Approaching the Marano Campus Center concourse Wednesday, April 23, one may have noticed the sparseness as the day winded down. 

A usual feeling on any other day as the quiet and peace settled in, but it was Quest Day—the 46th instance of the annual event—and a special time to revel in the appreciation of student work with classes canceled. 

While it was not as busy as earlier, a small group of about 20 people gathered in the hallway in front of the auditorium to hear about a new program brought to campus, NOIRFLUX’s Electric Heliotrope Theatre presents “Immersive Elements.” The reception was hosted by Artswego, SUNY Oswego’s arts programming office.

A tall, older looking gentleman with a beard walked about as students and locals alike munched on cookies and juice at the reception. He wore one of those flowing Hawaiian shirts, not featuring the usual floral pattern but instead a visual joke.

“It’s based on those paintings you’d see at bars, of the dogs playing poker,” he mentioned. 

Specifically, it was a reference to painter Cassius Marcellus Coolidge who created the motif in a series of paintings in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

The guy who was wearing the eye-catching shirt was Lorne Covington, founder of the art group NOIRFLUX, and co-collaborator on the Immersive Elements installation. 

Covington has been doing his Electric Heliotrope Theatre series for a while. On the name? He wanted something that sounded like steampunk. On the work? He had been enthralled with 1980s and 90s MTV and music videos—visualizers, the more technical term—and wanted to do it himself.

“I wanted it [the visualizers] to respond to me. Then I got a grant from Burning Man to do it. So I quit my job and have been doing this full time.” Covington previously was in Silicon Valley and in his past life was a computer engineer. He reuses that experience in his art. 

He chuckled in between moments of reminiscing. Many of his past projects have been featured in Central New York, specifically at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technology (the MOST) in downtown Syracuse. “I’ve been performing as NOIRFLUX for 15 years. People actually pay me to do this now!” Covington even shared a moment he has not forgotten, during a previous installation at the MOST on a sensory-friendly day:

“I got a really heartwarming reaction from a mom of an autistic son. She told me with tears in her eyes, ‘This is the first time we’ve ever played together.’” 

This moment brings him back to why he does his work. “My academic work was animal behavior, computer interaction, filmmaking. I ended up in tech, but as I got older, I said ‘Screw it.’ This makes people much more happier than industrial robots. Interactive art gives people agency.”

Covington went on to say, “The thing about interactive art, the process itself is interactive. The creation isn’t static like a sculpture is. For us [the designers], seeing it in public is like a beta test, it’s part of the process of making it.”

Covington collaborated with students in the art and music departments to create the visual and sonic elements that make the exhibit immersive. A special topics class, ART 370, was part of the collaborative effort with Artswego and NOIRFLUX. It was taught by professor Cara Brewer Thompson, who specializes in emerging technologies and immersive art experiences. Thompson reflected in her remarks that this would be her last major project before retiring from Oswego.

Also at the reception were Lowell Hutchinson and Emily Junker (the J is pronounced like a Y), the director and assistant director of arts programming respectively. Junker, who arrived at Oswego less than a year ago, is ecstatic about this type of interdisciplinary and collaborative work.

“I work with different departments across campus, we have a little bit of a hand in having arts on across our campus. For me, seeing students light up and connecting to our work is the most powerful thing. That’s what really makes my day.”

Image by Bryan Santiago