Francisco Alarcon Is Helping Engineers and Artists Communicate
December 11, 2019
From a2ru partner Boston University:
“Francisco Alarcon is an artist, he trained as a civil engineer, and he holds a graduate degree in architecture.
That makes him a bit of a unicorn. Alarcon is BU’s inaugural computational artist-in-residence, working with College of Engineering and College of Fine Arts students to explore high-tech artistic projects that use software algorithms, graphic design, fabrication tools, and cutting-edge robotics to create artistic images, video sculptures, and multidisciplinary artwork.
“I find I can listen to engineers and have something to offer them,” Alarcon says of his fall semester residency, which wraps up this month. “There are not that many engineers who collaborate with artists often for one reason: they don’t communicate in the same language.”
His work at BU helps further define the evolving genre of computational art. A video projection loop titled Narrative of a Wave (on display in the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering lobby until December 15) depicts an image of a blue wave suspended in air like a roiling magic carpet. Best seen at night, it’s a mesmerizing representation of water using computer-generated imaging; it is also a commentary on the historic difficulty programmers have faced creating a digital representation of a wave. (Alarcon uses several generations of old programming to make his point.)”
Source: BU Today