Ivica Ico Bukvic, D.M.A.
Composition, Music Technology
Director, DISIS Interactive Sound & Intermedia Studio
Assistant Co-Director, CCTAD
CHCI, CS, and Art (by courtesy)
Virginia Tech
Department of Music
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0240
(540) 231-6139
(540) 231-5034 (fax)
ico.bukvic.net*

So, here you are, sitting in front of a noisy box of transistors surfing the Net and then, as if things could not get any more suspensful, you stumble across this page. Awesome! Now what? Well, if you are here to learn more about me and my work, this is your lucky day...

About me
Although I vocally disagree with the separation of arts and sciences, if I had to describe my work in conventional terms, I would think of myself as an artist-scientist hybrid--a composer, researcher, intermedia sculptor, and performer/practitioner. My art draws upon synergies among aural and visual, acoustic and electronic, interactive works and installations, while my research focuses on scientific exploration of pragmatic and artistic potential of new multimedia technologies in a pursuit of the overall betterment of quality of life. If I had to name one thing that ties all of my ostensibly eclectic creations and research vectors together, it would have to be the ubiquitous interactivity. I am currently working at Virginia Tech (VT) as an associate professor in music composition & technology, founder and director of the new Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio (DISIS) and world's first Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork), as a head of the Integrative Mind & Performance through the Arts, Creativity, and Technology (IMPACT) studio, which is a part of the Virginia Tech's newfound Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT) interdisciplinary program, as the first artist faculty member of VT's Center for Human-Computer Interaction (CHCI), and as a faculty (by courtesy) in departments of Computer Science and Art & Art History. Unless all this tongue-twisting verbiage has already put you to sleep, please feel free to investigate some of my work below.

Philosophy
My portfolio suggests a jack-of-all-trades approach. Well, isn't that a bad idea?

The recent proliferation of affordable technologies has generated a momentum challenging the very walls that have divided artistic genres for centuries. A contemporary intermedia artist simply cannot afford to overlook these exciting opportunities for growth. More so, by facilitating literacy in utilizing the newfound technologies while maintaining awareness of the ongoing advances in the arts and sciences, one can expand their vocabulary into other domains and by doing so attain greater sensitivity to mapping of gestures and variables across mediums. This is especially important as such an approach trains indviduals to be more receptive, open-minded, sensitive to other mediums, and ultimately easier to collaborate with.

How many times did you encounter a beautiful visual work of art that has absolutely horrendous loopy tune or an engaging musical performance with distracting visuals? Why is this so? Consider for a moment an artist and a scientist. Their approaches to creative process are in effect diametrically opposed (not that either of them is better or worse). An artist imagines a set of abstract rules that guide creation of a shape and ultimately a structure we refer to as art. This art is judged in many different ways, most commonly through individual taste, and as a result its impact is unique to each individual. A scientist uses concrete and/or reproducible rules to study a particular phenomenon while their creative process consists of mathematically and/or statistically predescribed steps. These steps are critical in producing a study that can stand the scrutiny of peers and therefore deliver for the most part uniform impact on every individual. Because students are commonly trained to stick closely to these approaches, we often find science students who have a hard time understanding arts, and artists who dread math. With the jack-of-all-trades approach coupled by an appropriate foundation, we are now able to marry these and other professions within a reasonable span of time and without sacrificing their depth, thus producing scientists and engineers who can engage in abstract creative endeavors with ease as well as artists capable of generating compelling interactive intermedia art.

So, is jack-of-all-trades the way of the 21st century? I am obviously not in position to make such claims, but I sure hope so.

All right, talk is cheap. So, let us do some walking...

Portfolio
My latest work can be found via DISIS and L2Ork pages, including DISIS YouTube channel with footage of performances, installations, and tech demos, as well as works of my students. Additional samples of my Art can be also found here and here.

My cumulative CV and VT-formatted Dossier (January 2006-present).

Additional goodies in PDF format (grants, publications, syllabi, conference slides, descriptions of works) available here.

My "official" VT faculty page with a bio, and more links'n'stuff.

Contact me.

Old Stuff
Following content is provided here primarily for historical reasons. Since my life has moved mostly into the Web 2.0 domain, the best place to find out what I am up to these days is viaL2Ork,DISIS, or simply good ole'Facebook.

My 2002-2009 blog/board/whatever junkyard. Here you'll also find info on various goodies I released over the years, including Max & Pd externals, RTMix, Soundmesh, SPiDSiG, Borealis sound and superkaramba themes, Shaders Ahoy! GLSL collection, and past research developments and papers, conference slides etc.

What would an artist be without a critic (old pre-2006 collection of comments/feedback/accolades on my research and art projects)?

*This hyperlink has been redundantly stated here as an example of a benign infinite recursion in the world o' wide web.

Last updated on 10/24/2012 08:55:10.