Syracuse iSchool announces winners of its Windows Project

Syracuse iSchool announces winners of its Windows ProjectMay 20, 2009Margaret Costello Spillettmcostell@syr.edu

The School of Information Studies (iSchool) has selected six art installations to fill the spaces in the ground floor window wells of Hinds Hall, moving the iSchool’s Windows Project one step closer to completion. An additional proposal by internationally renowned artist and ceramics professor Margie Hughto was selected to receive a special Dean’s Design Prize. She and her four assistants will install the work on a wall along the first floor hallway of Hinds Hall.

The winners are as follows:

• “Connectivity,” by School of Architecture undergraduate Thomas Day, Room 027;
• “Hovering Nodes or Sunray Moire,” by School of Architecture assistant professor Clare Olsen, Room 027;
• video imagery piece (title to come) by College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) adjunct faculty members John Mannion and Aaron Hraba, Room 020;
• “Espalier,” by VPA School of Art and Design associate professor Errol Willett, Room 018;
• an installation by VPA School of Art and Design part-time assistant professor Gail Hoffman, Room 018; and
• “Miscellaneous” by VPA sculpture graduate student Darcy Van Buskirk, Room 010.

A panel of judges-iSchool Dean Elizabeth D. Liddy, College of Visual and Performing Arts Dean Ann Clarke, iSchool Alumni Relations Director and alumna Barbara Settel and Deborah Ryan, senior curator at the Everson Museum of Art-selected the winners from 12 semifinalists who gave public presentations of their designs on April 30. Their selections were based on the following criteria: quality of the idea presented, including originality, impact, scale and connections made to its context; suitability to the proposed site; feasibility; and durability and maintenance requirements.

“I was thrilled with the initial level of participation shown by the 34 student and faculty teams who submitted proposals,” Liddy says. “All of the semi-finalists were exceptional, and the variety in the six selected windows will really enliven Hinds Hall. It was great fun to hear the semi-finalists interpret the iSchool back to us when they appeared before the judge’s panel.”

In the coming weeks, the winners will meet individually with a team of project coordinators, including the iSchool’s Roger Merrill and Steve Block, to plan fabrication and installation of each of the pieces. Throughout the next phases of the project, the artists and support team will coordinate with the University through Physical Plant and the Office of Campus Planning, Design, and Construction to create the seven artworks. The iSchool hopes to have all the works installed over the summer, and is organizing a large opening reception in the fall to celebrate the completion of the installations.

Liddy was impressed with the quality of entrants, especially the work of Hughto. Her work, “Information Spiral: From the Clay Tablet to the Computer Screen, from the Ice Age to the Space Age,” will be showcased in the high-traffic area of Hinds Hall in the first floor hallway. Hughto and team members Shawn Rommevaux ’06, Leslie Nicoletti, Randy Jones G’10, and Tim Brockhaus ’09 will be installing the piece along the main floor’s curved hallway, across from the Student Services Suite and the visitors’ reception desk. “We are honored to exhibit the work of an artist of Margie Hughto’s caliber in our school,” Liddy says. “Her vision for this piece does a wonderful job of capturing the historical evolution of the role of information in society and speaks to the centrality of information in human development.”

Hughto has works in numerous collections across the United States, including the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo; and Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. She has also completed many public art commissions, including one for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York City for the Cortlandt Street subway station at the World Trade Center entitled, “Trade, Treasure, and Travel.” It survived the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.The Windows Project was managed by iSchool Ph.D. student Jaime Snyder and VPA adjunct professor Anne Cofer, who helped lay the groundwork for future collaborations between the two schools.

“The interdisciplinarity revealed in the Windows Project should, and will, continue to be supported by VPA and the iSchool, as both Dean Clarke and I are committed to it,” Liddy says.

To see renderings of the proposed art and to track the progress of the installations, visit: http://windows.ischool.syr.edu.