Defensible Space
Defensible Space
When: March 31 - April 11, 2026
Where: Ray Theater
Viewing Hours:
- Tuesday - Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Saturdays, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
- Sunday and Monday, Closed
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Explore the raw and elemental power of wildfire through themes of perilous destruction and natural regrowth. Defensible Space immerses you in a serene and natural forest landscape. The fire transforms the tranquil environment into an uncontrolled burn. The work combines immersive spatialized audio and multiple-channel 3D projection mapping to envelop you in a multisensory experience at the front of a wildfire.
Defensible Space is a partnership between artists Jon Bellona and John Park.
About Jon Bellona
Jon Bellona is a sound artist and award-winning educator who specializes in digital technologies transforming data into sound.
Bellona earned his Ph.D. in Composition and Computer Technologies from the University of Virginia in 2018, M.A. from the University of Virginia in 2015, M.Mus. from the University of Oregon in 2011, Recording Diploma from the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences in 2006, and his B.A. from Hamilton College in 2003. Jon studied composition with Samuel F. Pellman, Matthew Burtner, Ted Coffey, Jeffrey Stolet, and Judith Shatin.
Bellona's music and original performances on custom-built digital musical instruments have been programmed by the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), the Kyma International Sound Symposium, the Coastal Futures Conservatory, the Intel UX Symposium, and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS). Bellona's multimedia and sound art installations have been exhibited in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, SPRING/BREAK in NYC, the High Desert Museum, as well as galleries in NY, VA, ME, and OR.
Bellona's sonification work as a Co-PI on a National Science Foundation (NSF) Advancing Informal Stem Learning pilot grant has been mentioned in the LA Times and featured in the University of Oregon’s publication Around the O.
About John Park
John Park works at the intersection of creative pedagogy and technology. With communities migrating to an increasingly digital-dependent lifestyle, Park stresses the social, environmental and economic implications of this shift to the students in his classrooms and in the content of his own work. Through interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues in other creative fields, Park has also been developing a vocabulary that merges the disciplines of dance and music with his own practice of algorithmic art and experimental animation. These endeavors to liaise between performing arts fields plays a role in Park's vision of an evolving creative practice where cultural and creative barriers will blur and crumble to the point where an artist will simply be someone who understands movement, timing, narrative and gesture with a fluidity in any medium.
Park received his MFA in Computer Art from SUNY Buffalo in 2006, and his BA in Multimedia Design from the University of Oregon in 2003. Park's diverse background in photography, 3D modeling, experimental animation, computer programming and electronics hacking has led to a larger investigation of what the most appropriate uses of these technologies should be in today's cultural climate.