“We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history allows people to really maintain rich connections with much larger numbers of people”.

–Pierre Omidyar, eBay Founder

Maybe Omidyar overestimated the ability of technology to bring people together, to create in new ways and form communities that have no physical limits.

Or maybe not.

CHAT (Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology) will explore the impact of technology on our lives; how it has changed the way we interact and how it has stirred the imaginations of artists, helping them create new forms of expression.

CHAT is a digital arts and humanities festival, which will take place across the UNC Chapel Hill campus Feb. 16 – 20. More than two years in the making, the festival is coordinated by the UNC Institute for the Arts and Humanities. RENCI is a key partner in CHAT, and it will be well represented in the four-day, five night itinerary of events. For example:

Psychasthenia is a project that explores the game engine as an artistic medium. Developed by a team led by Joyce Rudinsky, RENCI’s chief domain scientist for digital arts and humanities and UNC associate professor of communication studies, Psychasthenia uses custom-made sensors and input devices to create a novel user interface. The project will be presented on RENCI’s immersive dome at the RENCI engagement center in the ITS Manning Building. RENCI’s Jason Coposky, a senior visualization engineer; Mark Robinson, director of UNC’s multimedia lab; and Victoria Szabo, program director of Duke University’s information science and information studies, are also part of the creative team.

The project The Architecture of Association is led by Duke’s Bill Seaman, a professor in the visual studies program, and will be presented in RENCI’s Social Computing Room, which provides a 360-degree, floor-to-ceiling desktop. Using keywords, metadata and clustering algorithms, the work draws associative links among media elements to form an evolving visual collage.

Patrick Fitzgerald, head of the Advanced Media Lab in NC State’s College of Design, will present Then/Now: 3D Virtual Space as Temporal Telescope on the stereoscopic display in RENCI’s Tele-immersion Room. This virtual depiction of parts of downtown Raleigh encourages users to explore and interact with virtual multimedia kiosks that present images, text and audio of historic buildings, places and events.

There will be much more at CHAT, including the biennial Festival on the Hill performance by the UNC music department, a keynote by the president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, workshops, panels, and faculty and student projects. Check it out at the CHAT Festival website. Take part in the festivities and find out how technology helps us communicate, create and learn.

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