A new University of Texas at Dallas faculty member and a student intern recently shared their talents in art and technology at the AURORA Biennial exhibition at Dallas City Hall.
AURORA, a Dallas-based public arts organization, coordinated the Nov. 16 nighttime event as part of its mission to make technology and the arts more accessible through transformative public art experiences.
“Events like the AURORA Biennial give a wide breadth of artists and creators representation,” said Diana Rojas, assistant professor of design and creative practice in the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology and one of more than a dozen artists or groups invited to participate in the event.
Rojas, who joined the Bass School faculty this fall, presented a video projection titled “Query.” Drawing its title from Isaac Newton’s book Opticks, it is a three-channel video piece featuring rings of light, widening portals, clusters of stars, and movements of light and shadow.
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for technology-related art projects or exhibitions in Dallas. AURORA not only makes that possible, but they make it a public experience,” Rojas said.
As an interdisciplinary artist, she studies the human attempt to engage with the invisible or the out of reach, she said, leading her to research different sciences and spiritual traditions throughout human history.
“Light often signifies something important, whether that be in the cosmos or art,” Rojas said. “The piece is part of a larger body of work I was creating about the cosmos and how rings, or halos, of light appear in space when sources of light are near large objects, such as black holes.”
For her installation, Rojas adapted video that was originally formatted to be projected at a planetarium.
“I like the idea of taking my audience out of their daily experience in a way that’s humbling,” Rojas said. “I wanted there to be a feeling of immersiveness, that there are greater things out there.”
Rojas said her work was a natural fit for this year’s biennial theme, “FuturePresentPast,” which the event’s curators are tasked with interpreting and executing.
“I like the idea of taking my audience out of their daily experience in a way that’s humbling. I wanted there to be a feeling of immersiveness, that there are greater things out there.”
Diana Rojas, assistant professor of design and creative practice in the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
It’s a process that Danielle Avram BA’02, assistant professor of instruction in contemporary gallery and exhibition studies and director of UTD’s SP/N Gallery, is familiar with as a co-curator of the 2018 AURORA Biennial.
Avram said that the event has experienced rapid growth since its beginning in 2010. It started with the founders asking video artists they knew to showcase their work. Now, it features artists from around the globe, in addition to Dallas-Fort Worth artists.
“Fundamentally, I think large-scale public works like this are meant to interrupt people’s daily lives in a positive way,” Avram said. “They’ve grown the event to take over an entire section of Dallas that doesn’t normally get a lot of evening foot traffic.”
Bonnie Abbott, who is expected to graduate this month with a Bachelor of Arts in arts, technology, and emerging communication, interned with the organization in 2023 and worked as a production assistant throughout 2024, including at this year’s biennial. After graduation, she hopes to continue exploring the evolving intersection of nature, humanity and technology through her art.
“We’ve known that you can hang a painting in a museum and some people will pay to come see it,” Abbott said, “but there’s this shift where technology is making art much more transformative. Instead of just viewing a painting, it’s an all-encompassing experience with sound set to visuals.”