Colloquia Archive
Body, Space, and Cinema
October 24, 2007
Host: Susan Tennant
AbstractScott Snibbe will present interactive works that incorporate reactive video projections, large-scale tracking of humans and vehicles, and Blow Up, which amplifies human breath as a large field of wind. He will discuss the philosophical divide between language and visceral perception that motivates his creation of interactive media art. Working with technologies at the forefront of contemporary research including computer vision and synthetic touch, Snibbe explores how a minimal intrusion of technology can provide insight into the nature of observer’s minds and their sense of self. Works shown will range from large-scale body-centric physical installations to interactive sculpture and screen and web-based interactive graphics.
BiographyScott Snibbe creates immersive interactive art that evokes powerful emotional and social engagement from viewers. His works are known for their positive social effects: fostering a sense of interdependence, promoting social interaction among strangers, and increasing viewers’ concentration. His artworks have been installed in over 100 art museums, performance spaces, science museums and public spaces worldwide since 1995 including the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York); the InterCommunications Center (Tokyo); Ars Electronica (Austria); and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Science Museum (London); the Exploratorium (San Francisco), the Phaeno Science Center (Germany); and the Cit’ de Science (Paris, France). He has been awarded a variety of international prizes, including the Prix Ars Electronica and a Rockefeller New Media Fellowship. He is the founder of two companies: Snibbe Interactive, Inc., which sells and distributes interactive installations for public spaces, and Sona Research, which engages in educational and cultural research.
Snibbe was born in 1969 in New York City. He holds Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Fine Art and a Master’s in Computer Science from Brown University. Snibbe studied experimental animation at the Rhode Island School of Design and his films have been widely shown internationally. He has taught media art and experimental film at Brown University, The San Francisco Art Institute, the California Institute of the Arts, The Rhode Island School of Design and UC, Berkeley. Snibbe worked at Adobe Systems as a Computer Scientist where he made substantial contributions to the special effects software Adobe After Effects and research projects at Adobe Research. Snibbe held research positions at Interval Research where he performed basic research in haptics, computer vision, and interactive cinema. Snibbe’s research is documented in a number of academic papers and more than a dozen patents.
