Token City

The subway becomes the location for a 3-D animation transforming the everyday commute into an experience of images and sounds which merge reality with the extraordinary. Viewers sense the action and emotions of an unpredictable subway excursion via the manipulation of 3-D animation, computer graphics, real time video, and a mixed soundtrack of electronic music and digital sound effects. TOKEN CITY is a collaborative piece by visual artist, Muriel Magenta and composer percussionist, Michael Udow, which is based on the common experience of both artists, whose artistic histories have been influenced by subway iconography and sounds. The work was sponsored by the Institute for Studies in the Arts at Arizona State University where it was produced under the directorship of Richard Loveless. The 3-D animation was created on the Silicon Graphics system with Alias-Wavefront software. The complete presentation was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings.