Projects

space messengers

Space Messengers

Space Messengers Space Messengers: An immersive and educational sci-art experience   Space Messengers is an immersive mixed reality (MR) installation with VR...

FLUIDIC DATA

Fluidic Data Fluidic Data: When Art Meets CERN, Data Flows Fluidic Data is a floor-to-ceiling installation spanning the four levels of the...

(x)trees

(x)trees (x)trees: a dynamically generating forest of trees from SMS and tweets (x)trees is a dynamically generating forest of trees created from...

Origination Point

Origination Point Origination Point explores the origins of the universe through generative light and sound Origination Point is a generative interactive projection installation...

Space Messengers

Space Messengers

Space Messengers: An immersive and educational sci-art experience

 

Space Messengers is an immersive mixed reality (MR) installation with VR experiences and an international youth exchange program created in partnership with the U.S Embassy of Portugal and the U.S. Consulate General of Guadalajara. A virtual workshop connects middle/high school classrooms in New Mexico, USA with classrooms in Lisbon, Portugal and Guadalajara, Mexico (more embassies/countries to be added) via an interdisciplinary space-themed curriculum.  Students contribute their ‘space messages’ which become part of the final Space Messengers installation. The Space Messengers mission is to develop our artistic, scientific and humanistic literacy and expand our identity as planetary citizens. Space Messengers is a multi-artist collaboration created in 2020/21 during the pandemic and is now touring to festivals around the world, evolving with new interactive experiences as it travels. Youth leaders can join the Space Messengers project through the STEMarts Ambassadors program. To bring Space Messengers to your city and country contact us at: stemartslab@gmail.com

 

Space Messengers is made possible in part by the Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund for U.S. Alumni; an opportunity sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by Partners of the Americas. This project is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts. Thanks to our sponsors: U.S. Embassy of Portugal, Taos Community Foundation, LANL Foundation, LANL CPO, FIC.A, MAE Foundation, NM Trade Alliance, Q Station and the U.S.General Consulate of Guadalajara.

STEMarts is a 501(c)3 based in Taos, New Mexico

 

Space Messengers creative team

Creative Director: Agnes Chavez

Lead Artist/Projection team: OMAi

Sound design: David Novack with Joao Espada

Creative Coding/Artist: Roy MacDonald

VR Platform design: Mathieu Castel

Interdisciplinary speakers/facilitators: CERN Physicists; Dr. Steven Goldfarb, University of Melbourne on the ATLAS Experiment, Dr. Johan Sebastian Bonilla, Postdoctoral Scholar for the University of California, Davis; Dr. Nicole Lloyd-Ronning, LANL astrophysicist; Steve Tamayo, Lakota Cultural Specialist; Dr. Catarina Pombo Nabais, Philosophy of Science/University of Lisbon; Frank Tavares, NASA Communication Specialist; Michelle Hanlon, Founder/Director, For all Moonkind

Videography: Malu Tavares; Photography: Julia Novack, Frank Dosu; Curriculum  Advisors: Shane Wood, Quarknet staff; Dr. Greg Cajete, Native-American Author/cultural specialist. Visual Program Designer: Estacia Huddleston. Multi-media/Tech development and support: OMAi/Tagtool team/Josef Dorninger and Matthias Fritz;  Enrico Trujillo, University of New Mexico (VR Youth Day). STEAM Ambassadors: Dania Loya, New Mexico; Joana D’Arc Moreira, Brazil; Amina Abdrazakova, Canada; Amelia Martinez, Feliciana Mitchel-Gonzales, Megan Odom, Svetlana Backhaus, Dominique Vigil,Taos New Mexico.

Participating schools: Escola Secundária Sebastião e Silva: Profesora Ana Carvalho, Profesora, Cristina Pinho. Taos Integrated School of the Arts: Sally Greywolf, Alison Haney

FLUIDIC DATA

Fluidic Data

Fluidic Data: When Art Meets CERN, Data Flows

Fluidic Data is a floor-to-ceiling installation spanning the four levels of the CERN Data Centre stairwell. It utilizes the interplay of water and light to visualize the magnitude and flow of information coming from the four major LHC experiments. The installation consists of an array of transparent hoses that house colored fluid, symbolizing the data of each experiment, surrounded by a collection of diffractive "pods" representing the particles pivotal to each experiment. The organic fusion of art and science engenders a meditative environment, allowing the visitor time for reflection and curiosity.

