By Kate Coomber
In the midst of a pandemic, UC Santa Barbara alumnus Marco Pinter has opened a new museum in Santa Barbara — the Museum of Sensory and Movement Experiences —which features work from other digital media artists affiliated with the university’s MAT graduate program.
Pinter received his Ph.D in Media Arts and Technology from UCSB in 2015. By then he had already created a name for himself in the world of tech, having been the director of software innovation at Teladoc Health, a New York based virtual healthcare company, where he has worked since 2003.
While Pinter still holds his position at Teladoc Health, he has taken on a new title over the past year as the founder and executive director of the MSME museum, which opened in the La Cumbre Plaza on the northern side of downtown Santa Barbara last fall.
In a recent interview, Pinter discussed the journey that led to the museum’s creation and its positive impact on the public amid Covid-19.
Q: What came first, your interest in art or technology and when did they converge?
A: Professionally for me it was technology. I actually originally got another degree from UCSB, a masters in computer science, but I guess I always had a passion for art, specifically sculpture and dance, but I didn’t see a way for those things to converge for me. And then it was about a dozen years ago that I actually saw how I could make those things come together. I wasn’t even aware of the MAT department at UCSB at the time but it specializes in that convergence of art, science and technology, so [it] was perfect that it was right here in town.
Q: What solidified your decision to pursue a doctorate in Media Arts and Technology at UCSB?
UC Santa Barbara alumnus Marco Pinter has opened a new museum in Santa Barbara that celebrates movement and the senses.
A: I was thinking about how to make a profession out of it. I knew at that point that it was my passion. In fact, I met with someone who was known in the field in New York and she said, “What you’re feeling is a compulsion to make art. You have to do it so find a way to do that.”
Q: At what point did you begin working on creating the Museum of Sensory and Movement Experiences and what were your greatest challenges?
A: The process started in January of last year. As you can imagine, COVID starting while I was trying to open a museum was a huge challenge, hitting red tier before we were allowed to open and then being open for a month before hitting purple tier again and being forced to close. Also, in Santa Barbara, getting permitting for anything is a big challenge. They’re working on making that more smooth, but they were having to do all permitting online for the first time ever. So, that process of doing the build-out that’s inside the museum was super challenging.
Q: What do you hope people take away from their experience at the museum?
A: A key mission of the museum is to bring out movement in the public. I’m a big believer that movement is very healing for everyone. The pieces that I create, and I think some of the other artists that I’ve brought in there, are really about, in part, inspiring movement in the public.
The flagship piece of mine is called “Fluid Connections.” You see your silhouette but your arms start getting these extensions that float into space and your arms too. I would see the public come in and the first thing you can’t really help but doing is sort of letting your arms go over your head to see what happens - it’s not even conscious. I think a lot of the people out there hadn’t put their arms above their shoulders in months and yet the artwork inspired them to do that. [Sometimes] I sort of beam in to see that it’s running properly and I did that a couple weeks ago and a family was there. There they were dancing in a museum in a pandemic.
Kate Coomber is a third-year UC Santa Barbara Student majoring in Communication. She wrote this article for her Writing Program class, Journalism for Web and Social Media.