Lauren Bedal & Travis Bennet
This duo creates collaborative performances built with OpenPerform. OpenPerform is an open source platform for generating real-time, virtual dance performance with motion capture technology as well as other motion capture VR films. She believes her multi-disciplinary background gives her a unique understanding of story, experience, and people.
Lauren Bedal is a designer, dancer, and filmmaker based in San Francisco, California. Lauren currently works at Matter, a design and innovation firm focused on the intersection of industrial, digital, and service design. Outside of Matter, Lauren is currently working on OpenPerform.
Travis Bennett is an interactive technology artist who’s work explores the complex nature of society’s relationship with emerging technologies such as AI, VR, Computer Vision, Real-Time Motion Capture, Brain Computer Interfaces, and 3d Imaging.
Christopher Schardt
Christopher Schardt has been creating large-scale sculptures since 2000, focusing on LEDs since 2014. He works mainly in aluminum and stainless steel. Schardt’s LED pieces are of various sizes and configurations, anywhere from 1,800 to 21,000 individually controllable LEDs. The animated imagery they display depends very much on the setting. Sometimes a slow, perhaps organic pattern is appropriate. Sometimes something photorealistic works better, particularly with closelyspaced LEDs. Other times, energetic, even psychedelic patterns are what is called-for. By accompanying these visuals with music, Schardt vastly increases their impact, and likes to incorporate this whenever possible. He seeks to create sights and sounds that delight and surprise, while staying in concert with the surrounding environment. INTERACTIVITY | LED Lab, the software that controls Schardt’s pieces can respond to various kinds of input: A live camera feed can be mixed into its animated output. It can respond to audio to modify such things as color, position, rotation, and image size. External hardware can send it signals to modify various parameters. IMMERSION | Many of Schardt’s pieces strive to be a place to BE. Rather than just coming up to Firmament, looking for a while at the pretty lights, and moving on, visitors would come, smile, sit down, and then lie down looking up at the lights, sometimes for hours. This piece had many nicknames like “Permanent”. Firmament transcended some art-role boundary. It stopped being just a thing of beauty and became an environment with an emotional impact - calmness, serenity, safety.
Christopher has an immersive installation currently up at The Midway Gallery for the Halation exhibition
Cere Davis
Cere grew up in west coast of the US fascinated with physics and real-world manifestations of dynamic imbalance. After researching volcanic lighting in Alaska and wintering over at South Pole, Antarctica she moved to the Bay Area of California in 2013. Inspired by her creative surroundings, she began using her creative energy and professional background in physics & engineering to explore her passion for creating improbable embodiments through fusing the worlds of sculpture, science and technology. Her works aim to inspire conversations which illuminate the magic and wonder of the physical world. She utilizes materials common to our everyday experience as a way of revealing what is hidden in plain sight and uses her exhibits, lectures and exploratory research to connect seemingly disparate fields of study. In doing so, she aims to broaden our normative utilitarian view of nature through re-framing phenomenon common to our everyday experience. Her work is best described as a form of neonaturalism, whereby inherent material properties are re-contextualized to reveal their natural response to surroundings. She aims to inspire creative learning through her interactive exhibits and offer a refreshing counterbalance to our increasingly isolating and sterile urban environments.
Lauren Bedal & Travis Bennet
This duo creates collaborative performances built with OpenPerform. OpenPerform is an open source platform for generating real-time, virtual dance performance with motion capture technology as well as other motion capture VR films. She believes her multi-disciplinary background gives her a unique understanding of story, experience, and people.
Lauren Bedal is a designer, dancer, and filmmaker based in San Francisco, California. Lauren currently works at Matter, a design and innovation firm focused on the intersection of industrial, digital, and service design. Outside of Matter, Lauren is currently working on OpenPerform.
Travis Bennett is an interactive technology artist who’s work explores the complex nature of society’s relationship with emerging technologies such as AI, VR, Computer Vision, Real-Time Motion Capture, Brain Computer Interfaces, and 3d Imaging.
Christopher Schardt
Christopher Schardt has been creating large-scale sculptures since 2000, focusing on LEDs since 2014. He works mainly in aluminum and stainless steel. Schardt’s LED pieces are of various sizes and configurations, anywhere from 1,800 to 21,000 individually controllable LEDs. The animated imagery they display depends very much on the setting. Sometimes a slow, perhaps organic pattern is appropriate. Sometimes something photorealistic works better, particularly with closelyspaced LEDs. Other times, energetic, even psychedelic patterns are what is called-for. By accompanying these visuals with music, Schardt vastly increases their impact, and likes to incorporate this whenever possible. He seeks to create sights and sounds that delight and surprise, while staying in concert with the surrounding environment. INTERACTIVITY | LED Lab, the software that controls Schardt’s pieces can respond to various kinds of input: A live camera feed can be mixed into its animated output. It can respond to audio to modify such things as color, position, rotation, and image size. External hardware can send it signals to modify various parameters. IMMERSION | Many of Schardt’s pieces strive to be a place to BE. Rather than just coming up to Firmament, looking for a while at the pretty lights, and moving on, visitors would come, smile, sit down, and then lie down looking up at the lights, sometimes for hours. This piece had many nicknames like “Permanent”. Firmament transcended some art-role boundary. It stopped being just a thing of beauty and became an environment with an emotional impact - calmness, serenity, safety.
Christopher has an immersive installation currently up at The Midway Gallery for the Halation exhibition
Cere Davis
Cere grew up in west coast of the US fascinated with physics and real-world manifestations of dynamic imbalance. After researching volcanic lighting in Alaska and wintering over at South Pole, Antarctica she moved to the Bay Area of California in 2013. Inspired by her creative surroundings, she began using her creative energy and professional background in physics & engineering to explore her passion for creating improbable embodiments through fusing the worlds of sculpture, science and technology. Her works aim to inspire conversations which illuminate the magic and wonder of the physical world. She utilizes materials common to our everyday experience as a way of revealing what is hidden in plain sight and uses her exhibits, lectures and exploratory research to connect seemingly disparate fields of study. In doing so, she aims to broaden our normative utilitarian view of nature through re-framing phenomenon common to our everyday experience. Her work is best described as a form of neonaturalism, whereby inherent material properties are re-contextualized to reveal their natural response to surroundings. She aims to inspire creative learning through her interactive exhibits and offer a refreshing counterbalance to our increasingly isolating and sterile urban environments.
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