The Fluidic Data installation is a cross department collaboration that incorporates materials and techniques used in the construction of the LHC and its experiments. The project brings together artists, engineers, science communicators and physicists with a common goal of communicating CERN's research and resources. The success of this collaboration exemplifies the effectiveness of working in diverse teams, both intellectually and culturally, to accomplish unique projects. https://indico.cern.ch/event/773049/contributions/3474847/

CORE TEAM:  Agnes Chavez, Artist/Educator, Melissa Gaillard, Project Director, Johan Sebastian Bonilla, Data Visualization Design, Julien Leduc, IT and Data Specialist, Mayank Sharma, Electronic Engineering Design, Oliver Keller, Electronic Engineering Design, Jani Kalasniemi, Electronics, Marco Garlasche, Structural Engineer, Laurent Deparis, Fabrication Lead, Stephane Berry, Pump System Design, Umut Kose, Physicist/Fiber optic specialist, Harri Toivonen, Platform and space design, Esra Ozcesmeci, Electronics assistant.  EXPERIMENT ADVISORS:  Despina Hatzifotiadou, ALICE, Johan Sebastian Bonilla, ATLAS, Dr. Steven Goldfarb, ATLAS, Thomas McCauley, CMS, Bolek Pietrzyk, LHcb   DESIGN ADVISORS:  Leah Buechley, Porto Design Factory, Horacio Tome Marquez, Francisco Teixeira, MuArts Lab.  TAOS TECHNICAL SUPPORT:  Jeremiah Buchanan, prototyping, Jake Mingenbach, prototyping, Peter Gilroy, Titanium testing prototype, Anita McKeown, Pod prep

(x)trees

(x)trees

(x)trees: a dynamically generating forest of trees from SMS and tweets

(x)trees is a dynamically generating forest of trees created from SMS and Tweets from the audience in real time. It is projected in real time on to buildings and large spaces, exploring our relationship to nature and technology.  (x)trees tours around the world creating a participatory experience to raise awareness to ecological topics such as deforestation and climate change. By integrating data mining from SMS and social networks, people participate in the creation of the branches to form a virtual interactive forest of dynamically generating trees. The audience sends a tweet or text message and sees their message appear on the wall with a branch. Archived messages include articles from the Universal Declaration of Rights for Mother Earth and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.  (x)trees programmers: v.1: Jared Tarbell. Original concept and browser-based code written in Flash, v.2: Jeff Milton and Joe Roth, v.3: Alessandro Saccoia. Converted to OpenFrameWorks, v.4: Kamen Dimitrov, v.5: Roy MacDonald

Contact us to bring (x)trees to your festival or community event. Keywords can be customized to the topic or event.

Origination Point

Origination Point

Origination Point explores the origins of the universe through generative light and sound

Origination Point is a generative interactive projection installation originally exhibited at the 12th Havana Biennial in Havana, Cuba as part of the collective exhibit Entre, Dentro, Fuera/Between, Inside, Outside and in 2016 at The Harwood Museum, Taos, New Mexico.

As part of Agnes Chavez’s Projecting Particles series and inspired by her Educational Outreach research stay at ATLAS@CERN in Geneva Switzerland, this work explores spacetime, our origins in the universe and how matter was created after the big bang through the newly discovered Higgs field. In Origination Point, Chavez contemplates humanity’s shared subatomic origins in relation to her Cuban-American origins to express that we are more than the physical bodies and socio-cultural identities we construct.

Through a collaboration with artist Marcel Schwittlick, who programmed the code, Origination Point features images of self-generating ‘rocks’ that are transformed in real time exploring the evolution of matter and our wave/particle duality. The images are projected onto a wall of hanging fabric strips creating mesmerizing movements in rhythm with an interactive soundtrack. The interactive composition designed and programmed by sound designer Robert Schirmer includes sounds from NASA’s field recordings of outer space accompanied by terrestrial nature sounds. Through an interactive sensor the visitor moves rocks in and out of a circle on the ground. This process adds layers of water, space and earth sounds designed to shift one’s perception and emotional response to the projected visuals.

Collaborating Team: Artists: Agnes Chavez (artist/concept), Marcel Schwittlick (visual artist/coder), Robert Schirmer (interactive sound). Special thanks to UNM Art Graduate Student assistants in Havana: Abbey Hepner, Christine Posner, Julianne Aguilar, Adrian Pijoan

Origination Point is available for commission as a temporary indoor installation