One of Telfair Museums’ most exciting events, the PULSE Art + Technology Festival, returns for its twelfth year with artworks highlighting virtual and augmented reality, engaging lectures and performances and a special film screening that celebrates women in engineering. An interactive and wildly inventive event for all ages, PULSE takes place at the Jepson Center from January 17-21, 2018.

This year’s festival showcases several new virtual reality based installations that immerse viewers in fascinating simulated spaces. Radiance—the featured exhibition by award-winning artists Max Almy and Teri Yarbrow with Josephine Leong—projects mandala-like patterns around the visitor, submerging them in an interactive field of light. Similarly, Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s Aquaphobia places guests in a futuristic landscape that addresses the fear of water and climate change issues of rising ocean levels.

More VR/AR experiences will be offered in the new TechSpace gallery with a new exhibition, Choose Your Reality. Artworks include Wangshu Sun’s VR installation Dream of Wings, which allows users to fly over a landscape while flapping their arms as if they were wings, and New York-based artist Yan Hong’s Stuck with the Beast, which brings comic strips to life via user interaction with a device.

“Each year, Telfair strives to bring the biggest trends in digital art to the Southeast, and this year we’re excited to be featuring some exceptional virtual and augmented reality works by a variety of artists.” said Harry DeLorme, Senior Curator of Education. “The technological tools and services available today make it easier than ever before to intertwine art, science, and technology, and we hope to continue to be leaders in showcasing these types of works.”

Programming for this year includes an opening night lecture by the artists of the Radiance exhibition and a new projection performance by festival mainstays the Medeology Collective.
 
The second evening will focus on STEAM education with a free, all-ages screening of the new documentary film Dream Big, which highlights female engineers making the world a better place.
 
Avery Bang, a distinguished engineer featured in the film, will participate in a question and answer panel after the screening. Elementary through college-age students can also enjoy two free morning programs of exciting presentations and dialogue with creatives working in tech fields from VR to coding and video games.
 
Featured Exhibition Highlights

Aquaphobia (on view through March 4, 2018)

Aquaphobia, a digital installation by Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, mixes past and future geological periods and the personal with the landscape. Inspired by psychological studies of the treatment of aquaphobia, the work takes the viewer on a virtual journey through an eerie, futuristic version of a waterfront park after climate change raises ocean levels.  

Radiance (on view through August 5, 2018)

Radiance is an installation and immersive VR experience created by digital media artists Teri Yarbrow and Max Almy with Josephine Leong. The works—three mixed media and video projection installations—explore elaborate multilayered patterns, geometric designs and ancient iconography reimagined in luminous media pieces. It is the first time the artists will exhibit their work in Savannah.
 
Pulse Programs (Jepson Center)
 
January 17, 6pm: PULSE opening lecture by Max Almy, Teri Yarbrow, Josephine Leong and Jacob Kudsk Steensen / 7pm Performance, “Media Ex Machina” by the Medeology Collective. Free to members / $8 non-members.
 
January 18, 11am: Student Panel and Q&A with PULSE artists Max Almy, Teri Yarbrow, Josephine Leong (grades 4-12, college).
                                                                     
January 18, 2pm: VR/AR Artists Panel with Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Wangshu Sun.
 
January 18, 6pm: Screening and lecture: Dream Big: Engineering Our World and panel discussion with Avery Bang, sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers and Tharpe Engineering Group. Free admission.
 
January 19, 11am: Lightning Tech Talks for Students (grades 4–12). Speakers: Yvonne Jouffrault (Tour Buddy), Malcolm Howard (Project MQ), Aleshia Howell (codebase) and Carl V. Lewis (Open Savannah).
 
January 19, 2 pm: PULSE Curators’ Tour.
 
January 20, 1–4pm: Chatham County Free Family Day/STEAM Expo/2pm Virtual Reality Performance by The Glad Scientist.
 
January 21, 2pm: Metropolis-Synthesis: screening and performance with live visual effects by Alexandro Imperato and score by David Spencer and Jason Butcher.
 
All PULSE events are free to students with valid student IDs and Chatham County residents with proof of residency, except for the opening night lecture and performance (which are free to museum members, $8 admission for non-members). Without a valid student or Chatham County ID, regular museum admission is required for entrance.