Highlights from the 2009/2010 Digital Arts Festival
The 2009/2010 Digital Arts Festival was held at Redmond City Hall with workshops and activities in surrounding areas such as DigiPen, Soul Food Books & local animation studio, Digital Double. See below for the program that was offered:
 | Mixed Reality Music Jam, January 10, 3:00-5:00 pm - FREE |  | |
   Come to Soul Food Books on 15748 Redmond Way (next to Ben Franklin) for an event where virtual and real worlds collide! Be part of an event that brings together music lovers from around the world for an event that blurs the barrier between real and virtual as musicians play for a global audience at a simultaneous jam. The Mixed Reality Musical Jam will take place both on the ground in Redmond and online in "Second Life." Second Life is an online virtual world where some of today's most talented musicians play live for audiences around the world without leaving their homes. Local Second Life musicians will gather to demonstrate how live music performance transcends borders and boundaries in the digital age.
Location: Soul Food Books & Coffee, 15748 Redmond Way (click here for map) | |  | |  | | Dancing with Light January 15, 6:45 pm - FREE | | |
  This five minute performance is a spectacular merger of dance, animation and motion capture. Melissa Farrar, the performer and choreographer of the work started working on the piece back in April of '09 when Digital Double approached her with the idea. During that time Melissa has been choreographing and rehearsing this new work of art to be featured for the very first time here in Redmond at this Digital Arts Festival. Funding for the project came through a grant by 4Culture. Mariya Lincoln, Marketing Director at Digital Double, came across their request for proposals and submitted the grant for it. Collaborators Jordan Gottlieb (www.jordangottlieb.com and Amir Stone (designer of last year's Digital Graffiti and Blight Horizon) jumped on board to assist with animation and effects that are bound to drop some jaws.
Don't miss out on this opportunity to be the very first to see this new work of art and technology. Performance will be repeated once more at 8:30pm if you miss the 6:45 show.
Location: Redmond City Hall, 15670 NE 85th St (click here for map) | | | | | | Animation Through the Ages, January 15, 7:00 pm - FREE | | |
  From feature films such as Pixar's "Up" to television shows such as Comedy Central's "South Park", the use of animation continues to grow and evolve. Digital technology now plays a significant part in how such labor intensive productions are created yet there are many core elements that stand the test of time. As part of Redmond's Digital Arts Festival event, DigiPen Institute of Technology will be hosting a panel discussion with animation industry experts on how the industry has evolved and what audiences can expect to see in the near future. Come join the discussion and learn more about this fascinating field!
Location: Redmond City Hall, 15670 NE 85th St (click here for map) | | | | | | The Art of Microsoft Games, January 16, 9:30 am - FREE | | |
  Ben Cammarano, the Director of Art for Microsoft Games Studios, will talk about how the art is created for Microsoft Games. Ben supervises projects like Halo Wars, Gears of War 2 and many others.
Location: Redmond City Hall, 15670 NE 85th St (click here for map)
Microsoft Games Studio | | | | | | Current Trends in 'Computer Music' January 16, 11:00 am - FREE | | |
 With samples of historic and contemporary music, Hugo Solis talks about the evolution of computer music including how it relates to the fields of graphics, human computer interaction, digital interfaces, and embedded /mobile computing. Hugo Solis Garcia is a Ph.D. student at DXARTS. His main interests are musical structure of improvised music, human computer musical interaction, and audiovisual systems. Currently he works on the development of sonic and visual extensions for acoustic pianos, and production tools for collective creation, the creation of interactive and multimedia installations, and also plays with the Juum duet. He holds a DEA of Computer Sciences and Digital Communication from Pompeu Fabra University and a Masters degree in Media Arts and Science at the MIT Media Laboratory at the Opera of the Future group where he developed the improvisatory music and painting interface (IMPI) and audiovisual system for improvisational music.
Location: Redmond City Hall, 15670 NE 85th St (click here for map)
www.HugoSolis.net | | | | | | Motion Capture Open Studio, January 16, 10am-3pm - FREE | | |
  Come to Digital Double Motion Capture Studios located at 15814 Bear Creek Parkway for a hands-on motion capture experience!
