Chunky Frog Time, 2014
By Brian Knep
Chunky Frog Time is a new generative art installation by Brian Knep, created for the Boston Harbor Islands Welcome Center located on Boston’s Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. The Welcome Center is the visitor information center for the Boston Harbor Islands national park area. Starting Friday, June 27th and running only after sunset, the animation is of a frog swimming against the tide of time, cycling from tadpole to juvenile and back with each kick. Moving across an ever changing made-made landscape, the frog’s struggles represent the ebb and flow on the islands, as well as the relationship between nature and our idea of nature.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Brian Knep is a media artist whose works range from large-scale interactive installations to microscopic sculptures for nematodes. He was the first artist-in-residence at Harvard Medical School, working side-by-side with scientists, using their tools and techniques to explore alternative meanings and ways of connecting to the world. Knep’s Deep Wounds, commissioned by the Office for the Arts at Harvard University, has won awards from Ars Electronica, the International Association of Art Critics, and Americans for the Arts, who selected it as one of the best public-art projects of 2007. NY.
His work has also been shown at the Denver Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the RISD Museum, the Aldrich Center for Contemporary Art, and others; and he has grants and awards from Creative Capital, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the LEF Foundation, among others.
Knep holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Computer Science, both from Brown University. He also studied ceramics at the Radcliffe Ceramics Studio and glass blowing at Avon and Diablo Glass. Early in his career he worked as a Senior Software Engineer at Industrial Light & Magic, working on films such as Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, and Star Trek: Generations. While there, he developed tools including two for which he and three others were awarded technical Academy Awards. Knep also helped found Nearlife, a high-end design and technology company, creating interactive experiences for science and children’s museums. His publications have appeared in computer graphics and computer-human interaction journals.
Knep lives and works in Boston and is represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NY.
ABOUT THE ART AT THE BOSTON HARBOR ISLANDS WELCOME CENTER
Boston Cyberarts, the National Park Service, and Boston Harbor Islands Alliance have collaborated on an ongoing project to commission public algorithmic art for display on the LED screens at the park Welcome Center on the Greenway between Fanueil Hall and the Ferry Ticket Center on Long Wharf. Boston Cyberarts commissions algorithmic artists, asking them to write computer programs that will create real time generative art that will be constantly changing. This program ties into the innovative strengths of the Boston area, using digital art algorithms to heighten the interest in Boston Harbor’s history and natural complex ecosystems.