A Visit to Randy Adam's New Media Studio at trAce

Among the other links in Randy's studio are his online journal (apparently, part of his deal with trAce for hosting the studio is to "bare his creative soul" in this journal, as trAce artistic director Sue Thomas tells him via email), a small collection of new media pieces, some texts, a small page of affiliations and collaborations, and an archive housing links to selected works elsewhere. Among the new media pieces Randy has chosen to display in his studio is "Basket Case," which presents visitors with a small, brightly-colored face that, when clicked on, re-arranges itself by a series of inventive flips and turns into a bigger face amid recorded rusty laughter. Another short piece is "Maddog," a photograph of a black dog with a fuzzy jogger in the background. When the dog is clicked, the sound of footsteps claps from the user's speakers, and some lines of text examining fear appear, replete with links that open more fearful text. Probably the most involved new media piece here is "Encounters and Allusions," also featured in Riding the Meridian. "Encounters and Allusions" takes the user on an "uncommon journey, through the lens of a wanderer," through the media of photgraphs with accompaning text. Several masks are displayed in an undulating field of black and white pattern, all accessed by mouse-clicks on a small image-map on the left-side of the display-frame (the links are small pixels of color amid the black-and-white--they could be easily missed by an inattentive viewer, and it took this writer several minutes before the links became apparent. This is part of the 'game' these media pieces are--cerebral challenges that pique the imagination with indeterminate forms). Each mask displayed is accompanied by a short text that wonders about the mask displayed: next to an ancient-looking stone face of a woman looking out at us with the astonishment of history, Randy writes: "Several shaggy goats grazed down the hill and into the small theater, until the stone seats of that ancient place seemed occupied by a crowd of restless spectators." This suggestiveness is what makes this particular piece so successful; the text rarely explicity refers to the photograph, but instead weaves a possible history for the person depicted. There are also vector graphics offered in his new media frame, and imaginary gadgets, as well as collaborations with other new media artists. In all, Randy Adam's New Media Studio at trAce is a ceaseleass delight

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