On a recent Saturday night in St. Louis, the downtown corner of Tucker and Washington was the site of a curious new sort of art exhibition. Those who witnessed the happenings there, and who knew what it was all about, came away awed by the possibilities shown by what they had seen.

Let's start at the beginning. MediaARTS Alliance promotes "media art," a mix'n'match style marrying the latest advances in digital technology to the art of telling stories. A display by a media artist can be described as a sort of high-tech flipbook, with all the pictures serving as commentary on our increasingly confusing and fast-paced world. It is so different from what has been seen, it is difficult to describe to someone who hasn't seen it being practiced. And that is the heart of what MediaARTS does-it presents a space where media artists not only work, but can be seen working, thanks to large streetfront windows facing both Tucker and Washington. Watching the artist work is an essential part of this form, because the art is more about the process of creating than it is about a finished product.

This particular Saturday evening, the media artist (or visual ambient jockey) was Ben Kiel, a Graphic Design/Computer Science student from Washington University. He and MediaARTS curator Joyce Rudinsky came just before 9 pm to set up equipment, including a Macintosh computer, a video camera, and a projector. Kiel worked with his back to the window facing Washington, grabbing images off the Internet while taking a live feed from the camera looking over his shoulder-literally, eyes in the back of his head. The mix of web images, street images, and text was then projected on a screen facing Tucker. The creator and the created being thus perpendicular to each other made for some interesting footage. Passersby on Washington would see the camera, stop, and do goofy dances in front of it-having no idea they were being projected twice life size just around the corner!

Kiel had earlier explained his ideas behind the art. "I'm interested in how media culture is changing into a Orwellian media culture," he said, "where spying in on peoples' lives is considered to have some sort of entertainment value and worth, where the ethics of this intrusion are ignored."

Kiel had these words in a file peeking up from the bottom of his computer screen: "Can you see you? We're watching you watch yourself...always watching, always watch--" It cut off there, mid-word, as though the writer was too busy watching to finish his thought. It didn't take much time in front of the screen to find out what was so consuming about it. The screen showed off the aforementioned goofy dancers, the infamous JenniCam (one of the most famous webcams, featuring a young woman who broadcasts her life via live feed 24 hours a day) and images from webcams from around the world, updated as Kiel pointed and clicked. Web images and live video faded in and out of each other, making it seem like the view out on Washington was just another peek into cyberspace.

Media art is at its frontier stage, where the art of recording sound was when Edison recited Mary Had a Little Lamb on to his phonograph. So media artists are innovators at the moment, not necessarily technically brilliant, because no one has the technical kinks worked out yet. What matters today is the idea, not so much how well that idea comes across. Wait a few years to see fine craftsmanship come into play in this medium (or media, I guess we should say, since the trick is all about balancing different sources of visual information). Still, the display was filled with aesthetically pleasing moments as well as simply interesting ones. At one point the taillights of a car out on the street perfectly framed the images on the web. At another, those inside the media lab walked past the projector and their silhouettes cut off the view. A perfect metaphor of how human beings get in the way of technology!

The next visual ambient jockey will be at the MediaARTS lab from 9 to midnight on Friday, October 8. At the controls that night will be Beige Records' Joe Beuckman, along with Abby Klobnak. Joe has had a fascination with media production for a long time, and has done similar work at the now-defunct new media club Cabool. Check the website at http://www.mediaarts.org/ or call (314) 655-1204 for the latest information.

Copyright 1999 Angela Pancella, All Rights Reserved