art & Technology Program in the College of Arts & Letters

The Art & Technology program was formed four years ago as an academic undergraduate art department within an engineering school that promotes the history and administers the education of art as it relates to and interacts with science, technology, humanities and the social sciences. It has also been a conduit for partnerships between artists, engineers, and scientists through our artist-in-residence program. For more information see: www.stevens.edu/cal/art/

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,040 undergraduate and 3,085 graduate students, and a worldwide online enrollment of 2,250, with a full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty of 140 and more than 200 full-time special faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.

For the latest news about Stevens, please visit StevensNewsService.com.