An installation of interactive, motorized moths that respond to human touch 聳 created by nationally known artist Jen Lewin 聳 will be on display at the University of Colorado at Boulder聮s ATLAS Center from Jan. 15 to Feb. 15.
Lewin聮s three silk and metal moths with 6- to 8-foot wingspans are linked to orbs that sense the pressure of a viewer聮s touch and begin to move to that tempo. The longer a viewer remains in contact with the orbs, the longer and more powerful the moths聮 movements become.
聯MOTH beautifully represents how the ATLAS Institute and its Center for Arts, Media and Performance bring together art, technology and interdisciplinary creative work 聳 and how combining technology with the movement of the heart promotes gentle change at human speed,聰 said Rebekah West, director of the CU-Boulder Center for Arts, Media and Performance.
The MOTH installation will be on display in the ATLAS building lobby and is free and open to the public. The lobby is open from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Lewin will speak as part of the ATLAS Distinguished Lecture Series on Feb. 1 from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in ATLAS聮 Cofrin Auditorium, room 100. Her lecture and demonstration will be free and open to students and the public.
The exhibition will conclude with a Valentine聮s Day 聯MOTH Celebration聰 featuring Lewin on Feb. 14 from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the ATLAS lobby. The event will include music and snacks and is free and open to the public.
Lewin is a Boulder-based artist whose work has been shown throughout the country, including exhibits at New York University聮s Tisch School of the Arts, the Lincoln Center, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Wired NextFest in New York and Los Angeles and the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.
She has worked as an adjunct professor teaching advanced multimedia, interactive design, sculpture, three-dimensional modeling and microcomputing at CU-Boulder and NYU. Her design and multimedia work has appeared in National Geographic, Siggraph 1998, IEEE, Computer Assisted Architectural Design Futures and Automation in Construction.
聯Through my art, I play with the relationship between the physical and the digital, the virtual and the real,聰 Lewin said. 聯In this interplay, the user and the piece participate in a unique 聭moment聮 that is often unpredictable and spontaneous.聰
ATLAS, the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society, is a campuswide institute that serves as an incubator for innovative interdisciplinary research and educational outreach programs. The Center for Arts, Media and Performance program is a combined effort of several CU-Boulder schools and departments including art and art history, theatre and dance, music, film studies, computer science, and journalism and mass communication.
More information about ATLAS is available at . More information on Lewin is available at .