Landmarks Brings Ben Rubin Installation to The University of Texas at Austin

AUSTIN, Texas – 4 April 2012 - Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin, announces the unveiling of Ben Rubin’s six-channel video projection entitled And That’s The Way It Is. In conjunction with the dedication of the Walter Cronkite Plaza, the work will be projected onto the southern façade of the College of Communication A Building (CMA).

And That’s The Way It Is will illuminate the CMA façade with compositions of moving text, choreographed into a series of scenes that alternate in a variety of patterns. The text is drawn both from archival transcripts of Cronkite’s broadcasts and from recently published news. As daily news is generated, the language adapts to reflect current events, connecting the past and present in surprising and poetic ways.

Ben Rubin (b. 1967) lives and works in New York City and is highly regarded for his pioneering experiments in audio, visual, and digital electronics. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, and the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. Rubin has created largescale public artworks for the New York Times, the city of San Jose, and the Minneapolis Public Library, and his work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Science Museum, London.

And That’s The Way It Is will become the first sitespecific commission for the university’s growing public art collection. To realize the project, Landmarks collaborated with the Briscoe Center for American History, which contributed transcripts from its archive of Walter Cronkite Papers.

The College of Communication will inaugurate the Walter Cronkite Plaza on April 19, 2012. Kathleen Forde, artistic director of the Borusan Contemporary Museum in Istanbul, will conduct a Q&A with Ben Rubin at the Texas Advanced Computing Center’s Visualization Lab, located at the Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences Building (ACES) from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. The commission will be unveiled that evening at the College of Communication A Building (CMA) at 8:30 p.m. All events are free to the public.

Cronkite attended The University of Texas at Austin in the 1930s and studied political science, economics and journalism and worked for the school newspaper, The Daily Texan. From 1962 to 1981 he was the anchorman and managing editor for the CBS Evening News, where he covered events including the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the first moon landing and Watergate. Cronkite established the News Media History Archive at the Briscoe Center with the donation of his personal and professional papers.

He was well known for his CBS Evening News signoff, “And that’s the way it is.”

Rubin’s installation will be visible every evening from dusk until midnight in the Walter Cronkite Plaza.

About Landmarks, the Public Art Program of The University of Texas at Austin

Landmarks is the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin. Its projects are located throughout the main campus and are viewed by thousands of people every day. Landmarks brings the finest works of public art to the main campus in order to support the university as a leading research institution, to enhance its aesthetic character, and to provide a source of civic pride and welfare.

Download the press release.