Press "Enter" to skip to content

Tag: Video

Ian Cheng: Live Simulation

Ian Cheng
Photograph of Ian Cheng from Natt & Dag.

This post was written by Tim Cannon, intern in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library.

Suspended Animation, which opened on February 10 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, features work by six contemporary artists working with digitally generated images. Among these artists is Ian Cheng, a New York-based artist who worked for George Lucas’ visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, before earning an MFA at Columbia University. His work is typically based on computer simulations, often lacking a fixed duration or narrative, so that the action unfolds more or less spontaneously, according to an algorithm rather than a plan. Cheng’s live simulation (his term for the programs he makes) Emissary in the Squat of the Gods, will appear in the exhibition.

National History Day resources and a Hackathon!

Each year, thousands of students from around the country participate in National History Day competitions. These contests challenge students to create exciting, well-researched projects that explore historic people and events.

This year Smithsonian Libraries was invited to be a partner organization and help kick off National History Day’s opening webinar to celebrate this year’s theme Exploration, Encounter, and Exchange in History. We jumped at the opportunity to create a five minute video to share five resources that would help inspire students as they developed their 2016 projects.

Best of Both Worlds Video

On January 15, the Smithsonian Libraries, Smithsonian Institution Archives, and the Office of the Chief Information Officer presented the first talk of a new lecture series, The Open Access Future, to address the Smithsonian Institution on the future of libraries, museums, and archives in a digital world. In 2014, the series will feature speakers with expertise in topics such as scholarly publishing, research data curation and communication, and altmetrics.