Collaborators

UNDANCE

OpenEndedGroup comprises three digital artists — Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, and Paul Kaiser — whose pioneering approach to digital art frequently combines three signature elements: non-photorealistic 3D rendering; the incorporation of body movement by motion-capture and other means; and the autonomy of artworks directed or assisted by artificial intelligence.

Their artworks span a wide range of forms and disciplines, including dance, music, installation, film, and public art. In the field of dance, they have worked most closely with Merce Cunningham (Hand-drawn Spaces, 1998; BIPED, 1999; and Loops, 2001-8), but also with Bill T. Jones (Ghostcatching, 1999 and 22, 2005), Trisha Brown (how long does the subject linger on the edge of the volume, 2005), and Wayne McGregor (Choreographic Language Agent, 2007-present and Stairwell, 2010).

Their public artworks include Pedestrian (multiple sites, 2002); Enlightenment and Breath (Lincoln Center, 2006 and 2007), Recovered Light (York Minster, 2007), and Crossings (Nuit Blanche/Royal Ontario Museum, 2010).

In recent years OpenEndedGroup has created new approaches to 3D projection, which has resulted in a work of digital cinema entitled Upending (2010); the shorter installations After Ghostcatching (with Bill T. Jones, 2010) and Stairwell (with Wayne McGregor, 2010); and the interactive installation Into the Forest (2011).

Among the prizes they have won individually or collectively are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Cage Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, a Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, and a Bessie award for the BIPED décor.

They have presented their work at Lincoln Center, the New York Film Festival, the Barbican Center, the Hayward Gallery, the Whitney Museum, ICA Boston, the Festival d’Automne, the Sundance Film Festival, the Cinémathèque Française, the Museum of the Moving Image, SITE Santa Fe, the MIT Media Lab, ICA London, Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival, the Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), the Kiasma museum, and many other venues.