For Electric Sky 2020, our collaborative installations, workshops, and art show will be oriented around the theme “Game On!”. We will explore the art and tech of games, with everything that goes into playful interactivity, ranging from the buttons, switches, and buzzers of electro-mechanical machines, to the 3D art of immersive reality.

How it Works

For our group installations, we provide a basic framework around the theme, and then recruit artists, technologists, scientists, and designers to take on aspects of that theme, playing with technologically-infused, sensing, interactive and self-illuminated sculptural elements.

In the style of hackathons, you may bring your own piece to work on, you may join other emergent collaborations, or you may just show up to enjoy the show.

Participating artists and technology creatives may include light, sound, video, performance, landscaping, architectural elements, in addition to visual art, however all projects should incorporate an electronic, sensing, interactive, or self-illuminated component.

Apply for a Microgrant or Free Tickets

If you are excited by the idea of creating an individual or collaborative project around our theme “Game On!” but do not have the funds for tickets or material supplies, we invite you to apply to be a supported participating artist or creative technologist, to receive funds up to $500 and free tickets to support your project. Learn more about our requirements and find instructions to apply here.  Application date is May 30th, 2020.

Workshops

We had a great turn out for our workshops, including “Solar Powered LEDs for Art in Trees”, “ASKXXI Digital Field-based Methods in Botanical Illustration“, and “Nature Kaleidoscope Making”. Thanks so much for our Workshop hosts for organizing these learning opportunities!

Creativity Lab / Hackathon

As always, the lab and the surrounding picnic benches were filled with creative efforts as people geared up to our group show!

Group Art Show

Our group show had a compelling mix of art around our “BioZoom” theme — focusing in or telescoping out into the magic of nature.

Camping and Socializing

Of course, people were also there to have fun camping with friends in the beautiful Skykomish Ballpark in the Cascade Mountains.

Electric Sky 2018 — The Digital Frontier from Shelly D. Farnham, Ph.D.

Our fourth Electric Sky was a swimming success, and we can’t thank everyone enough for all their great participation in making this special event happen! Be sure to check out our slides from 2018 to get a sense for what it was like.

Save your spot! Registration is required for anyone spending the night to save your camp spot. If you are just there for the day or for the Saturday night show, registration is not required.

Each year, we orient our collaborative projects around a theme.  This year, that theme is “The Digital Frontier”,  celebrating the pioneering spirit of those who push the bounds of possibility by innovating on the frontier of technology.

Our basic framework is to provide an overarching design theme “Explore recurring historical themes of human progress on the frontiers of innovation, layering the past with the future”, and then recruit artists, technologists, scientists, and designers to take on aspects of that theme, playing with technologically-infused, sensing, interactive and self-illuminated sculptural elements.

As a central orienting piece for the larger group collaboration, we will create three to-scale facades of historic frontier buildings similar to those in the town of Skyomish, with a boardwalk animated by controllable LEDS and the facade surfaces animated with projected videos of life-sized “ghosts” of pioneering figures. The goal is to create the experience of walking on the boardwalk with these historical figures in a “digital frontier” – where the audience participant becomes a part of the community of innovators along the walk. Please see concept design.

In the past two years our group projects focused on leveraging technology as a creative medium to create life-like interactivity embedded in nature. In brainstorming for 2018, we decided to engage more with the history of Skykomish as a frontier town, and turn our attention to the transformative impact humans have on nature as they expand new frontiers through technology. We seek to layer new creative technologies for innovation such as controllable LEDs, laser cutters, and projection mapping, over turn of the century technologies such as trains and telegraphs, to evoke an awareness and interest in the recurring historical themes of human progress on the frontier. We further seek to celebrate the intrepid spirit of pioneers who have created new territories for exploration and human progress in the Pacific Northwest over the past century, and will continue to do so in years to come.