Beall Center For Art and Technology
opens Oct. 17 at
UC Irvine School of the Arts
Center to serve as public showplace for digital arts;
opening exhibition examines impact of computers, games, new
technologies
 Irvine, Calif., Oct. 2,
2000 — The UC Irvine School of the
Arts will open the innovative, high-tech Donald R. and Joan F. Beall
Center for Art and Technology to the public from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Oct.
17. The 3,300-square-foot gallery and research center for new media arts
will enable professionals from disparate areas of study-including
engineering, the arts and computer science-to collaborate on and display
art and design projects they create using state-of-the-art digital
technology.
The first of its kind in the University of California system and
established with a $1.5 million gift from Rockwell to honor Donald Beall's
retirement as chairman and CEO, the Beall Center is dedicated to
furthering the relationship between digital technologies and the arts.
"The mission of the center is to promote the development of new art
forms combining digital technologies, engineering and computer science and
to build public and scholarly awareness and understanding of these new art
forms," said Jill Beck, dean of the School of the Arts.
"Considering Rockwell's interest in education, I am especially
proud of our role in establishing this state-of-the-art research facility
in the name of Don and Joan Beall," said Don H. Davis, Rockwell chairman
and CEO. "It will serve as a public example of their commitment to
furthering intellectual growth and discovery through the arts."
The inaugural exhibition, titled "SHIFT-CTRL: Computers, Games and
Art," is a major international interactive exhibition featuring artists
from the United States and around the world in a cultural examination of
computer games and new technologies. It takes place both in the Beall
Center and on the Internet and includes computer games, artist-designed
games and artists' game-like works. Visitors are invited to participate.
One gallery offers 13 computer stations where visitors can play popular
computer games for teenagers or participate in programs with a more
sophisticated content. In the other part of the gallery, the space is
divided into six rooms, each with a joystick on a pedestal in the center
and a large screen projector.
"'SHIFT-CTRL' looks critically, yet playfully, at how computer
gaming and new technologies have altered social systems and creative
practice," said Jeanie Weiffenbach, director of the Beall Center and its
affiliated University Art Gallery. "This exhibition will provide
alternative models for appreciating how these initiatives are affecting
our social and cultural environment."
The groundbreaking project is curated by UCI studio art faculty
members Antoinette LaFarge and Robert Nideffer and will be on display Oct.
17 through Dec. 3.
For more information, call (949) 824-6206 or go to the website at
http://beallcenter.uci.edu/.
UCI Communications Office
Web Contact: communications@uci.edu
url:
www.communications.uci.edu
© copyright 2000 UC
Regents
|
