HAL Research Statement

The Hybrid Arts Lab is a creative studio directed by David Stout in close collaboration with iARTA programmer, Stephen Lucas. Stout utilizes HAL for staging multi-screen performances, installations and live electro-acoustic music works. Research activities include software development for both sonic and visual applications, diverse sensor experimentation for control of immersive projection environments, prototyping of sonification and data dramatization tools and production of Virtual Reality, digital film, animation and digital print projects. Associated HAL researchers are comprised of graduate students from various UNT Colleges, departments and disciplines who are drawn by the creative mix of conceptual aesthetic experimentation and technical design challenges.

Artist's Statement:

I am an interdisciplinary artist exploring relationships between arts disciplines and diverse creative communities where new media technologies and historic traditions inform and transform each other. Centered at the boundary blurring nexus of visual art, sound and interactive media, my work is hybridized, both solitary and social, often involving close collaboration with virtuosic performers, programmers, artists and scientists.

My most far-reaching collaboration has been with artist, Cory Metcalf, as co-founders of the intermedia duo, NoiseFold. NoiseFold amalgamates adjective, noun and verb, existing as a fold or group to perform folding processes that reference virtual origami, sonic wave folding and the manipulation of bio-physical structures. I acknowledge noise as the field of all possibilities. Noise is the prima materia - an alchemical concept attributed to Aristotle, prima materia can be thought of as an elemental formless state. In my work, noise exists as both a concept and a tangible material. Noise is manifest in various mediums, as a dynamic visual state, a sonic field, a data stream, a collective cultural expression, as particle bombardment and a condition of life.

In the exploration of the material aspects of visual noise, I originally utilized complex digital signal processing to create visual-music performances, installations and films. Recent work has built upon these ideas, applying the general nature of semi-autonomous video networks to the potential of artificial life as an artistic field of play. Expanding possibilities for generative digital systems allow me to create immersive virtual reality experiences, design novel visual forms realized in glass sculpture, perform as a live cinema artist and create new music works featuring adventurous classical musicians and experimental sound artists alike.

-David Stout, HAL Director