Moogfest partners with Research Triangle Park on multi-year partnership to shape the future of science and engineering in the Triangle
(Durham, NC) – March 30, 2015 – Moogfest and Research Triangle Park (RTP) have entered a five year partnership to celebrate the creative force behind scientific and technological innovations. The partnership is multi-part, including ‘future media’ art installations and public programs that reinforce RTP’s vision of a vibrant future based on big ideas. As one of Moogfest’s official Presenting Partners, RTP is dedicated to supporting educational initiatives at Durham Public Schools, and co-presenting events during the festival and year-round at RTP.
For RTP, a partnership with Moogfest introduces the Park to a broader audience: neighbors living in Durham and Moogfest attendees interested in science and technology. It provides a platform to communicate the vision for the Park Center Development as a truly new kind of collaborative space.
“At RTP, we have a commitment to education, pushing boundaries and exploring that unknown area that exists when art, technology, science and music converge,” says Bob Geolas, President and CEO of RTP. “Partnering with Moogfest allows us to see this kind of collaboration in action, and it’s our hope to take what we learn and apply it to the ongoing redevelopment of RTP.”
“Moogfest, at its core, seeks to create a space through the festival where new ideas and new work can come to life,” says Marisa Brickman, Moogfest’s Festival Director. “Park Center will be a new kind of ‘work, stay, play’ development that reimagines how spaces can inspire collaboration and innovation. The convergence of new technology and art are true to both brand’s DNA.”
Each year, Moogfest will commission a new creative art installation to explore themes important to RTP and their community of innovation. For the 2016 event, organizers are working with Floating Point Collective, a group that created an environmental installation for Downtown Durham entitled, Convergence. “Much like The Frontier at RTP, we think that our installation will be a unique point of convergence in the center of Durham,” says participating artist Jack Kalish. “A wonderful space for people to meet, interact, and collaborate.”
RTP’s partnership with Moogfest includes three major components:
RTP Convergence
RTP Convergence will be an interactive installation in downtown Durham’s CCB Plaza that invites people to work with each other and the environment to collaboratively create cityscapes made of light.
Developed by Floating Point Collective, a field of LED rods form a volumetric display. Each rod is equipped with a touch sensor. When touched by a participant, colored light grows from their fingers, creating a light structure that rises into the sky and spreads outward through the other rods.
When people are not interacting with the sculpture directly, another layer of interaction is revealed. The light city is affected by real time light data, shifting colored particles and allowing colors to mix in organic ways.
In developing this concept, Floating Point Collective was inspired by research practices and discoveries that have come out of RTP. The designers were also inspired by the vision expressed in RTP’s redevelopment plans: a sustainable urban community that evolves in harmony with nature.
RTP Future Cities Conversation
Moogfest will kick off with a town hall-style conversation on how our “future cities” will combine information technology with buildings and urban infrastructure. A reimagined workplace, and increasingly flexible notions of recreation and entertainment, are the backdrop for an exciting collaboration between architects, planners, technologists, and artists: Tomorrowland is being built today. What are the pressing issues for designers and developers trying to imagine 10, 20, 50 years into the future? How do we balance safety and privacy, sustainability and open green space, overcrowding and happy collisions?
RTP STEAM Program
On Thursday, May 19; Friday, May 20 and Saturday, May 21, Moogfest’s RTP STEAM program will invite kids in select classes at Durham Public Schools to participate in tours, workshops, seminars and performances designed to promote science, technology, engineering, art and math.
This includes:
Specially curated programs:
- guided tours of the RTP Convergence installation + several of the other 15 installations at Moogfest
- hands-on engineering workshops in a pop-up Moog production facility
Access to already existing Moogfest programs:
- Afrofuturism seminar
- In-the-round music masterclass with producer/musician Daniel Lanois
- The Shimon Project – sessions with a robotic marimba player designed to create meaningful and inspiring musical interactions with humans (presented by Georgia Tech)
Free Community Programming
On Saturday, May 21, members of the Triangle community are invited to attend a day filled with activities that are free and open. Beginning at noon, DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba! Will be hosting events at the American Tobacco Campus. Later in the day, attendees will have the opportunity to hear from Bootsy Collins, Mark Mothersbaugh and Malcolm Mooney.
To view the entire schedule by location, click here.
Moogfest is the most important festival for electronic creativity in the Southeastern United States. Its three-day synthesis of music, art and technology features expert panels, workshops, film screenings, experimental performances and installations, plus a nightly lineup of music pioneers.
In July, Moogfest announced its move from Asheville to Durham, where it will transform popular parts of the city’s booming downtown into showcases for the region’s renowned tech community and cultural scene. Moogfest’s Durham debut spans May 19-22, 2016.
RTP — a cornerstone of the region’s high tech economy — recently announced details of its ambitious plan to develop the 100-acre Park Center into a destination for living and learning with entertainment, restaurants, apartments, retail and public green space. For RTP, the partnership with Moogfest introduces the Park to a broader audience: neighbors living in Durham and Moogfest attendees interested in science and technology. It provides a platform to communicate the vision for the Park Center development as a truly new kind of collaborative space.
More information available at Moogfest.com and RTP.org.
About Moogfest
Moogfest is the synthesis of music, art, and technology. Since 2004, Moogfest has brought together artists, futurist thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, scientists, and musicians.
By day, Moogfest is a platform for conversation and experimentation. This mind-expanding conference attracts creative and technology enthusiasts for three days of participatory programming in Durham, North Carolina. By night, Moogfest presents cutting-edge music in venues throughout the city. Performing artists include early pioneers in electronic music, alongside pop and avant-garde experimentalists of today.
Moogfest is a tribute to Dr. Robert Moog and the profound influence his inventions have had on how we hear the world. Over the last sixty years, Bob Moog and Moog Music have pioneered the analog synthesizer and other technology tools for artists. This exchange between engineer and musician is celebrated with a unique festival format where the creative process is understood as a collaboration among many people, across time and space, in commerce and culture.
About RTP
Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the leading and largest high technology research and science park in North America. Founded in 1959, this 7,000-acre namesake for the entire Triangle region is two miles wide and eight miles long, based in Durham and Wake counties. Originally envisioned by a group of university, business and government leaders, the Park now includes over 200 companies and 46,000 employees.
Just four miles from Downtown Durham, RTP was originally named for its affiliation with three major research universities: Duke University in Durham, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Research Triangle Park is equidistant between Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.
About Floating Point Collective
Based in Brooklyn, NY, Floating Point is an art and design collective that creates large-scale public installations and performative environments that are driven by audience participation. Floating Point believes in embracing emerging technologies, constantly seeking new forms of expression that resonate with the now, but look towards the future.
Floating Point’s work has been shown at Ars Electronica (AU), The MIT Media Lab, The Strathmore Gallery (DC), Internet Week NYC, Sonos Studios (LA), The Interactive Art Fair at Art Basel (Miami), The Science Gallery Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), TED2013 and TED2014. In 2015 Floating Point created a permanent interactive installation for the James R. Herman Terminal at Pier 27 in San Francisco.