Interactive Media Class to Share Art

12/06/2016 

You may be touched by some of the student creations featured in an upcoming exhibit at the Dowd Fine Arts Center.

But not before the artwork is touched by you.

“LOSS: an Interactive Installation” was created by students in Associate Professor Martine Barnaby’s interactive media class. It will be open for audience exploration from Thursday, Dec. 8, to Wednesday, Dec. 14 in the East Wing off the main exhibition space of Dowd Gallery.

“The artwork is engaged through motion sensors and touch, and viewers are encouraged to assimilate the connections of memory, innocence and loss as they explore the space,” said Matthew Oswald, teaching assistant for Art Studio 344. “In other words, ‘Please Do Touch.’”

The interactive exhibit features work by Oswald and student artists Ashleigh Cerrato, Carly Gialanella, Melissa Sprole and David Weaver. The students had been intrigued by the way bachelor of fine art (BFA) student Jerome Tiunayan’s upcoming Dowd Gallery thesis exhibition, “Warts and All,” shares some his most private childhood fears.

So they created a complimentary installation to bounce their own creative reflections off Tiunayan’s work. The class exhibition will be shown simultaneously with Tiunayan’s BFA thesis display and that of fellow BFA candidate Josephine Cook, according to Barnaby, associate professor of art and art history.

The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment. Cook will show installations relating to her Native American heritage in the Critique Space on the ground floor of the Dowd Fine Arts Center at SUNY Cortland. The viewing hours there are from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. weekdays.

An opening reception and events are planned for the two BFA students and the interactive media class members. Admission and events are free and open to the public.

“Our objective was to build an installation working with interactive technology, and we created a space as a response to Tiunayan’s concurrent BFA exhibition,” Oswald said.

“As we discussed his work, the group began to collaborate on ideas about memory-making — and particularly on the feeling of the loss of innocence through memory — a main focus,” Oswald said.

“The finalized space is a collection of our individual experiences from childhood in a family home setting that features a living room, dining room and work area,” he said. “Memories are presented in various types of digital media.”

For more information about the exhibitions or Dowd Gallery, contact the gallery at 607-753-4216.