Big, big art
Supernova brings boundarypushing animated art to Denver’s massive LED screens
In just three years, the digital art showcase known as Supernova has grown from a quirky little event trying to get noticed into a fullfledged festival spanning five days, importing artists from across the country, and stretching into some of the region’s best galleries and performance spaces.
It’s still quirky. And that, no doubt is why people are paying attention. Supernova isn’t only different for Denver, it also may be a oneofakind in the world.
That’s because the fest’s main events take place outdoors on the massive LED screens downtown, which happen to be owned by the nonprofit Denver Theatre District, a growing supporter of
arts in the city.
The district usually sells advertising time on the screens, a clever way of supporting its budget. But for Supernova, the ads are replaced with programs of short animated works, created or enhanced digitally, that fall under the category of “motionbased art.”
“We use the term as a catchall because we have to explain that as our niche, but it’s really much greater than that,” said Ivar Zeile, who runs the fest as the part of the group Denver Digerati.
While it’s not exactly new — people have been making digital art as long as computers have been around — the kind of technologically advanced fare Supernova specializes in remains unfamiliar to most people.
So, here are a few of the usual questions people have — though, keep in mind, all of the answers could be followed by the sentence “but, not always,” because digital art is constantly evolving and too diverse to pin down.
What is it?
As its name implies, motionbased art moves. You watch it on a screen, and its roots are in the experimental films of the early 20th century. Like those films, it is often a combination of easytograsp images and more elusive visuals that come from the creative mind of the artist.
It can look like a cartoon, or a comic, or it can appear as realistic as a straightforward Hollywood movie. It can feature only patterns or colors or it can be super political or wildly trippy. (Actually, most of it is trippy.)
It can also be short or longish. Supernova’s fare ranges from about 90 seconds to about 6 minutes, though there are exceptions. A lot of digital artists reject the idea of time because their work is on a continuous loop. It never starts or stops.
Does it tell a story?
Sometimes. Motionbased artists often use their work as a narrative tool, though that can be challenged by the fact that the pieces tend to be short. That said, they can tell tall tales of superheroes or futuristic worlds or simply follow some cute insect around on its daily journey. Those are arbitrary examples because the sky is the limit. Digital artists are bound only by their imaginations — and their ability to program.
Often, though, the works are full of rich, highly developed and terrifically nuanced characters either realworld or hypernatural.
That said, narrative isn’t the rule at all, and the more sophisticated digital pieces opt for something more fantastical, more abstract like contemporary art or something closer to optical art. You’re not always supposed to “get” it.
About half the pieces in Supernova are narrative, while the other half are more experiential, according to Zeile.
Who makes it?
Artists young and old make digital art, though the programsavvy work in a happening like Supernova skews young. It’s just the way of the tech world.
It’s easy to picture digital artists hovered over their laptops in coffee shops, and that’s certainly true for a lot of them. They find or develop programs that allow them to code their ideas or manipulate their raw materials — then work them to the max.
But there’s more to it. A lot of digital artists — maybe most of them these days — work in other media as well. They may be filmmakers, painters, photographers or sculptors who make things and then digitize them as part of their process.
Brooklynbased artist Katie Torn, who will travel to Supernova as a competition judge and also to show her work, starts the oldschool artist way — with a paintbrush in her studio. Then she goes “back and forth between physical making and digital making.” She ends up with what she thinks of as “a moving painting or virtual sculpture.”
The current breed of successful digital artist is serious, driven and professional. “Their education is no different than painters or sculptors coming out of typical art schools,” said Zeile. But somewhere they veer off from the usual objectmaking. “The technology lures them.”
Is there a market for it?
Not really. A lot of collectors have digital pieces though only a handful specialize in them. Galleries are challenged to show the work in meaningful ways, and that makes developing customers difficult. A lot of business is done online and on the cheap.
Also, what, exactly, are people buying? A jump drive? A web link to download? Those things are real certainly, but a hard sell. To make them stand out, digital works are often sold in limited editions, like prints, so only so many will be made.
How do I approach it?
It’s art. Approach it like a painting. Love it or hate it. Move on to the next thing.
Supernova makes that easy. It’s free and outside. There is a featured daylong program on Saturday, Sept. 22, but It’s designed so that people can come and go. Because it appears on those giant screens — including an additional screen set up under the Denver Performing Arts Complex’s canopy — a large segment of the people who experience it do so by accident. They just happen to be downtown.
There are also more proactive ways of attending Supernova. An exhibit by Jonathan Monaghan, one of the bigger names in the field, kicks off with an opening reception on Tuesday, Sept. 18, at the Philip J. Steele Gallery at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design.
That’s followed by the Wednesday opening of a show by Robert Seidel at Understudy, the contemporary gallery at the Colorado Convention Center; Thursday’s shorts program at the Sie Film Center on East Colfax; and a Friday start for a major showcase of work at Redline Art Center in Curtis Park.
That all leads up to Saturday’s big outdoor event in and around DPAC, which is followed by a Sunday live animation and sound performance at CU Boulder’s Black Box, featuring Seidel, Max Hattler and Ryan Wurst.
The names might not be familiar — or the work — but they are topnotch. Plus, it’s free, only in Denver, and a rare chance to indulge your quirky side.
“Something is going to grip you, maybe all of it, maybe not all of it, but it’s going to effect you in some way,” said Zeile.