FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS — Robin Cox and Benjamin Smith will pitch their unique Big Tent for its public debut on Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s Toby Theater.
Cox and Smith, music and arts technology professors in the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, are co-creators of Big Tent, a portable space designed for multimedia performance using the latest in audio and visual technologies.
Big Tent is a 40-foot-diameter octagon composed of 12-foot-high video-projection walls to showcase 360 degrees of art and other visuals, an array of audio speakers, and a central computer core to facilitate interaction between the acoustic and electronic performance.
Like circus tents of the previous century, Big Tent may be taken to a parking lot, a lawn, or a high school gym to transform that space into a multimedia art-and-performance venue.
The first Big Tent performance takes place from 12:30 to 3 p.m. and features multimedia works by Cox, Smith, Herron School of Art and Design student Danielle Riede, Sharon Zhu, and more.
The second show of the day will be a production of Hourglass, a community-participation work Cox created to encourage dance movement through performance of a composed arc of music. It will take place from 4 to 5 p.m. and feature visuals by Smith, Shawn Goodman on bass clarinet, Cox as violinist and Stephanie Nugent as dance facilitator.
In addition to the Nov. 7 events, IMA will host a third Big Tent performance from 5 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 28 as part of the museum’s “Silent Night” presentation.
Cox and Smith are hopeful that Big Tent will become a marketable invention. They foresee a continuing development process and contributions coming from a wide variety of creative talents.
The IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, The IUPUI Department of Music and Arts Technology, The Indianapolis Opera, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art have provided support for the Big Tent project.