Phoenix, Arizona
LOCATION in the Virtual Sculpture Park (DAAP)
BIOGRAPHIE et COMMENTAIRES DE L'ARTISTE
Mary Bates Neubauer has shown her work nationally and internationally. She is represented by Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ, Bentley Projects, Phoenix, AZ, and the William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO. Recent exhibitions include Solar Streams, at the Edinburgh College of Art and the Dick Institute in Scotland, The Politics of Water, Northern Arizona Museum of Art, Inside Information, the Computing Commons Gallery, Arizona State University, The International Rapid Prototyping Exhibition, Southwestern University, TX, Iron Maidens, the Tucson Museum of Art, the Master of Graphic Arts Biennial, Gyor, Hungary, and the TeleSculpture I, II, & III international digital art exhibitions.
Neubauer is a professor at Arizona State University, and is affiliated with ASU’s Partnership for Research in Spatial Modeling. Mary has been the recipient a Ford Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship in Cambridge, England. She has served as a visiting artist at the Kohler Arts/Industry program, Oxbow, the University of Minnesota, San Jose State University, Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, the Falmouth School of Art, England, CAST, Ltd. Dublin, Ireland, Andersen Ranch Arts Center, and the University of Alaska.
Commentaire / Statement :
Current work uses visual information obtained through digital processes to create and record 3D data. Illuminated, processed photograms, laser-scanned images, animations, and rapid prototypes are combined with more traditional casting and replication techniques to address contemporary science and its information-gathering methods. The work examines the way collectible materials and archived, and data is acquired, valued, and presented. It raises questions about how scientific and technical findings are interpreted and what effect this has upon our understanding of the nature of empirical evidence.
The surfaces and translucency of the sculptural and virtual artworks give them properties of inner life and animation despite their digitally archived nature, pointing out qualities of inherent spirituality, tactile beauty, and luminosity. While the work retains the touch of the artists' hand, it also reveals the artifacts of the digital processes through which it has been taken, such as layering and rasterization.
Recent research into the visual transcription of numerical data streams involves collecting historical and near-real-time statistics from the various instruments which are constantly recording details of our
surroundings, such as climate, solar activity, water levels, traffic flow, energy expenditure, and population flux. Incoming information is translated in several steps, from columns of numbers to 3D visual patterns. Captured and interpreted through video displays as evolving animations, this streaming data is intended to keep the viewer informed with a lively, ongoing sense of the immediate activity and functions of the world.
Visualizations of larger historical cycles of events are captured through 3D models which are rapid prototyped. Through this work, viewers have access to many ways of seeing previously inaccessible information. The intent is to provide an easily readable way of understanding some of the living functions of our surroundings through incoming data, formerly only statistically decipherable. This type of inside information can give us a new view of the complexity of our natural and urban environment as a functioning entity with a hidden, and fascinating, life of its own.