ARTISTS TEAM UP FOR THE FUTURE:
BEHIND THE SCENES OF MAKING ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Abstract
At the beginning of this new century, artists have everything from natural materials to electronic media to make art with and discover new metaphors in the meaning of the work and the process by which it was created. In the past hundred years alone, artists have explored humanity through the different kinds of materials they have used to make art. And with every new material lies the critical quest to invent new techniques, new forms, new approaches, new meanings, new theories and continued dialogues with art history. After more than three decades since the first generation of digital art was produced, perhaps one of the most intriguing directions has been the reinvention of collaboration as an artistic process. Throughout history, collaboration has existed by necessity to facilitate the massive scale of a project or the technological challenges of working in a new medium. Artists today are increasingly working in groups to respond to a variety of options that are available to them, revealing provocative changes in the behind the scenes look at how art is being made.

(art)n's approach to the future of 21st Century Art includes a broad spectrum of disciplines and views that have inspired new concepts of what art is, what it can be and how it can be made. These developments have emerged from working in collaboration with peers from other disciplines, combined with the invention of the group's unique digital imaging processes. Over the past two decades, (art)n has witnessed the transformation from the physical to the virtual, producing a compelling body of work that reveals an elegant portrait of the digital landscape. The following paper will discuss collaboration as an artistic process with specific case studies that include a commissioned WWII Memorial and other war related projects.

Introduction
The art of our times will not only exist as singular objects authored by singular artists; it is evolving as a rich collection of ideas, produced with multiple media by multiple authors, and even in multiple locations at different moments in time. The greatest rewards in producing art under these conditions is creating a shared language for embedding meaning into the unknown outcome of each experimentation.

Successful collaborations inspire a communal spirit that enables a lively exchange of ideas. Every new project presents unique opportunities to take risks and experience encounters with how people relate to one another, depend upon each other and learn ways to construct an environment that is receptive to common goals. The goals of a collaboration are not always fixed from the beginning of a project or the seed of an idea. The more diverse a particular team is, the greater room for discussion, improvisation, and innovative approaches that can give birth to revolutionary discoveries and influential ideas that document our times and delve into the future, or celebrate the past.

Case Study: The Making of the Battle of Midway Memorial
On June 4, 2001, a provocative memorial about the Battle of Midway was dedicated in Chicago as a fascinating reflection of the human spirit. Commissioned by the Public Art Program, Department of Aviation and the City of Chicago for Midway Airport, this monumental project takes advantage of every means available to contemporary artists. From the artistic process of collaboration to conventional materials and electronic media, the making of the memorial was shaped by a specific set of interdisciplinary skills supported by a diverse community of voices that was assembled and directed by (art)n.

The Battle of Midway Memorial 2001, by (art)n & collaborators, installation view, Midway Airport Chicago

The memorial effectively uses computer graphics techniques combined with the visual language and navigation principles of new media, offering an immersive, temporal experience that is both virtual in nature and rich in historic facts. The memorial, a 20'x20'x14' mixed media installation features exterior walls carved with photographs on aluminum, supported by a canopy of processed images that are visually linked to a narrative journey from within the center of the experience. This large-scale project relied on collaboration as an artistic process to record a historic collaboration that transformed American history. The Battle of Midway was a triumph of leadership, intelligence, logistics, and teamwork - which is mirrored by the methods used to memorialize its relevance to future generations. In essence, it is a collaboration about collaboration.

Over a period of 18 months, the (art)n group assembled a team of artists, designers, architects, animators, historians, veterans, families of veterans, WWII history enthusiasts, and even young history students to reconstruct the facts, oral histories and personal memories of a turning point in American history. This dynamic community was as wide ranging and as far reaching as possible, spanning multiple time-zones, continents, cultures, disciplines and generations to celebrate and contemplate a single moment that was called "a glorious page in history". The Public Art Program, Department of Aviation and City of Chicago also contributed insights and support throughout all stages of the project.

The research for the Battle of Midway Memorial was an intensive process for the (art)n group, requiring extensive on-line and off-line research from various sources, including books, videos, web sites and daily correspondences with Battle of Midway veterans and historians. Essentially, the group had to become Battle of Midway experts in parallel with planning and constructing the actual artwork. Selected high-resolution scans of historic photographs were used with permission from the U.S. Naval Historical Center, Indiana University, National Geographic Society, as well as personal photos from Battle of Midway veterans. A web site was maintained during the planning and production stages of the project, used as a design document to communicate project objectives, production plans and research results, which were shared with the assembled community.

