On February 3, Room 102 in the F.W. Olin Center was dedicated as the John E. Kelly III Digital Arts lab, containing what Fernando Orellana terms “some of the best computers at Union, with graphics cards that would make Pixar take a second look.”
Says Trustee Kelly '76, “I have a deep-seated belief that really exciting things are happening at the intersection of disciplines.”
“If you're going to have a career in either technology or art, you will be forced to work with the other, whether you're making movies for Hollywood or games for electronics or doing historical art cataloguing,” says Kelly, IBM senior vice president of technology.
With digital art a hot “new media” field-encompassing everything from Web design to 3D modeling and animation
-and Converging Technologies, a pillar of a Union education, the time is ripe for the College to explore this latest cross-disciplinary approach, Kelly notes. He recently earmarked a portion of his overall “You are Union” campaign commitment toward supporting the new initiative.
“I'm happy to help make available very high-performance computing workstations and high-resolution displays so faculty and students can work with state-of-the-art equipment,” he says.
In addition to lab support from Kelly, campus-wide support and resources for the new initiative have been tremendous. “Everything has aligned perfectly for this initiative.” Kelly says. “Digital art is an exciting area that resonates well with Union's capabilities.”
“I've wanted to establish a poster child project for converging technologies,” he says, “something that can light up the imagination.”