Dawn of a New Art Form
Imagine sculpture that can dance. Imagine paintings that hang in air. Imagine a 3D printed video of light. 30 years in the making, a new medium is born that can do just that, and we want you to be the first to define and experience it.
- From our basements, bedrooms, sheds, and garages - we are a rag tag group of hackers who invented a machine that - well, you know the Princess Leia hologram in Star Wars? We made it for real. Seriously. In short - instead of laying out picture elements (pixels) on a 2D grid to form a mosaic of color like a your phone's screen, we made it so you can place volumetric picture elements (voxels) within a 3D grid to construct sculptures of light, sort of like Legos except they move... in air... more like magic actually. It was tough to figure out what to call this, so we took the words voxel + movie to make 'voxie'. Ta-da!
- Why art? Throughout the ages we have always found a way to leave our mark. Paintings on a cave wall, figures cut in stone, portraits exposed onto film, with new tools we found new ways to capture the human experience - and share it with generations to come. A cross between sculpture and video - we've developed a new vessel for story telling, for picture making, for expressing what may never have been possible to share before - and we now invite you to take it from here - because art matters. Also because we don't have a lot to look at on things yet.
- By contributing to this campaign you will help us to establish a means by which artists can create and share works for the public in this spatial way. You will provide us with resources to engineer a set of displays we can make available to creators, adapt the technology to meet their needs, and mount a pop-up show in New York City to celebrate the dawn of this new art form. Also to get wine and cheese, very important for art shows.
What We Need & What You Get
Here's the deal:
- We'd like to at least cover some of the costs associated with building an extra holographic display that will be reserved exclusively for artists to conceive of new work on. If we are able to do that with your help, it's a huge success for us. Yes, we literally make these things in our basements - every dollar helps - a lot. If the campaign is wildly successful - we'd love to see these works of art travel the world - so if you aren't in New York City you could still have a chance to see them.
- So - who wants to see some holograms? Back us and you'll get tickets to the show, back us more and we will jump up and down and call you a patron, back us even more and we will jump up and down and then cry and then call you a benefactor! It's pretty straight forward - all contributions go to help artists get access to this crazy new technology, make works of art that have never been seen before, and share them in a place so you can come and see. Hopefully you jump up and down and maybe cry a little too. And everybody gets their name in holograms!
- If we don't reach our goal we will try not to cry. We might buy some of that wine and cheese to dull the pain - but in the end we'll be really happy that some people were able to hear about our technology, what it can be used for, and how just maybe it might change life on earth forever. FOREVER. Who doesn't want to be a part of forever? Come on, let's write some history together --- and yes, this is in fact the first holographic 3D video art festival to ever happen on earth, ever. There isn't a second chance to be a part of a first.
The Impact
Every little bit you contribute helps us to pursue these efforts:
- Access - Right now we don't have prototype display units for people outside of our team to work on. With your contributions we aim to fabricate at least one unit that can circulate or be centrally located in New York City exclusively for the use of artists.
- Innovation - We really don't know what people will choose to do creatively with our technology - but we know that the first step is to make a venue for that work to be viewed by the public so it becomes practical for artists to know their work will be exhibited.
- Distribution - When we make this first exhibition happen with your help it will open the door to more shows like it - we hope the exhibit will get interest from other institutions and regions of the world, making the work and technology more accessible for the public to experience - and to inspire more people to explore creativity in the medium.
Risks & Challenges
We are very confident in our ability to enable artists to create work for our technology and for it to then be displayed for the public to see. This April the folks at Positron debuted a work called Polyhedron at the F5 Festival here in New York City. This past September Luisa Pereira and Manuela Donoso incorporated our technology into The Harmonics Series which was on display at The Dumbo Arts Festival in Brooklyn. Today we build each display as a prototype by hand. We've always wanted to get the technology out of our labs/basement as quickly as possible for others to enjoy - so we don't really wait for things to be perfect. Sometimes stuff breaks. Then we fix it. It's not a big deal. We do need to figure out the logistics of finding a location in New York City for the show, securing the date, making it so that people can come, and finding the right wine and cheese. We think this is doable because we are resourceful and scrappy. We are also very nice people who have a holographic display - this usually helps open doors for us so we are confident we can find a suitable location. If all else fails we will have the show in Sean's garage on Long Island, that would be pretty fun too.
- We've organized events in New York City and so we have lots of connections for where we can host the show.
- We will make backup displays in case the primary one has trouble.
- We know at least two artists.
Other Ways You Can Help
Lots of you do not live in or close to New York City, so it will be hard for you to go to a show here and doesn't make much sense for you to buy a ticket. That's ok, here's what would be great:
- Tell people about what we are doing - friends in the arts, friends in technology, people who like wine and cheese and seeing the future at the same time! This campaign is a great thing for you to post on Facebook, Twitter, and even to tell people about in person - including strangers on the subway. And your mom, tell your mom!
- Indiegogo has a bunch of great tools to help you share this campaign, please use them. Thanks Indiegogo!
The end. Or is it?
