JOHNSON CITY – The Engineering Design Graphics Extremists Club (EDGE), the student organization associated with East Tennessee State University's Digital Media Center (formerly the Advanced Visualization Laboratory), will offer a juried show displaying the best of student art on Saturday, Dec. 1, at 7 p.m. in the Brown Hall auditorium.
Guest speaker and one of the judges will be ETSU alumnus Bill Harper. A 1998 graduate with a master's degree in engineering technology, Harper now lives in Los Angeles, Calif., and works with the “small pack” of employees at Naughty Dog, a subsidiary of SONY Computer Entertainment, creators of PlayStation 2. Naughty Dog is a major source of video games, including the “Crash Bandicoot” series, which has sold over 22 million copies, and is producing a new series, “Jax and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.”
The decidedly non-traditional art show welcomes the creations of students from many disciplines, from the technology department to the departments of communication as well as art and design. Traditional art categories will be displayed alongside high-tech offerings, giving the viewing public an opportunity to see everything from sculpture to Web page designs in one place, with oil portraits, 3-D creations and samples of advanced animation filling the spaces between.
Prospective students are encouraged to visit ETSU and see what the Scott M. Niswonger Digital Media Center has to offer. The unique ETSU program is one of the best in the country, with graduates filling positions in top corporations, from Chicago and Atlanta, to San Diego, in a field predicted to be among the top 10 for the next 10 years. Employers are welcome to view the capabilities of current students for future hiring or internship needs, and the general public is invited to enjoy the array of displays.
Students originally formed EDGE to offer each other suggestions and encouragement in a rapidly changing area of study unique among local institutions, and they maintain that tradition. Current president, Heather Abels, calls the show “the Academy Awards of the DMC.” The event's growth has been very satisfying for her and EDGE, with the last show's attendance reaching 300. Abels points with pride to the fact that “ETSU can compete with much larger schools and offer the best education in the field at a very reasonable cost.”
For information, contact Abels at (423) 434-9002 or EDGE co-adviser and ETSU technology faculty member Primus Tillman at (423) 979-3154 or 979-3170.