UB Media Artists Featured in Buffalo's First "Infringement Festival"

BUFFALO, N.Y -- Two University at Buffalo professors will offer an opportunity to interact with virtual worlds to those attending Buffalo's eclectic, independent, experimental and politically charged Infringement Festival being held through Aug. 7.

Josephine Anstey and David Pape, assistant professors of media study in the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences, will be among the featured presenters.

The Anstey-Pape production, "Virtually Reality MicroTheatre," which they call "a festival within a festival," will be presented twice a day to small audiences of 1-10 people at Buffalo's landmark Coit House, 414 Virginia St.

Each of eight one-hour microtheatre presentations will comprise three or four interactive, virtual-reality works of fiction and drama (each 15-20 minutes in length), produced by different artists, including Anstey and Pape.  On Aug. 4, 5 and 6, performances will begin at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.; on Aug. 7, at 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Three-D stereo graphics will be projected on a wall-size screen and the audience participants will be invited to interact with virtual worlds and computer-controlled (AI) characters using devices that permit them to manipulate their "reality."

The works to be presented are:

* "Lockup," in which the user transcends his current status and is taken into a criminal world where his fate will be determined by the choices made throughout the piece. By Todd Margolis; go to http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=1&indi=101.

* "Metaspace," which demonstrates to participants that space is not fixed. Other people were here before you, buddy, and they've left messages for you. More is available at http://mediastudy.buffalo.edu/s/vrstudio/depthcues/dissimulation.html. It is the work of Adrian Levesque, a multi-media specialist with UB's Center for Computational Research, and UB graduates Chris Galbraith and Ivan Itchkawich.

* "Special Treatment," an immersive installation that examines the strength and persistence of memory, and the experiences of Jews being relocated to concentration camps. By Applied Interactives at http://www.appliedinteractives.com/Art.html.

* "The Thing Growing," a virtual love story that invites us to experience a dysfunctional relationship! This work by Anstey and Pape is at http://www.ccr.buffalo.edu/anstey/VDRAMA/THING/.

* "The Trail The Trial" is a work in progress by the Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence Group at UB. Anstey says, "We are building a warped quest narrative with absurdist challenges and artificially intelligent characters." At http://www.ccr.buffalo.edu/anstey/VDRAMA/TRAIL/.

The first Buffalo Infringement Festival will feature 125 bohemian performances of 40 productions of theatre, performance art, dance, poetry, hip-hop, photography, film, cabaret, puppetry and more. The event will take place over 11 days in 14 venues in and around Buffalo's Allentown District. The Buffalo festival will be part of this summer's International Infringement Festival circuit that includes festivals in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and New York City.

More information about the Buffalo Infringement Festival, including a schedule of all performances, can be found at the Buffalo festival's Web site: http://www.infringebuffalo.org/. Information on the Infringement Festival Circuit is available at http://www.infringebuffalo.org/.

The New Inhabits the Old

In a somewhat ironic twist, Coit House, Buffalo's oldest residence and an intact artifact of the city's pioneer days, will serve as the venue for Anstey-Pape's experimental presentation of virtual-reality productions. The house was constructed shortly after the British burned Buffalo during the War of 1812 as a three-bay, two-story Federal-style home sited on Swan Street. Additions made prior to 1850 converted it into a five-bay, three-story home with a side-ending gable roof. The house moved to its current location in 1867, after Coit's death. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America and is a Contributing Structure to the Allentown Historic Preservation District.