JD Beltran, Arts and Culture Fix
SFGate.com
Go on a star trek of your own with the Astrotable, and check out the current state of art + technology tomorrow night in San Jose at SubZERO, the annual intermedia street festival “hi/lo techno-mashup where street meets geek.”
Tired of hanging out on this uncertain earth? Artists and inventors Scott Minneman and Dale MacDonald have created a new way to explore space, and journey to the planets – now Mars, Saturn, or the moon can be at your fingertips (Pluto isn’t a planet anymore, to the distress of many, but you can go there, too, if you like). Scott and Dale have fashioned a tilting and turning tabletop, the Astrotable, to show off the same state-of-the-art 3D imagery and databases of space developed by SCISS, whose Uniview software is used by planetariums around the world. The even nicer thing about it is that you can be at the wheel yourself, and go wherever you want in the known universe.
The AstroTable by Onomy Labs and SCISS from Scott L. Minneman on Vimeo.
Tomorrow night you can try out the Astrotable yourself, along with dozens of other creative, unexpected, and utterly enjoyable escapades at SubZERO, the annual do-it-yourself (diy), artistically bent, hi/lo techno-mashup where street meets geek presented by ZER01 and South FIRST FRIDAYS. From dusk until midnight on June 5, between San Carlos and Reed streets in the city of San Jose, you’ll find two stages of entertainment plus 100 artists, performers, and musicians celebrating the indie creative spirit.
Test-drive a custom low-rider bike, get down on an interactive skateboard, get your fortune told by the ChakraTron (a fortune-telling interactive kinetic light sculpture), try your hands at stop motion, bear witness to urban yarn-bombing, travel back to the future for a nineties-look at cyber fashion, watch a little subversive TV, check out the art cars based on the Flintstones, and listen up for spontaneous acts of percussion, among other treats. The SubZERO Street Guide is your map to all the events and the galleries with shows to complement the revelry outside. Participating galleries include: Anno Domini (they’re the one with the yarn bombers and low-rider bikes), MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (they’ve got El Muertorider, a low-rider 1968 Chevy Impala), San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (a dunk tank for your favorite scapegoat!), San Jose Museum of Quilts + Textiles (see Corinne Okada Takara’s tapestries made of gathered plastic bags and bottles), and works/san jose (where Tom Riebold will show off his robotic walking chair).
Kudos for this event belongs to ZER01: the Art and Technology Network — with an aim of inspiring creativity at the intersection of art, technology and digital culture, they’re the people who produce the amazing 01SJ Biennial, the largest intermedia arts event in the country.
I’ll see you there tomorrow night, where I’ll be at the Astrotable, hanging out on Venus.
on the ZER01 blog
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