Sleepers Awake

Inspired by the tall tales of ghostly creatures inhabiting the ruins of the lower landing of the Stone Arch Bridge, Sleepers Awake transforms a crumbling arch into the lair of one of these luminescent beings rumored to inhabit the area . . . but never before seen.

Created by the artists at PUNY as a site-specific user-responsive piece, Sleepers Awake combines animation, action script, flash, sound analysis, and night vision camera to create the illusion of a living creature responding to the environment. Put simply: jump up and down, wave your arms, yell and scream at the creature, see him respond, have fun and smile.

PUNY is an artist-driven, interactive studio based in Minneapolis and Los Angeles. Best known for its animation on the Nickelodeon show Yo Gabba Gabba, PUNY has brought its unique amalgamation of substance and style to film, television, and Fortune 100 companies. From 2009 until 2011, PUNY operated the Pink Hobo Geek Art Gallery, voted “Minneapolis’s Best Art Gallery” by L’etoile and Metro Magazine. PUNY now produces The HUGE PUNY Show, an interactive variety experience combining live comedy, video, and animation.

For Sleepers Awake, PUNY assembles a right-meets-left-brain trust of four of its creative professionals:

Shad Petosky:

PUNY cofounder and creative director. Formerly of Big Time Attic, Shad produced graphic novels ranging in topics from space to paleontology for publishers such as Simon & Schuster and the U.S. government. With PUNY, he specializes in storytelling, ideation, and media experiences, and he has produced TV pilots for Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, IFC, and Fox, as well as animation for the films Super and Big Miracle.

Yuichiro Tanabe:

A graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a BFA in interactive media, Yui grew up in Ecuador with a Japanese family and attended an American high school. His truly multicultural upbringing sparked an interest in using visual communications to create engaging moments that can be experienced by all different types of people. At PUNY, he cultivates that passion as a multimedia artist, animator, and interactive designer.

Vincent Stall:

The design director and cofounder of PUNY, Vincent did stints as a visiting artist at Miami Ad School and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Under the name King Mini (his boutique design studio), he published the beloved book Robot Investigator and the misunderstood book Everyone Takes a Turn. His rock and roll posters have graced the pages of Sonic: Visuals of Music, Meathaus, Rosetta, and Beast as well as music venues and transit kiosks everywhere.

Joseph Beuckman:

Having DJ’ed the world over while earning degrees in computer science and physics, Joe is an object in motion. He has designed interactive classroom software and played the organ at NHL games. He is an accomplished computer artist and cofounder of the art collective Beige. He brings to PUNY his expertise as a Game Physics, Datavis, and CMS specialist. He is also half of Minneapolis’s premier glockenspiel duo, New Kids on the Glock.