Local artist and University alumnus Jair will host his second art event, Metamedia Cooperation II, in the EMU Ballroom today at 5 p.m.
Jair, who goes by only his first name and does not disclose his age or past, is an experimental artist who combines music, visual and graphic arts to create an “experience” for participants.
“It’s a space for cross-fertilization between arts, sciences and community,” said Jair, “for people to learn different solutions from a disparate or maybe self-similar discipline,” Jair said. “(It’s) not about ignoring problems, but what are solutions and bringing them into a circle for people to share with one another.”
The event will include visual art displays, free food and music, and panel discussions on open source thinking, conceptual art and the “intentionalization of space and communities,” Jair said.
Metamedia Cooperation II is a continuation of Metamedia Cooperation I, Jair’s first event at the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts in January 2005.
He said he expected between 150 and 200 people to attend his first event, but more than 400 came.
“It didn’t matter your age,” Jair said. “Everyone walked away with something fresh and new.”
Jair graduated from the University in 2000 with a music composition degree.
For the past two years, he has been part of a focus group at The Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences at the University that studies topics such as fractals and Tai Chi’s effects on dynamic stability, according to the group’s Web site.