UMBC's IRC Fellows Program, a partnership between UMBC's Department of Visual Arts and the Imaging Research Center (IRC), has quickly built upon the existing successes of the IRC Internship Program and the Visual Arts Undergraduate Program to create a national model for the recruiting, retention, education and support of talented digital artists. "Students are transferring to UMBC with the hope that they will get into the IRC Fellows Program," said IRC Director Dan Bailey.
Designed to recognize, reward and encourage UMBC juniors and seniors who have displayed exceptional artistic talent and technical proficiency over the course of their first two years as undergraduate art students, the IRC Fellows Program supports these student artists as they pursue careers in either academic or professional art settings. Through a series of specially designed seminar-style courses, IRC Fellows are exposed to new technologies and artistic practices. IRC Fellows have access to the Center's labs, visiting researchers, and to mentoring by visual arts faculty and IRC staff.
The IRC Fellows Program also fuses the research initiatives of UMBC's visual arts faculty with the national significance of the IRC, which is dedicated to investigating new technologies and using them for interpreting and presenting content. Since its inception in 1987, artists and researchers across disciplines have collaborated in the IRC's creative environment to develop new strategies and techniques in digital media. State-of-the-art facilities enable research in 3D visualization, immersive technologies, interactivity, installation, animation, high definition video and sound.
On February 4 and 5, 2005, Baltimore audiences saw the product of a collaboration between the IRC Fellows and Associate Professor of Visual Arts Timothy Nohe, who directed the program during the fall '04 semester, and modern dance company movement/addiction, directed by UMBC alumni Renée Brozic and Sarah D. Seely. The evening length concert, *blink*, was held at the Creative Alliance and included body.txt, in which sweeping live video was projected onto canvasses made of latex sheets. The dancers pressed their bodies against the sheets, creating a stunning visceral background, and time delay video techniques allowed the dancers to duet with images of themselves. The words of New York City-based slam poet Noel Jones glided across the screens and the dancers.
Watch a video clip from body.txt.
(UMBC Insights: 1/31/05)
A collaboration between UMBC's IRC Fellows and dance company movement/addiction was shown at Baltimore's Creative Alliance Feb. 4 & 5, 2005.