Hello everyone! I’m Steven Viola, a junior RBE/CS student. My interest in art first started in high school where I took some classes in graphic design and photography. In these classes I learned many of the basic principles of art as well as how to use Photoshop and take interesting photos. I have a little experience with light painting from this class as you can see below. Light painting is a ton of fun but I’m hoping to branch out into different light art mediums for this class. Since then I have lost my camera :'( so I am back to taking photos on my phone and borrowing equipment when I can.
When I started at WPI I decided to continue my pursuit of digital art and took courses in 3D modelling, animation and interactive electronic art. These courses definitely expanded my artistic abilities and the interactive electronic art course really changed how I viewed art as it allowed me to incorporate more technical aspects.
On the tech side of things, I have plenty of experience with programming and electronics. I especially enjoy incorporating motion into some of my artwork and using clever programming to achieve some interesting effects. I have pretty extensive experience with Arduino and many of the connected actuators and sensors and I have created many custom circuits for a variety of electronics projects. I am looking forward to incorporating electronic elements into this project, but I also greatly appreciate elegant low tech solutions that seem almost impossible without fancy programming.
Another art form that I really enjoyed was fire spinning. Last summer I worked with a group to learn some of the basics of fire-spinning and I really loved the awe inducing effect caused by combining the danger and mystery of fire with a complex series of movements. Though I did not spend enough time fire spinning to be very good, it was a great experience that I wish I did more often.
Overall, I use art to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone. As a very technical and functional person at my core I normally focus on very practical projects and how they work rather than the visual impact. For me, art is a way to get away from strict requirements and use the freedom to try new things and experiment to see what is appealing to the senses. These artistic endeavors really push me outside my comfort zone and help me build my creative side.
Below are some of my recent works from WPI classes:
Here is an interactive piece where the robot tries to mimic what you are playing on water glasses.
Here is a model of Saitama from One Punch Man made using Blender
and finally on the very technical side, here is a game me and a partner made for the fall Hackathon where the theme was justice