Ever dream of being like those Hollywood actors that get their movement captured onto a CG character? Well, now’s your chance! Come to your local motion capture studio and experience this first hand as you jump, kick or dance as a cute bear, sumo warrior or even a light form or character of your choice.
Note: For best results participants should be over 5 feet tall and wearing dark form-fitting clothes (pants and sweater is fine). For more info visit: www.digitaldouble.net
Location: Digital Double Motion Capture Studios, 15814 Bear Creek Parkway (click here for map)
| | | | | | Behind the Scenes at Gas Powered Games January 16, 1:00 pm - FREE | | |
  Redmond based Gas Powered Games was founded by acclaimed game designer Chris Taylor. Responsible for games such as: Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege, Demigod and Supreme Commander 2, Gas Powered Games has received numerous awards for their innovative game play. Look forward to an innovative talk about the behind the scenes action at the game studio itself.
Location: Redmond City Hall, 15670 NE 85th St (click here for map)
Gas Powered Games | | | | | | Growing Up Microsoft January 16, 3:00 pm - FREE | | |
  Ed Fries created his first video games for the Atari 800 in the early 1980s. He joined Microsoft in 1986, and spent the next ten years as one of the founding developers of both Excel and Word. He left the Office team to pursue his passion for interactive entertainment and created Microsoft Game Studios. Over the next eight years he grew the team from 50 people to over 1200, published more than 100 games including more than a dozen million+ sellers, co-founded the Xbox project, and made Microsoft one of the leaders in the interactive entertainment business. In 2004, Ed retired from his Microsoft Vice President job to continue his work in the video game business as board member, advisor and consultant to a broad range of publishers, independent game developers, and media companies. In 2007 Ed launched his own startup, FigurePrints, an innovative company that uses 3D color printing technology to bring video game characters to life.
Location: Redmond City Hall, 15670 NE 85th St (click here for map)
Figure Prints
Ed Fries | | | | | | Spontaneous Fantasia January 16, 7:00 pm - FREE | | |
  J-Walt performs a solo show of his own images and music, drawing virtual landscapes and geometric abstractions with software and computer interfaces he designed. The audience watches as J-Walt draws with a pen tablet and animates creatures and environments.Always pushing the envelope, J-Walt has made his show even more high-tech, immersing audiences into state-of-the-art digital fulldome and in 3D stereo.The pieces are highly improvisational -- each performance is unique. The worlds he creates are ever morphing and changing. He creates with the push of a button, but at the push of another, it's gone! It’s his way of breaking away from art as a polished, precious artifact. It can be something more loose, more dynamic, more … spontaneous!Spontaneous Fantasia is the live Virtual Reality performances created by J-Walt. He invented this groundbreaking art form in 2003 after years of work in visual effects and animation for movies, TV, and location-based entertainment. In his varied career with companies such as Disney and Sony, J-Walt has received numerous awards and accolades, including an Academy Award and a THEA award.
Location: Redmond City Hall, 15670 NE 85th St (click here for map) | | | | |
|
|
Intro to 3D Animation, January 16, Sessions at 9:30am & 1:00pm - $10  
|
|
|
 
Did you ever wonder how your favorite animated film and game characters are made? This workshop is designed to give students an introduction to the concepts and process of creating 3D computer animation.
Location:
DigiPen Art Campus
8273 154th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98052
Click here for Map
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Intro to Game Programming, January 16, Sessions at 9:30am & 1:00pm - $10
|
|
|
 
'Programming' is the act of instructing a computer to do your bidding. Computer games are made up of millions of individual instructions that tell the computer what to draw where, how to make the characters act, what to show on screen and so on. These instructions are what bring together the art, sound and story. Learn how your favorite games are put together and how you can create one of your own.
Location:
DigiPen Art Campus
8273 154th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98052
Click here for Map
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Intro to Game Design, January 16, Sessions at 9:30am & 1:00pm - $10
|
|
|
Playing a computer game is one thing, but how are these games produced? Could I make my own computer game? How do companies bring together the art, music and story and meld it together to form an interactive experience? In this workshop, you will learn this and more.
Location:
DigiPen Art Campus
8273 154th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98052
Click here for Map
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
