CD-ROM
In Betye Saar Digital Griot, one of today's most influential and controversial African-American artists positions herself as an information-age storyteller.
A creative interface titled "The Black Girl's Window" allows users to navigate freely through images that reflect Saar's inspirations. In one section, for example, users explore rooms of Saar's childhood home, where she imagined everyday furniture transforming into distorted, dynamic objects - a vision later manifested physically in Saar's surreal "spirit chair" assemblage sculptures.
More linear types can peruse a section containing more than 120 pages of the artist's 1994 notebook, or the comprehensive, neatly organized index of Saar's art and exhibitions to date.
All in all, the disc is an effective and unusual portrait of an artist, one that manages to be didactic and engaging, yet never pretentious or precious.
Betye Saar Digital Griot: $29.95. Voyager/Learn Technologies Interactive: (888) 292 5584, www.voyagerco.com.
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