Spirited Ruins: High Performance Computing in the Arts (HiPArt) gives new meaning to the term mixed media. A creative collaboration between computer science researchers and visual artists, the interactive exhibition runs from September 20 to October 8 at the Sherman Gallery and in the Scientific Computing and Visualization Group (SCV) computer graphics laboratory at 111 Cummington St.
Marianne Moore wrote that her task as a poet was to create "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." With Spirited Ruins, artists and computer scientists have done the next best thing, creating an imaginary palace filled with real toys.
Visitors enter the crumbling ruins of this ancient building via an ImmersaDesk in the graphics lab. They don virtual reality goggles and use handheld input devices to activate the artifacts they encounter. This affects not only the virtual objects, but corresponding three-dimensional animated sculptures in the Sherman Gallery as well. Similarly, human interaction with the real-world sculptures changes what people at the ImmersaDesk experience in the virtual world.
The exhibition is coproduced by SCV and HiPArt, a BU-based consortium of scientists and artists promoting collaboration across their disciplines.