The Oregon State University campus has seen a number of intriguing questions raised this fall:

• Imagine an orchestra of musicians, but instead of oboes, violins, and flutes, each person on stage has a networked laptop computer and custom-designed speaker. As a group they are capable of filling a concert hall with evocative and remarkable sound. What creations are possible for such a “laptop orchestra”?

• Consider also how technology can help us visualize and understand in new ways the tremendous volume of data we can now collect about our world — can this data be “art” and how in that sense can art help science?

• Everyone gets that technology evolves at a breakneck pace. But what about the ways in which this pace of change transforms how we see and understand the world around us, through our cities, and houses, and daily activities? Continue reading →