New Media
Breakthrough artist hitches his rising star to 3-D Web art
PAM DIXON 10-Sep-2000 Sunday
It seems unlikely that an art star would be minted amid a rowdy gathering of 2,000 geeks. But that's precisely what has happened to John Klima, a serious digital artist who has just come into his own in a big way.
At this year's conference of the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH), Klima presented his breakout work -- called "glasbead" -- in the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery and in a rambunctious competitive art forum called the Web 3D Roundup.
For those who have not experienced the 3D Roundup, it is an event where two-dozen or so artists present their digital work to a screeching crowd of about 2,000 conference attendees. The art has to be three-dimensional, and it has to be on the Web. The idea is that the "good" art gets cheered, and works perceived as less wonderful get booed. Attendees vote by paper ballot, and the winner receives the Golden Lasso Award.
Despite the Roundup leaning more toward a Roman Coliseum-style event than a chic SoHo gallery gathering, it is -- surprisingly -- a prestigious event to win. Past winners have scored at least initial attention in the serious world of museum curators and gallery owners.
In Klima's case, the attention has been significant. Since winning the event, he has had meetings with art-world heavyweights and is in discussions with some of the world's largest and most prestigious museums. Klima, speaking from his Brooklyn home, says he is surprised but happy about the changes his Web 3D win has brought.
"Glasbead has already been exhibited at the Postmasters Gallery in New York City, the European Media Arts Festival and the NTT Intercommunication Center in Tokyo, Japan," says Klima. "But it took winning Web 3D to really get noticed."
Right credentials
The 35-year-old Klima, who has a degree in fine arts, has worked as an artist and has also programmed at the highest levels for Microsoft. His seasoned combination of genuine art background and programming skills enables him to be a legitimate artist who happens to be working in the digital medium. He is one of just a handful of emerging artists who have accrued what is perhaps the perfect set of experiences needed to create art such as the glasbead, which requires an artists' eye for color and space and a programmer's skill with code.
Klima came upon the idea for the glasbead as he was pondering how to devise a completely new kind of 3-D interface. "I wanted to create an alternate interface and operating system to what you get with Windows or Mac," says Klima. "A lot of people are thinking about creating 3-D file structures and user interfaces. I wanted to create a 3-D file management system in a spherical structure instead of the familiar hierarchical tree structure."
The artist has succeeded, wildly so. Glasbead is a multi-user "game" that can be played on the Web in 3-D.
"The glasbead is a spherical, 3-D object that users can spin and flip and fling to trigger samples of sounds of their own choosing that they can create, clip from CD, or download," Klima says. "As many as 20 people can play at one time. It's 3-D, but it's not browsable -- it floats on your desktop and you manipulate it. You can run it by yourself, or if you have an adequate computer, you can download all the software and connect live to the server and play with a friend."
Rod 'n' roll
Anyone with a good computer (Pentium 2 and above) and a Web connection can view a simple picture of the glasbead game. It looks like a transparent blue sphere with long, gracious rods sticking out of it. But to play the game, you have to download a series of free programs and interact with the glasbead. After you've downloaded the programs, you click on the game, and it launches.
The glasbead turns and rolls, all the while playing musical clips. You control what you hear by downloading music to the game (or not) and by moving the long rods around with a mouse. As the rods hit each other, they play new sound clips. When more than one person is playing the game, you cooperate with them to play a series of sound clips. It is a dreamlike, sumptuous visual and auditory environment that changes states constantly, depending on your actions and the actions of others playing with you.
Some may recall Hermann Hesse's Nobel Prize-winning book "The Glass Bead Game," in which a worldwide game involving music was hinted at but never described. Hence, the title for Klima's work. ("Glasbead" is the German spelling for glass bead.) "It's not directly based on the book," says Klima. "It's just a loose association."
Klima's next projects include continuing to add to the glasbead and furthering his work on what he calls "holodeck art," a term heard frequently at such conferences as SIGGRAPH. Glasbead is actually a small chunk of holodeck art, "the beginning of the holodeck," as Klima says.
"There are a couple of people who approach 3-D technology as an art form," the artist says. "If you look at the holodeck on `Star Trek,' it's scientific simulation and it's also entertaining and narrative and personal enrichment. The people who are working with `holodeck' (or highly interactive, immersive 3-D technology) right now and look at it as art with a capital A are going to be the grandfathers of a new art form. I want to be one of them."
Based on the glasbead, it looks as though Klima may already be in the front of the line for that distinction.
How to play the glasbead game
To play glasbead, go to http://www.glasbead.com/ . Read and follow the step-by-step instructions.
Total time to get set up is about three minutes. The requirements to play glasbead include a 3-D accelerator as a necessary component, but you can play the glasbead without one installed. (It just looks better with an accelerator.)
-- Pam Dixon Pam Dixon's column about arts and technology appears monthly in Sunday Arts.
Copyright Pam Dixon