Assistant Professor, Media Arts: New Media

MFA  Minneapolis College of Art & Design 2001
BS  University of Illinois - Urbana 1978

Bio:

Don Barth was born in Chicago and raised in a blue collar suburban neighborhood underneath O'Hare airport. He spent his undergraduate days at the University of Illinois in Urbana. After finishing his BS at U of I he lived in several locations before returning to Chicago to continue making film and video. After several years working in the time based arts, he started teaching and consulting on Macintosh computers with Chicago companies.

In 1990 he and his spouse moved to Wisconsin where he started his own interactive development, training and consulting company, Barth New Media.

Planning for his midlife crisis he decided that going back to get an MFA in computer media and becoming a professor was a good move. In 2001 Don received an MFA in Visual Studies from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and started teaching at the University of Wisconsin - Stout in the Multimedia Design program.

He currently is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of South Carolina. He teaches courses in the design and development of computer media. His business, Barth New Media, includes consulting and speaking engagements. His current artwork explores virtual interactive narrative and landscapes.

Artist statement:

The Gaia concept states that the world is its own organism. The earth is a self regulating system, that has interdependent life forms acting together for the homeostasis of the earth “organism.” Modern life can separate us from this network of life. The outdoors, or the environment in other words, has the power to provide a primal spiritual connection between earth and self.

One of my goals is to show the natural world, but at the same time, I want to make the engager2 aware of the minutia of the everyday—aware of what is in or just beyond the backyard. Moving between the global or general to the local or specific through illustrative connections is another component of my work. How does one connect the small detail or action to the larger whole of an event or process? How can I make these relationships apparent without bludgeoning the engager with the connection? My work is intended to be a catalyst for spurring on the engager into thinking and exploring, both within the work itself and in the world at large. I want to invite the engager to consider it, not simply receive my point as the only one on a plane of ideas.

By creating my ditties—little statements or poems—I am relating and examining a “touch point.” These touch points are points of contact with the world. Exploring these “touch points” with the real world is how I attempt to illustrate details. With this I hope to invite the engager to reflect on the same issues. I want to tell stories/narratives/poems certainly, but do not offer prescriptions. It is an invitation to the engager to discover their own touch points.

My current interests lie in the everyday, common occurrences in the heartland. My landscape is not the “scenic view” pointed out to us by a sign on the roadside. For me there are no signs pointing to the scenic view, or the less than grand spectacle. A scenic view might be; “weeds” in bloom, or a flat prairie. My work is an attempt at the democratic dialogue or discourse. It is a catalyst for finding poetry in ourselves—the poems of common beauty.

I am aware of the paradox present in expressing my concerns for the world/earth/Gaia/nature through the use of high technology. The dichotomy of technology verses nature. I see technology as a subset of, rather than an opposition to, nature. The virtual spaces presented for the engager

are intended to be analogies for taking a walk. One’s interaction is analogous to choosing a street or path to follow. The use of projected images/sounds creates a powerful seduction. This seduction of the technology is common in our culture—we are attracted to faster, more powerful computers. This is ignored within the content of my work, but is a context for it.

My virtual interactive landscapes are not meant to be a replacement for the direct experience of the world, but rather a catalyst for further encounters.

Another dilemma. It is often assumed that an engager requires speedy interaction with computer based art to be satisfied with the experience. I wish to play with this expectation and against it. I must investigate the extent to which I can slow down the click click click interaction without driving too many away. Or maybe the point should be to drive the engagers away for some purpose. How much can one expect an engager to “work at” one’s art?

I see computer based art as ArtBorg™, art which has a symbiotic relationship with the artist/audience and technology. I define this relationship to technology in terms of creation and exhibition. Photography was the first of the arts to be an ArtBorg™ because it used technology for its creation. It however did not need technology to exhibit the work (Electric lighting has made it possible to view work in the night and indoors, however it is not absolutely needed for exhibition).

Phonographs and motion pictures came next in our time line and were the first “true” ArtBorg™because of their reliance on technology for both the creation and exhibition of the artworks. In the digital age the computer is now the current medium at the top of the heap. The computer medium is the pinnacle of the ArtBorg™, combining all mediums that have come before. Even in this beginning phase, computer based art has several variants depending on delivery systems and settings. The main delivery systems are web, CD ROM/DVD ROM, and installation. Now these are not mutually exclusive. An artwork could be all three or a combination of any two. As the technology matures, (e.g. faster internet connections become more common) the distinctions will fade between web and CD ROM/DVD ROM. As ArtBorg™ technologies have developed, the illusions have reached greater level of approaching reality. The differences between these forms will fade as the technology’s ability to create a virtual space supersedes the need to have a literal space.