Experience the Cube and other innovative arts and technology research during 'ICAT Day'
From luminescent forests to laptop orchestras to 3D tornado visualizations, see how Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology is blazing a path between transdisciplinary research and artistic output, scientific and commercial discovery, and educational innovation during “ICAT Day” on Monday, May 4.
Including interactive exhibits, workshops, panel discussions, tours, demonstrations, and performances, “ICAT Day” will be held from noon until 9 p.m.throughout the Moss Arts Center, located at 190 Alumni Mall. Parking is available in the North End Parking Garage on Turner Street. Virginia Tech faculty and staff possessing a valid Virginia Tech parking permit can enter and exit the garage free of charge. Limited street parking is also available.
With the theme “Mind = Blown,” the annual event celebrates the work of the institute’s affiliated faculty and students who blend science, engineering, art, and design.
The Cube, the four-story, high-tech laboratory used for research, immersive environments, performance, and audio and visual installations, will be open to the public from noon until 3 p.m. Visitors to the Cube will experience research demonstrations, including 3D visualizations of a tornado, the house of the future, Lane Stadium, and a World War I battlefield.
Other scheduled activities include:
- “What is ICAT?” talk and discussion, noon, balcony lobby;
- “Who/What/Why is ICAT?” panel discussion, 1 p.m., balcony lobby;
- “Dialogues on Innovation,” panel discussion, 2 p.m., balcony lobby;
- “Social Computing Meets Creative Computing,” presentations, 3 p.m., balcony lobby;
- “Thinking Through Technology with Performance Techniques,” movement workshop, 4 p.m., mezzanine lobby;
- “Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from the ‘Harmonious Melodious Jellyfish’: An Open Conversation on Arts Engagement through the Center for the Arts and ICAT,” workshop, 5 p.m., balcony lobby;
- “My Take Talk,” talk and discussion, 6 p.m., Ruth C. Horton Gallery;
- “Composition Student Concert,” 6:30 p.m., Grand Lobby;
- “Spring Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio Event,” musical performance, 7:30 p.m., Cube.
Exhibits highlighting a range of research projects will be on display from noon until 6 p.m. in the Moss Arts Center Grand Lobby. Attendees can learn more about the institute’s joint project with NASA’s Johnson Space Center, which involves work by Virginia Tech students to design and create intelligent textiles and wearable technologies for space flight. Connected vehicle derby cars created by students from Montgomery County Schools in conjunction with the institute will be showcased, and Virginia Tech students will debut newly created computer game experiences.
In conjunction with “ICAT Day” is “ICAT: Open (at the) Source,” an art exhibition featuring two of the institute’s interactive art installations – “Cloud” (2014-15), a networked sculpture by Aki Ashida, assistant professor of architecture, and Ivica Ico Bukvic, associate professor of music composition and multimedia, and “Luminescent Forest” (2013-15), a project by Paolla Zellner, assistant professor of architecture, and Tom Martin, professor of electrical and computer engineering.
The opening reception for “ICAT: Open (at the) Source” will be from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 30, in the Moss Arts Center Grand Lobby. Located in the Ruth C. Horton Gallery, the exhibition will run until Sunday, May 17.
