Anjali Bose ’20
Artsfest is still several months away but on January 10th, 2019, Trans Media artist Dickie Cox will be coming to Episcopal Academy to collaborate with the EA community for an “immersive art experience” that will take place during Artsfest in 2019.
Christopher McCreary, upper school English teacher, explained, “Mr. Cox is an artist who seems to specialize in site-specific installations. Meaning, as opposed to being someone who creates a painting to hang in an exhibit, or in somebody’s home, he specializes in creating temporary spaces that are activated by the people visiting the exhibit. So, for example, sometimes he’ll work with sound and light sensors that you can set off, maybe on purpose, maybe accidentally, and it’ll trigger some sort of change in the space.”
Cox will create, with the help of students, faculty, and other members of the EA community, an immersive art experience like this. McCreary stated, “The idea, it’s called The Secret of the Singing Stones. Part of what he wants the students to help with is the creation of idea itself. His basic idea is that there’s a cave. In this cave are artifacts; it seems like a civilization that’s gone. But what [Cox] wants help with is not only creating the artifacts themselves, whatever they may be, journals or tools. He wants students to help create the narrative of this world that once existed or these explorers who are there. He wants help kind of creating the story about that.”
The concept of an immersive art experience in the gallery is a fairly unusual concept, especially in the EA community. Most of the exhibits that occur are just visual displays. This would be the first time during Arts Fest that Episcopal would have an art experience such as this in the gallery. McCreary explained, “I think from the perspective of the people who are in on the creation of it, it’s an interesting way to think beyond whatever your usual genre of art is. I think a lot of us identify primarily as ‘a writer’ or ‘a visual artist,’ or at least consider both as two separate things, but he’s coming up with ways to help people bridge the arts.
“I think one of the nice things about this is the idea of being able to leave our regular world and immerse in another one,” McCreary said. “And I think for a lot of us it probably pushes at what we normally think of as the boundary of art. I think most of us probably think it’s a four-minute song or it’s a painting. But to enter into this space, I hope it helps people to see a broader definition of what art can be.”
McCreary elaborated further on the immersive experience from the viewer’s perspective. “As a viewer, it will be interesting that it will be a separate space that people enter into. Even if there is this sort of narrative element to it, it’s cool how it’s up to the viewer, be it a lower school student or a high school senior or anyone in between,” McCreary said. “It’s up to you to help create the narrative as you go, it seems like there might be different paths in the story. It makes it a more active thing than just looking at the art.”
Already it seems that various clubs and classes are thinking about getting involved with this project. McCreary stated, “The creative writing club seems to be involved, and I think one of Dr. Nichols’ classes are getting involved also. I’m not quite sure what Mr. Sigel and the art department are thinking, but I’m fairly sure some art classes are also thinking of getting involved.”