The veterans played a large role in the making of the memorial. They were both subject and authors of the event and its documentation. They supplied photographs, quotes, oral histories and critique, separated fact from fiction and shed light on important details. The Battle of Midway community also functioned as consultants for the group during the construction of the 3D models of the aircraft carriers, aircraft and plane formations seen in the final piece. Just as the Battle of Midway community had to educate a group of artists about their history and culture, the (art)n group had to educate them about its processes and aesthetics. This exchange of information created a special link between artist and subject that would not have happened under other circumstances. Subsequently, a shared language emerged from this dialogue that embedded new meaning into the final piece. And in many cases, the dialogue helped the group to reconstruct key Midway details from memory, as with the following passage from U.S. Veteran,

Ed Fox:
As I was on the island (Sand) the ships both US and IJN were not in view....some of the Japanese aircraft were. I was on the most southern tip of Sand away from the target area. When I first observed the Japanese planes they were diving from the northwest toward the north portion of Sand, where the hanger and other support buildings were located.

You asked about the formation. There were several aircraft, six I think diving, in close formation, the lead aircraft had a wing man off his right wing. The next two followed close hauled but the third two were some distance behind. In the pull out all the aircraft headed east and did not gain much altitude for some distance. It was then I was told not to take cover as one IJN aircraft came from the south, low, strafing. Our carrier and land-based planes did such a fine job the Japanese did not care to return. The above drama took place in all of five or six minutes if that. The weather was clear, warm with spotty clouds.

In the following passage, Bill Price, moderator of the Internet's Battle of Midway Roundtable describes key elements represented in the memorial to the community, including the veterans who participated in the project:

The memorial is crowned by a canopy four feet in height, and all four faces display heroic size photographs of the important Navy leaders -- Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admiral Raymond Spruance, and those who contributed to the victory, Commander Joseph Rochefort who lead the cryptographic unit at HYPO in breaking the Japanese Navy's operational code. The founder of Naval cryptography, Agnes Driscoll or Miss Aggie as she was called, is also shown in a portrait, and was the first to break the Japanese Navy's operational code that was in use at Midway. There is a group photo of the pilots in the ill-fated Torpedo 8 squadron from the U.S.S. Hornet. The only survivor, ENS George Gay, is circled. And among those photographs is a young Marine from the 6th Marine Defense Battalion guarding the island. The photograph was taken before assignment to Midway, and it is none other than Ed Fox, a member of our Battle of Midway Roundtable. Ed was there along with another member, Otis Kight from the Yorktown. Both of these men have been active contributors to the Roundtable and to (art)n in their development of this magnificent tribute to the people and the battle. Also present was Bill Surgy of the Yorktown, who accompanied Ballard in his search for remains of the Yorktown. (Robert Ballard produced a National Geographic Documentary about his expedition to find the U.S.S. Yorktown, which included American and Japanese veterans.

Ed Fox was actively involved throughout the project, supplying photographs, letters and personal stories about his experience. The memorial features an etched photograph of him with a quote from a personal letter to (art)n that was carved on aluminum with a proprietary computer numeric control process developed for this project by one of the collaborators who fabricated the main 20'x20'x14' structure:

For all the guys that never returned, for all the men that gave that last effort and could not get back to be as fortunate as I, I will tell the kids about what you did and why.
-PFC. Edgar R. Fox, USMC RET. Elementary School Volunteer

The memorial also respectfully includes Japanese leaders and veterans, represented with photographs and computer graphics images that span the period of the battle to the present. An author from the Battle of Midway community provided historic facts, details and photos that were used in the piece to compliment a quote and photograph from Robert Ballard's National Geographic documentary. Also carved in aluminum on the memorial's exterior with a reunion photograph, the quote reads:

Today, America and Japan are working together to bring about world peace . . . we believe that the innumerable spirits who sacrificed their lives for their country should be forever honored for their distinguished service.

-Haruo Yoshino, Japanese Survivor from Battle of Midway

The hands-on behind the scenes details for this project were arduous for the (art)n group, and focused on acquiring and creating the appropriate assets, designing and building the structure and choosing the correct processes to realize the concept of the awarded proposal. Several micro-teams were assembled over 18 months to administer all aspects of the proposal, budget, final installation, documentation and dedication of the project. Extensive research was initiated from the beginning of the proposal and grew to the elaborate facilitation of communications with the Midway community and evolved with the acquisition of assets to the daily management of the internal design document for both the project and web site. A design team storyboarded the project, created concept designs for the PHSCologram mural, and renderings of the installation. A production team created original artwork for the memorial and installed it on site at the new building of the airport, just days before the dedication ceremony that was hosted by Mayor Daley, and attended by veterans who contributed to the project.

