The high-tech world of the arts

With the introduction of the Digital Media Center for the Arts (DMCA), the art, drama, and architechture departments at Yale have been making headway into the digital world with a wide range of video, audio, and mixed media projects emerging from the fertile minds of Yale faculty and students. With the help of the massive amount of equipment at the DMC, currently located in a temporary location at 149 York Street, students have been doing everything from a translation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night into a digital video version in American Sign Language to creating "virtual gallery" displays of work at the Yale British Art Center and Art Gallery.

Director Carol Scully has been very pleased with the progress of the DMC, and excited with the new projects that have been emerging from the center. She sees the work being done at present as a good foundation for future work when the DMC will be integrated in a new building with History of Art department, School of Architecture, School of Art and Art Gallery. "It's very important to set up the framework for the future," Scully commented.

Some projects from the "framework" of the DMC's work involve current theatrical productions, such as Oswald's Triptych, a live performance that will be broadcast as live audio and video streams over the Yale Intranet. According to Scully, "the audience will be able to interact with the production on the premiere night." The two directors, Max Dana BR, '99, and Anthony Young, BR '00, stated, in an abstract of the project, "through the web site interface the online audience will be able to transcend the role of spectator; by being able to take visible action while remaining invisible, they will experience the central interactive aspects of the performance more fully." The project combines the talents of undergraduates and graduate students in film studies, theater studies, and music.

Students in film studies, drama, architecture, art and literature are also teaming together on a project called "World Above". According to Cynthia Markins, '99 and other members of the project, "The [web]space will be designed as an interactive labyrinth wherein each user will be able to encounter examples of 'high culture' as well as commentary on it." The idea is to create a 3D VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) world where the theme is "exploration of high culture using an avatar," the DMCA website states.

Other interactive projects on the DMC docket include an "Art on Demand" website—a website that displays undergraduate and graduate digital projects. According to Scully, the website will be launching digitized artwork and video this summer—with a rotating collection of displayed work. "It will be like an e-zine that continually changes...reflecting the current work in the digital arts," Scully said.

In addition to the main digital projects currently in progress, the DMCA is hosting a lecture series called "With Technological Means." Recent speakers have included digital curators and other artisits, and topics have ranged from a talk on "Unexpected Obstacles" in opening a new media museum to a lecture on "Critical Vehicles," about digital work in public spaces. According to Scully, the lecture series also accomplishes the DMC's goal of "engaging the faculty."

Another mission of the DMC, to "provide a facility" for students, has been fullfilled this semester through nine classes offered at the DMC in art, architecture, film studies, and drama. The professors of the classes have been working with Scully in attempts to "expand the cirriculum" of Yale arts in order to include more focus on the digital aspects of drama, art and architecture. The classes include workshops on digital editing, Photoshop, 3-D modeling, and audio production.

In the meantime, however, Scully remains pleased with the progress of the digital arts at Yale. "[The DMC] has increased the number of people interested in digital art," Scully said. "The support [for DMC] has come from the highest level."

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