By Timothy Feyes

Roving pictures is a modern art exhibit at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. Using state-of-the-art digital images, video, full audio and robotics this exhibit transports the viewer back to a closed steel mill, in Osaka, Japan, where one can experience the sights and sounds of what once was the largest steel factory in Japan.

Created by Torben Berns and John Zissovici of the department of architecture at Cornell University, and Mehrdad Hadigi of the University at Buffalo, this exhibit is the first of its kind. But what may be more interesting is what has happened to the factory since its closing.

Tanaka Kikai, a metal works factory in Osaka, was shut down in the late 1990s due to the decline in the steel industry. Because of Japan’s limited size and development space a contingency plan was developed to take the old steel mill and turn it into, what the people of Osaka hoped, would be a thriving business community. Many of the buildings have been transformed into business centers with a wide array of revenue sources. As seen on the Burchfield-Penny Website, the factory now includes an on-site hot spring source, a brewery, a fish farm, a restaurant, a spa and a facility where special mushrooms are raised for use in cancer research. (http://www.burchfield-penney.org/exhibit/)

The exhibit features a twenty-foot long steel catwalk where the viewer follows a robotic camera. This camera displays what the factory used to look like on a specially designed floor that recreates the actually topography of the factory. In combination with the video, the viewers will here the same sounds that occurred when the filming took place.

"It really makes you feel like you’re there,” said Buffalo State College student, Lisa Valent. “It’s like watching a moth go into a cocoon, but it’s cool because you know what kind of a pretty butterfly it will be.”

The people of Osaka have tackled their issue of building reuse, but what will happen here?

"What remain here in Buffalo, after the demise of major industries, are a vacant downtown, empty buildings, un-built lots, and the relics of the industrial age.” said Hadighi. “Roving Pictures offers an alternative, one with an intense sensitivity to the local arena.”

Eric Kreller, the public relations adviser with the art gallery, said that: “There has been a buzz in the architectural community, not only about the advances in architectural art, but in the future that this idea could provide right here in Buffalo.”

The Roving Pictures exhibit runs from until March 23. The art gallery is located on the third floor of Rockwell Hall.