Event 3: Color, Light, Motion Toni Dove

 On May 28, I attended a lecture by guest speaker Toni Dove. Color Light Motion is an online series that features artists and professors in a discussion about art from the Bermant Collection of media and kinetic arts. Through the different lenses of her art, we examined how color, sound, and motion can bring out emotions in lifeless works. I had never seen any of her work before but coming from a sound background I was intrigued by her ideas and processes of creating art. She went through different projects talking about each one. The first is titled The Lasso. The piece is an object in motion that makes a sound. The movement and sound combined to create a fantastic piece of art demonstrating what happens to make a non-human object display features and the form of a human. Another piece that I found interesting was The Dress That Eats Souls. 

This piece combines robotics, sound, and video to create an innovative storytelling piece. You are pulled into the dress, witnessing the history and connection of those who have worn the dress. The dress evolves consuming those who wear it. As time passes and opens up a dialogue about technological change, our consumption of it, and its consumption of us. Moving into more of the dialogue between us and technology, another piece that was talked about was Lucid Possession, which looks at our interactions with the digital and analog world. 

She asks the question “What is the boundary between the computer and human touch, where does the body end? I believe this piece examines that through the avatars we saw on screen and the story that was presented to us.

Images from: https://tonidove.com/