Stephen Fairfield, PhD.
Stephen Fairfield is a full-time artist with some 30 years experience. For the past 7 years he has been focused on creating new media and steel public art sculptures. He has public art creations in San Diego and Sonoma, CA, Green Bay, WI, Tucson, AZ and Roanoke, VA. His goal is sculpture that makes participants from observers and creates dynamic tension and motion. Materials used include electronic technology, light emitting diodes, plastics/resins, polycarbonate diffraction gratings, aluminum, stainless and carbon steel, and cement. He creates new media art, impressionistic and abstract expressions: heroic creatures, standing or suspended abstract forms of highly polished aluminum cylinders, stainless steel spheres and planes that incorporate light, color, motion & reflectivity. In general with his sculptures he seeks to make a statement about the natural environment, the impact of humans on the world, or directions culture has taken or is moving towards. Originally trained in the Biomedical Sciences, he received a Ph.D in molecular biology and biochemistry, and served a postdoctoral fellowship at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, NJ (1971-73). In addition to his scientific career he has managed numerous programs in human services (with annual budgets ~$200K USD), been the Associate Director for Leaders for Global Operations, a manufacturing program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (annual budget ~ $9M USD), and been responsible for resource development in southeastern Arizona for the Arizona Community Foundation.
Patrick Marcus, PhD.
Patrick Marcus received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, with a minor in Neurosciences from the University of Arizona. His dissertation research focused on developing innovative psychophysical mapping functions, e.g. mathematical representations of translation between various sensory modalities (i.e. touch, vision, auditory intensity). He has significant background experience in neural recording and representation methods (EMG, EKG, ECG, MRI), neural networks, and statistical learning paradigms. His strong knowledge of neural encoding, vision systems (brain based and machine based), and brain-based visual encoding and decoding within the visual cortex was highly useful for basic brain science research in the Neural Systems Memory and Aging Laboratory (NMSA) at the University of Arizona, run by world-renowned neuroscientists (previously, by Dr. Bruce McNaughton, and currently, by Dr. Carol Barnes). At present he is the Electrical Engineering Director at General Plasma Inc., where among other responsibilities he has managed multiple $20M solar manufacturing line installations, and regularly manages the creation, design, prototyping and manufacturing of $100-300K custom equipment projects.
Selected Articles:
Emily Taylor
Emily Taylor is an Industrial Designer, with a BA from the University of Illinois, and has been designing public spaces and consumer goods for over 10 years. With a love of constraints and brainstorming, she is the concept incubator of the group. As the team discusses their strategy for a project, she sketches out ideas, builds them in CAD and creates realistic renderings to bring the concept to life. Once the project is commissioned, Emily communicates with the manufacturers to ensure detailed precision for construction.
The Partnership
Fairfield and Marcus have partnered on other new media projects since 2004. In 2008 they were awarded 2nd Prize – $,2000 – at the Open Wall Innovation Competition, by the Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, Norway for Light Canvas, their new media art concept. Funded sculptures include Skyburst 1.0 (2004), Skyburst 2.0 (2008), Glory Pipes (2010), Colorful Cubic Calliope (2011), and Interactive Immersion (2011). All are new media art sculptures that utilize light and color and respond to viewers motions, encouraging them to more actively interact with the sculpture. The sculptures are equipped with microprocessor controlled light emitting diodes and motion detection technology controlled by custom software written by Marcus. In addition Fairfield and Marcus have a number of proposals under development for which they are pursuing funding. In general Fairfield conceptualizes the overall concepts and executes the sculptural form and intent, and Marcus conceptualizes, designs and executes the electronics, and writes the software to achieve the jointly defined, desired, new media effects.