Professor’s art exhibit uses digital media to reflect day-to-day life

Robert Twomey likes to merge art with technology, and the Youngstown State University professor’s newest project uses cameras, wireless sensors, microphones and other “smart” devices to trace his family’s day-to-day life at home.

Titled “A Machine for Living In,” Twomey’s digital media art installation is on display through Oct. 13 in the Foster Art Gallery in Patterson Hall on the campus of Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa.

Twomey, an assistant professor of Digital Media at YSU, said he, his family and pets, were “happy participants” in the project, which began three years ago when he was doing research for his doctoral dissertation. He started by installing smart technology throughout their home and creating software to follow their movement.

“We’re all cohabitating with machines. It’s part of contemporary life,” he said. “It’s always been a tradition for artists to make works that explore their personal circumstances, and this exhibit continues that tradition. It uses technology to create a personal portrait of the intimate parts of my everyday life, what home means.”

The exhibit combines several disciplines – art, computer science and communications– and includes a 24-minute video that speeds through a day at the rate of one hour per minute.

Twomey joined YSU’s Art faculty in 2016. He is a PhD candidate in Digital Arts and Experimental Media from the University of Washington in Seattle, holds bachelor’s degrees in Art and Biomedical Engineering from Yale University and an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. His work has been exhibited at SIGGRAPH, the world’s largest computer graphics conference, and displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Seattle Art Museum.

The Foster Art Gallery is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Twomey’s exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information, call 724-946-7267.