UB Media Artist Receives International Honors For Innovative Online Multimedia Production

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Media artist Mary Flanagan, assistant professor in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo, had her work selected for exhibition in "VRML-ART 2000," the annual international media art conference held last month in Monterey, Calif.

Work shown in the conference's juried exhibition was chosen from among entrants from 126 nations and is considered superior in the field. "VRML-ART" is the only international show of its kind and an annual "must" for 3D creators and those devoted to the virtual 3D online environment. It now holds the biggest collection of three-dimensional art-and-design sites for the World Wide Web ever assembled.

The winning selections will be exhibited indefinitely at the conference/exhibition Web site, http://www.vrml.org. Prior installation of RealPlayer and other plugins will prevent system crashes and other annoying software conflicts.

Flanagan's project, titled "the perpetual bed," tracks -- from the patient's point of view -- the experiences of Flanagan's 91 year-old grandmother while critically ill and hospitalized.

"My project was to produce an online, virtual VRML world," Flanagan says, "a virtual world in which users can interact with each other from within a navigable, surrealistic, narrative situated in the world of my grandmother's dream state."

"'the perpetual bed' relies on the movement of the user/viewer," Flanagan says. "It allows them to experience my grandmother's encounters with transparent, yet tangible, beings, memories and places with which she was engaged while hospitalized." She calls the finished work a "mediation between video, interactive art, installation and animation."

This year's conference organizers say the winning entries featured social and interactive communication applications that, like Flanagan's, expand the fusion of sound, video and text. The show included commercial, student and workshop media applications that demonstrate growing interest in the exploration of 3D virtual space.

They said audio and video, Java 3D, Flash and other such novel software applications were widespread this year, amplifying what organizers called "a new wave of creative output by artists and designers who specialize in the Internet."

The online exhibit includes abstract sculptures, stories, poetic and dramatic use of language and transparent layering that the curators say brings a new sophistication to web design. Commercial applications presented by designers, architects and independent 3D experts also are included in the show.

Flanagan is the author and producer of "Josie True," a unique, multicultural, online interactive math/science learning program for adolescent girls.