AMBER MATTICE
Reverb Editor
Exploring artistic boundaries often leads to unique and innovative outcomes. From Oct. 21-23, + Farm, a group of artists, architects and digital fabricators that explore the boundaries between art and technology, will be holding a workshop from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the new Rockefeller sculpture studios that will give students the unique opportunity to do exactly that.
“This is a unique opportunity for Fredonia students for a number of reasons — it is a rare opportunity for students in any discipline that are interested in digital design and fabrication to work collaboratively, across numerous disciplines to design and build a sculptural form,” said Peter Tucker, a visual arts and new media professor who helped to organize the event. “This is also unique because our students rarely get to design digitally and fabricate forms based on digitally created designs.”
Students will be working together to digitally design a sculpture and then build it and have a final physical form. The finished product will be installed on campus near the new installation of the Rockefeller Arts Center.
“The installation, anchored by its physical, analog framework will be enlivened by a digital component and respond to the ebb and flow of the exhibition,” said William Haskas, a member of + Farm and the individual heading the group. “The varied and active environment of Rockefeller Center — with multiple typologies of interaction and reaction — will generate a constant shift in the installation. As it flows between the polarities of its analog framework and digitally determined transformation.”
The workshop will offer an exploration of the digital and physical worlds that art inhabits. In combining the two art forms and their mediums, students will get the chance to see an art piece come to life that they might otherwise miss.
“The aim of the ‘TeamShop’ workshop is to celebrate the amazing new Rockefeller Arts Center while amplifying the Fredonia design community by exposing students to emerging design, computation and fabrication practices by working directly with professional craftsmen, fabricators, architects and digital specialists to build their ideas in real-time full scale,” said Haskas. “‘TeamShop’ is about exploring our curiosities in the digital and physical worlds simultaneously.”
The three-day workshop is possible because the Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Ralph Blasting, is sponsoring it.
It is free and open to all students of any major or discipline, and everyone is encouraged to attend and watch as the two mediums are put together to make something innovative and visually stunning.
+ Farm is particularly excited to have the opportunity to work with a plethora of different students.
“+ Farm is driven by student collaborations. Students bring their excitement, curiosity, anxiety, distrust, brilliance, history, observations and, of course, an unwavering optimism that anything is possible,” said Haskas.
For those who are unsure of whether or not they want to participate in the workshop or simply want to learn more, students should attend + Farm’s introduction to their processes and other projects on Oct. 21 at 10 a.m. in Houghton 122.