Invest Ottawa Lobby – Artist in Residence Project
Posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2014
The City of Ottawa, in collaboration with Invest Ottawa, Algonquin College, ArtEngine and Illuminartists, a digital media artist group, recently undertook a first ever Artist’s Residency project at Invest Ottawa’s offices located at 80 Aberdeen Street.
The project placed the Luminartist team within the business incubation offices of Invest Ottawa. Over the course of the residency the artists, with the assistance of Professor James Acres and student Kevin Schaeken, provided by Applied Research and Innovation at Algonquin College, designed and created a digital installation for the main floor lobby area of the building. In transforming the space, the experience of entering the building creates an innovative and engaging experience for the visitors and staff of the facility and shows a bespoke, cutting edge digital art installation.
Julie DuPont from the City of Ottawa Public Art Program, who coordinated the project said: “One of the main goals over the course of the residency was to foster creative collaboration and idea sharing between the digital media artists, the Algonquin student and the SMEs co-located within the Invest Ottawa Accelerator. Through this dialogue and collaborative process a greater understanding of diverse creative disciplines was achieved.”
The digital media artists strongly believe in interactive forms where the people passing by and viewing the artwork can participate through motion, sound, and social media.
By opening the lobby door a business person’s journey starts as an idea, and then becomes reality in the form of a moving pulse of light energy across one of two light beams suspended on the ceiling of the lobby. The energy contained within the building is additionally symbolized through the many voices of Invest Ottawa residents – pressing an ear against the wall will make these voices clearer, reminding the visitor that they are not alone in our endeavours. In addition, the sharing of knowledge through digital communication is key and is represented. Whenever somebody tweets @Invest_Ottawa, many pulses of light energy are triggered to move quickly along one of the two paths.
Anthony Scavarelli and Henri Kuschkowitz were the digital media artist team from Luminartists. They describe the Invest Ottawa Lobby project as “representing the many individual journeys and energies of Ottawa businesses as they start with an idea and move it towards success. It is within Invest Ottawa’s accelerator that opportunities for collaboration and shared experiences with peers are created to spark innovation.”
Funding for this project was provided by the City of Ottawa Public Art Program and the Algonquin College Office of Applied Research and Innovation Design Centre, supported by the NSERC College and Community Innovation program.
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