April 30, 2024

‘Best Of The Best’: Creativity To Shine At Annual Viz-a-GoGo Showcase

A curated selection of paintings, sculptures, animated shorts, game design, graphic design and research by Visualization students will be featured in the 31st annual Viz-a-GoGo, starting Thursday and continuing through Saturday night at the Rudder Theatre Complex.

Viz-a-GoGo is student-run and features the “best of the best” work from the summer, fall and spring semesters, according to Andersen Wood, screening and research symposium director for Viz-a-GoGo and a junior Visualization student.

“This is everything the Visualization program has to offer,” Wood said. “It is really strong work this year and it’s pretty exciting. Students will get to walk away with scholarships and our really exciting ‘Vizzy’ awards.”

This year’s theme for the screening is titled “Who Killed Glen? (A Visualization Murder Mystery),” an homage to Glen Vigus, who served as faculty adviser for Viz-a-GoGo and director of operations for the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts. Vigus recently retired, but he will return to the school to teach photography in the fall. The theme will be reflected through filmed segments that are interspersed throughout the screening presentation.

Wood is also the lead student technician for the HIVE, which is a student group in the Visualization program that manages program events. Wood said his team wanted to recognize what Vigus has done for the program and the event.

“Viz-a-GoGo has a long history and Glen has been involved in it almost from the very start,” Wood said. “As long as there’s been a HIVE and a planning team, he’s had a hand in the event. He’s a big reason the show exists in this form today.”

The event has four portions: an art exhibition, an interactive/gaming showcase, research symposium and a screening.

The exhibition starts Thursday and continues through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Rudder Exhibit Hall. Guests can view traditional flatwork, drawings, paintings, digital flatwork, video games, sculptures, interactive designs and brand booklets.

The interactive/gaming showcase is Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Rudder Exhibit Hall, featuring video games, applications and demos.

The research symposium is Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Rudder Forum, highlighting research by nine undergraduate and graduate students who are competing for scholarships and awards, Wood said.

“For the symposium, we encouraged all students who have been doing research over the last year to submit their work,” Wood said. “We had a team of faculty curate the best research before it is placed in front of the judges.”

Animated shorts, live-action videos, game trailers, graphic design commercials, and time-based media will be featured during the screening Saturday at 7 p.m. in Rudder Theatre. Wood also did the editing for the screening and said the submissions will be fun to watch.

“There is a wide variety of shorts that got in,” he said. “Some have different tones, moods, styles — 2D animation, 3D animation and live action,” he said. “Viz does a lot of different things and this captures all of them in one big net.”

There were more than 1,000 submissions for the screening and the exhibition showcase from undergraduate and graduate students, Wood said. A team of students curated a selection of 350 works for the exhibition and screening.

“Last year we had 600 submissions, so we almost doubled that this year,” Wood said. “Our curation team is led by a group of students from all different disciplines and backgrounds. We spent about a week working our way through deciding what is the best look for the show, what is best for the program, and working our way through that.”

Following the screening, “Vizzy” awards will be announced for each artistic medium and an overall award for best in show. Scholarships from Disney, DreamWorks and Electronic Arts will also be announced.

Wood said he is grateful for the volunteers and students who submitted work. He hopes guests see a wide variety of art they have never seen before.

“You think you have seen every kind of painting, or you think you have seen every kind of short, but there is always something new,” he said. “There are so many people in Visualization that we don’t get to see all their work. But a lot of it we are seeing for the first time as we curate, and that is always a fun surprise. In this show there is a wide variety, and it will be a really fun thing.”

An afterparty for students, faculty and staff will follow the award ceremony at 9:30 p.m. at The Corner and Rooftop Grill on Northgate.

Top image: “Lumion City,” an animated short created by Sophia Guzman, Aiden McKown, Jack Dusbabek and Annabella Quesada.