AUKSALAQ by IUPUI Professor & Colleague Wins Internet2 IDEA Award

A multimedia opera on global climate change, composed by an Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis researcher and his University of Virginia colleague, has won an innovation award from Internet2.

Internet2 is the nation's most advanced networking consortium for global researchers and scientists. Recently, the organization announced two research projects and two student projects as the 2011 Internet2 Driving Exemplary Applications (IDEA) award winners "for innovation in advanced network applications for collaborative research and education."

IUPUI Professor Scott Deal (Department of Music and Arts Technology, Purdue School of Engineering and Technology) and his collaborator Matthew Burtner (University of Virginia) won an IDEA research award for Auksalaq--a Telematic Opera .

Auksalaq, (the Inupiat word for "melting snow/ice") explores global climate change from a northern geographic and cultural perspective.

The opera introduces an innovative toolkit of software applications developed at the IUPUI Donald Tavel Arts and Technology Research Center and the University of Virginia Interactive Media Research Group. The applications facilitate a seamless, multi-site, integrated presentation of music, media, movement, videography, audio processing and audience interactivity to create an interactive, multi-dimensional experience.

"Auksalaq represents a new generation of artistic works revolving around the exploitation of high bandwidth networks in the pursuit of live, interactive expression by combining computer interactivity with music, dance, drama, art and literature," wrote Internet2 representatives who presented the award.

A team from the Department of Energy's Energy Sciences Network at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory also won an IDEA research award.

Winners of the inaugural IDEA student awards are Baris Aksanli, a Ph.D. student in computer science and engineering from the University of California, San Diego, and Kyung- Hwa Kim, a Ph.D. student in computer science from Columbia University.

The winners received their awards and presented their applications at the Internet2 Fall Member Meeting in Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 4.

"All of the winning applications have applied advanced networking technology to enable significant progress in research, teaching, learning or collaboration to increase the impact of next-generation networks around the world," said Tom Knab, chair of the IDEA award judging committee.

See www.Auksalaq.org for more details.

To view an Auksalaq performance, go to: http://blip.tv/Bigrobot/part-a-4971626.

Photo Credit: Indiana University