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UB media artists featured in "infringement festival"
By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor
Two UB faculty members 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 Sunday.
Josephine Anstey and David Pape, assistant professors in the Department of Media Study, 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 one to 10 people in 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. Performances will begin at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. today, tomorrow and Saturday, and at 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Sunday
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 multimedia 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. "We are building a warped quest narrative with absurdist challenges and artificially intelligent characters," Anstey says. At http://www.ccr.buffalo.edu/anstey/VDRAMA/TRAIL/.
The first Buffalo Infringement Festival features 125 bohemian performances of 40 productions of theater, performance art, dance, poetry, hip-hop, photography, film, cabaret, puppetry and more. The event is taking place over 11 days—it began on July 28—in 14 venues in and around the 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 at http://www.infringebuffalo.org/. Information on the Infringement Festival Circuit is available at http://www.infringementfestival.com/.