The two 13'x5' PHSCologram murals are the focal point of the memorial, immersed in elements that weave historic fact with personal memoir, and document the group's relationship with the Midway community. The PHSColograms created for this project illuminate the history of the battle in four parts: Task Force 17/Task Force 16, Midway Defenders, COMINT, and Japanese and American Veterans Today. These rendered scenes include historic images of the Midway Defenders and Imperial Japanese Navy, combined with some of the aircraft and carriers used at Midway: USS Yorktown, USS Enterprise, SBD Dauntless, F4F Wildcat, Douglas TBD Devastator, PBY Catalina and others. SGI, MAC, and PC computers were used for the hardware, SoftImage, PhotoShop and proprietary software were used to create the content, which was produced at (art)n and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The PHSCologram process is collaborative in nature. It is a complex process that requires a number of rendered CGI frames, photographed at slightly different angles with proprietary software, which is combined with an algorithm that creates a blurred image when output to film. The final piece is laminated to Plexiglas with a black-and-white matching viewing screen on the reverse to interpret the rear-lit digital photograph as a three dimensional sculpture. (art)n was assembled as an evolving group of artists in the mid-1980s to explore collaboration as an artistic process, from which the PHSCologram medium emerged as an artistic medium that lends itself to both small and large-scale projects that require the interdisciplinary skills of diverse voices.

Related Projects
Prior to creating the Battle of Midway Memorial, the group produced a commissioned series of works related to the WWII era for the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. A group of sixteen PHSColograms installed in the Rotunda Gallery as a climax to the museum experience, re-presents objects from the museum's archive to document Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust. A large team was assembled for this project, working on both coasts and in the Midwest, primarily communicating over the Internet. The museum's director and staff also contributed insights and support to the project, which was inspired by an earlier collaboration the group produced with The Shoah Foundation.

These large-scale collaborative projects emerged from previous works the group produced that promote social discourse about the nature of war and technology. In 1991, the group created "The Equation of Terror" which was first shown at SIGGRAPH and in 1986, an earlier analog piece called "Nuclear Necrophilia." In between these projects, the group collaborated with NASA, JPL and the U.S. Army to document various subjects that include computational fluid dynamics, space station concept designs, artificial heart research, satellite communication, mission rehearsal exercises, and weapon designs. These works improve visual communication between scientists and their peers, and help to educate and evangelize science and technology to the general public. For the artist, they raise questions about how technology is used and stimulate discussion about the impact it may have on the future.

"The Equation of Terror" 1991 PHSCologram by (art)n
This image was included in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 1996 exhibition catalogue,
Art in Chicago 1945-1995, curated by Lynne Warren

"The Equation of Terror" was produced in 1991 in response to The Gulf War and was later juxtaposed for a gallery exhibition with video game icons produced in collaboration with game designers. The "Equation" included 3D models representing mustard gas, small pox and the stock market crash of 1929 combined with scanned historic photographs to explore chemical warfare, biological warfare and economic devastation. The exhibition introduced interdisciplinary collaboration to new audiences, and featured works that continue to take on new meaning over time. The "Equation" in particular, is not only a collaboration between peers, but also between media, and the relationships people make with art and the opinions they form about history. A critic from New Art Examiner reviewed the show and concluded "It appears that not only is physical reality waning in our quest for the virtual, but that our concept of history itself is fading into a flow of gratuitous information and imagery. In it, the complexities of history have been reduced and made equivalent to every other image, ready to be grabbed and manipulated with little attention to coherent meaning and responsibility." This intriguing piece proved to be responsible, and foreshadowed social discourse that is taking place as a national debate.

Conclusion
As technology continues to inspire new processes, the process of making art may extend beyond the hands of one to the communities of many. Artists working today have what seems like unlimited materials and options to work with, and this may require the diversity of many voices to express contemporary ideas. One approach to the behind the scenes of making art is the formation of multiple communities. In this new dynamic, a rich collection of ideas evolves from discussion and improvisation to generate a singular work that emerges from this exchange of information. Today's collaborative works produced by hybrid groups are transforming interdisciplinary culture into a discipline from which a new process for making art may evolve. And with every new process that is developed, the artistic process of collaboration will continue to be reinvented.