Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Last Sunday, The Toby overflowed with thirsty fans lapping up the sounds of edgy string quartet Osso and Bloomington-based songster DM Stith, with his sweet voice and dark ideas. They also couldn’t stop watching The BQE, the first film by musician Sufjan Stevens, who jammed the screen with a triptych of imagery in homage to a crazy traffic artery in New York called the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I had to be the one to stand at the Toby doors and turn people away for this sold-out show – I hated doing so and was very bad at it.

A full house (Photo by IMA Photography Dept.)

Osso (Photo by IMA Photography Dept.)

DM Stith and Osso (Photo by IMA Photography Dept.)

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Have you ever visualized a song while listening? On my drive in this morning, I heard “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)” by Styx, and was inspired to write about this topic today. In “Fooling Yourself”, there are two punchy synthesizer solos that dance up and down the scale with a rather unique rhythm. It’s the sort of melody that my mind can’t help playing with visually on the projector in the back of my brain (luckily the screen doesn’t obscure my view of the road).

The iTunes visualizer

I’m pretty sure that how one visualizes a song varies from person to person and song to song. My best evidence for this comes from my experience as part of Sounds and Visions, a computer music and graphics concert put on by the UIUC chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Unfortunately, the web was young back then and we didn’t put much material online. But you can think of it as a zanily creative iTunes visualizer. My contribution was a dancing solar system with a sun that pulsed to the beat and planets excited by notes of various frequencies. Others showcased flocks of birds, a carpet of tiles bouncing little cubes into the air, only to be eaten by alligator-like creatures, and quivering leaf-like fractals.

I just realized that I have no idea where I’m going with this post… maybe I’ll just end it with a question… what other visual expressions of music have you seen?

Are video games art?

Some of our readers may still have some Superbowl adrenaline left in their system, but today I want to talk about another kind of game… video games. Like contact sports, these games sometimes get a bad rap, but having grown up in the 80’s with my trusty Atari, Nintendo, and Sega Genesis, the games I played served as creative inspiration. In fact, without those games, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I do now. Inspired by Noelle’s post last week, I thought I would explore the various ways that creativity can be expressed in a video game. I’ll take the framework that has been used by game reviewers in the past and break it down into the facets of graphics, audio, gameplay, and story. I’m also going to focus mostly on console games.

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Below you will find a conversation between the two artists who combine to create Type A. They have been invited by IMA to participate in a couple of ways in upcoming Art and Nature Park initiatives.

Dear Co-Blogger Dude,

And so it begins, writing for IMA blog. Never blogged before, and I’m not quite sure what to write about. I think it comes down to two possibilities: our Team Building project at the Art & Nature Park or music. I’m gonna choose a combination of the two.

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An art parade is an intriguing thing. Over the last few months I’ve received a lot of questions from folks wondering about the art parade. So, I thought with 9 days to go, I’d compile (with the help of my colleagues) a list of the public’s most burning questions. Knowing that a list of questions alone is probably not helpful, I’ve also included a list of answers.

On Procession FAQs

Is there a Web site where I can find more information about the parade and the exhibition? Sure is! Visit www.OnProcession.org to learn more.

Can I still be in the parade? How can I sign up on the day of the parade?
Yes! You can still be part of the parade. You can register your project on the morning of the parade between 10:00 and 11:30 am at either end of the parade route. Registration tents will be located near the intersection of Virginia Avenue & S. East Street (WEST end) and near the intersection of Virginia Avenue, Shelby Avenue & Prospect Street (EAST end). If you’re not sure whether you are EAST or WEST, click here for more information.

I want to be a spectator on parade day. What are the vantage points?
The parade route will run the one-mile stretch of Virginia Avenue between the Anthem Building (located at the intersection of Shelby St., East St., and Virginia Ave.) and the Fountain (located at the intersection of Virginia Ave. and Prospect St.). Anywhere along the parade route will be traffic-proofed and ready for spectators! Click here to see the map.

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