This fall, two Brown alumni return to campus to present Liminal Luminance, an exhibition culminating twenty-one years of collaborative making. For one of the alum, it's also a homecoming to a program he helped build.
Artists Edrex Fontanilla and Robert Goldschmidt discuss their exhibition, on view at the Granoff Center this fall. Video by Holly Gaboriault.
DRAFT COPY - RE-PASTE ONCE APPROVED
This fall, passersby in the Granoff Center’s Fribourg Family Atrium Gallery may find themselves floating in the space between digital and physical reality. That interstice is the conceptual departure point for Liminal Luminance, an exhibition of work by two Brown alumni, Edrex Fontanilla ’00, ’02 M.A., ’12 M.F.A. and Robert Goldschmidt ’03, on view through October 4. The exhibition compiles* over twenty years of collaboration between the two artists, a connection that began– where else?-- at Brown University.
Shortly after Goldschmidt graduated with a degree in neuroscience in 2003, he and Fontanilla combined their respective expertises to create work utilizing emerging technologies that blurred analog and virtual space through projection and real-time custom algorithms, many of which are now on display in Liminal Luminance. What is not readily apparent when looking at works like Tempest, a mutable sculpture composed of maple wood, real-time custom software, and projection, or Cascade, which fixes a video art piece into large-format still prints, though, is that Edrex Fontanilla’s experiences at Brown have shaped not only his creative practice, but the creative possibilities available at Brown for the whole Brunonian community.
That’s because Fontanilla wasn’t just a three-time student of the University; he also served for eleven years as a lecturer in Visual Art and as a manager of Instructional New Media. His stewardship of multimedia and emerging technology explorations paved the way for the creation of BAI’s Multimedia Lab, now part of our constellation of Creative Arts and Technology Spaces.
Opened in 2011, The Khoo Multimedia Lab offers students access to a range of hardware and software technologies to fulfill creative work, including a large-format fine arts printer, high-performance computer workstations for video editing, digital drawing tablets, and more. Through the foundations Fontanilla laid for the MML nearly 15 years ago, countless creative projects have been realized on Brown’s campus, and the Creative Arts and Technology Spaces program has grown to include the Cogut Physical Media Lab, recording studio, a library of circulating equipment, and more.
During his time working at Brown, Fontanilla saw the construction and opening of the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts in 2011. Today, his work is on display inside of it: in the Fribourg Family Atrium Gallery, and in the legacy of the Creative Arts and Technology Spaces. Liminal Luminance represents more than just the confounding nature of perception; it also represents a homecoming for the two artists, and a chance to reflect on all they have built.
Behind the Scenes @ BAI is the Brown Arts Institute's editorial platform, offering a series of peeks at the art work behind the artworks. BAI presents the culmination of the creative process across many media (the performances, the exhibitions, the screenings), but we also celebrate the evolving, the in-progress, the iterative, and the time, research, and collaboration it takes to bring an idea to life. There's always something happening here: a candid conversation with a visiting scholar, a course visit to a church of robots, a team of specialists reshaping the Main Hall into a whole new venue for the next big show, artists conducting research in the Physical Media Lab. We're here to show you both the method and the madness.
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