Another day, more art for the Rose Kennedy Greenway. One of Boston’s most innovative public spaces, the Greenway is about to add another piece of avant-garde art to its arsenal of aesthetic accomplishments. On Friday, a digital art installation peculiarly called Chunky Frog Time will make its debut by the Boston Harbor Islands’s welcome center.
Chunky Frog Time is a digital animation that will only run after sunset. It depicts a frog swimming against “the tide of time,” growing and reverting – to and from – the tadpole stage to juvenile with each kick, according to Boston Cyberarts. The frog’s struggles are meant to symbolize the ebb and flow on the islands and the relationship between nature, and our collective idea of nature that parallels it.
The project is courtesy of artist Brian Knep, Boston Cyberarts, the National Park Service and the Boston Harbor Island Alliance. Together this tandem of talented teammates collaborated on an algorithm to display the frog using an LED screen. That’s Boston Cyberarts’s specialty, commissioning algorithmic artists to create interactive works – and seamlessly fitting in to the Greenway’s teeming innovation.
Knep, who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Computer Science – he’s also the the first artist-in-residence at Harvard Medical School – has worked on his fair share of electronic art.
He’s worked on feature films such as Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, and Star Trek: Generations and has had his artwork displayed in the hallowed halls of the Denver Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the RISD Museum, the Aldrich Center for Contemporary Art and plenty of others.
The opening reception will take place on Friday, June 27, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the welcome center on the Greenway. Be sure to check it out if the Greenway is part of your pedestrian or bike commute home and let us know what you make of it in the comments section below.
