Contact: Maridith Geuder
The sense of being immersed in a roomful of abstract water reflections is part of a walk-in exhibition being featured through Feb. 24 at Mississippi State.
Created by Margaret H. Watson, "Liquid Meditation" is an enveloping, three-dimensional artwork on display at the university's National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. Watson is an ERC research assistant.
The 10-by-10-by-10-foot virtual reality environment may be experienced in the center's Computerized Virtual Environment--COVE--from 1-3 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Admission is free.
The ERC is located in the Mississippi Research and Technology Park adjacent to campus. Its COVE exhibit is being shown in conjunction with SIGGRAPH 99, a national traveling collection of computer-generated art being featured this month at the McComas Hall Gallery on campus.
SIGGRAPH is an acronym for the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics, whose membership develops a portable display from work shown at the international organization's annual conferences.
"Liquid Meditation" was part of Watson's thesis for a master of fine arts degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It earlier was exhibited in Europe and at the 1999 SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles.
Both the sights and sounds of Watson's creation are based on observations of her surroundings and are part of an attempt to create a bond between the observer and nature. The use of spatial architectural concepts to draw participants into the exhibit is a way to represent growth and change, she said.
"I filmed images for months and part of the abstract images in the exhibit are real," Watson explained. "Participants navigate through the exhibit and make choices about what happens next."