Arts fusion creates digital expressions

	Danny Goodwin and Bob Gluck

It sounds like the entertainment lineup for a Star Wars nightclub: electro-acoustic composition, video surveillance, body kinaesthetics, �keeboard�, the eSaz and an electronically altered harpsichord. In reality Digital Expressions I and II are performances that showcases the work of UAlbany�s thriving community of artists and their work in the sonic and visual arts

These two programs to be performed Tuesdays, March 23 and 30 at 8 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center�s Studio Theater showcase a richly diverse multimedia program where art embraces technology. Assistant Professor of Music and director of UAlbany�s Electronic Music Studio, Bob Gluck organized Digital Expressions with Assistant Professor of Art, Danny Goodwin, who is also creator of UAlbany�s Combined Media MFA Program. These events mark the first time that students and faculty have come together to perform in this digital arts genre,� said Gluck, �and it�s high end artistic expression.� His goal in producing this event is to show the integration of science and the arts, the expanded interdisciplinary art that is beyond study and presentation. Gluck is a composer and performer of live electronic music and multimedia installation.

Program I features the visual work of Danny Goodwin and his students, among them Christopher Cassidy, Warren McMillan and Allen Yates. The visual is integrated with the electronic in a multimedia presentation. That is a growing focus of the work of students and faculty on campus. Program I will also include a suite by Bob Gluck on the �saz�, a kind of Turkish stringed instrument in the lute family that has been electronically expanded with sensors and digital processing.

	Bodies of Flight

Program II presents a multimedia dance piece called Bodies of Flight, a dance/video work choreographed by Carolyn Griffiths, who teaches Modern and Contemporary Dance in UAlbany�s Department of Theatre. The program is based on input from students and performed by them, expresses their ideas on personal explorations of body kinaesthetics, movement and ideas (both abstract and real) connected with flight. The program also includes some entirely new work for harpsichord and electronics by Bob Gluck and also Danny Goodwin�s CounterIntelligence: Watching the Watchers�fake video feeds, cast as if they were aerial surveillance balloons floating over the private residence of key members of the Bush administration. Goodwin is a photographer and digital visual and video artist. His work brings together sculpture, multimedia, video and politics to shape a unified artistic vision.

Integration and interdisciplinary are the operative words in both the event and in Danny Goodwin�s Combined Media MFA program. It brings together the combined interests of Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Printmaking and Digital Media in an artistic and critical forum that reflects the changing nature of contemporary studio practice. �Artists are now paired with a powerful tool � the computer,� said Goodwin. �Computers show what can be done and it�s no longer a neat package � this art is unique.� The Combined Media MFA gives students an artistic sensibility and teaches them creative problem solving with all the tools of digital media and combined media at their disposal.

Tickets for both performances are $12/$5 for students. Individual performances are $7/$3 for students.

Performing Arts Center

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