Victoria Vesna
Chair, Design|Media Arts, UCLA
In her presentation, Vesna will reflect on how interactive-media arts can support many kinds of narratives, and the relation between body, technology and connectedness.
Her most recent work, a large collaborative project, 'notime'. "Building a Community of People with No Time"), was a series of projects taking place on the net and in physical public spaces. It was conceived to raise questions about perceptions of time and identity as we overextend our personal networks through communication technologies. In 1999, she was commissioned to develop a piece for a large international exhibition in an old mine in Dortmund, Germany: Datamining Bodies. This was the first step in exploring ways of looking at how online identities and social interactions may be visualized as emergent and living systems. Currently she is developing a new work entitled "cellular trans_actions". The first version of this was a response to the events of 9/11, which she plans to address in her lecture.
Vesna's work can be defined as experimental research that creatively connects networked environments to physical public spaces. She explores how communication technologies effect collective behavior, and shift perceptions of identity in relation to scientific innovation. She completed her Ph.D. at the Center for Advanced Inquiry in Interactive Arts (CaiiA), University of Wales. Her thesis was entitled "Networked Public Spaces: An Investigation into Virtual Embodiement".
Victoria Vesna's career began as video installation and performance artist. She exhibited widely, and was included in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale in 1986. Throughout her career, she has engaged the impact of science and technology on culture. In 1986, a video she produced on the scientific investigations of the pyramids in Egypt received a Golden Eagle award for best scientific documentary.
Her most recent work is entitled "notime" (Building a Community of People with No Time"). notime is a series of projects taking place on the net and in physical public spaces. It was conceived to raise questions about perceptions of time and identity as we overextend our personal networks through communication technologies. notime is part of the traveling exhibit, telematic connections: the virtual embrace. Other recent works are Bodies INCorporated, a large networked collaborative project that was installed as a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute and the ArtHouse in Dublin and Datamining Bodies, exhibited at an old mine in Dortmund, Germany.
Currently she is developing a new work, "cellular trans_actions". The first version of this was a response to the events of 9/11.
Vesna has initiated and produced a number of projects that address issues of art, science and technology such as the special issue of Artificial Intelligence & Society' Database Aesthetics: Issues of Organization and Category in Art'; a CD-ROM ' Life in the Universe with Steven Hawking' (a UCSB/MetaTools co-production), and a book/CD-ROM for Terminals, (co-edited and curated with Connie Samaras, UCI) which deals with the cultural production of death. Forthcoming is a book she is co-editing with Christiane Paul and Margot Lovejoy, entitled "Context Providers".
Vesna's work has received notice in such prominent publications as Art in America, Artweek, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Newsweek, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as Spiegel (Germany), The Irish Times (Ireland), Tema Celeste (Italy), and Veredas (Brazil). She has received numerous grants and sponsorships from various industries and educational foundations including Wavefront/Alias, MetaCreations, GTE Outreach, the UCSB and UCLA Office of Research, the Getty Senior Research grant, Intercampus Arts, California Arts Council and the Ahmanson foundation. Recent commissions are from the Walker Arts New Media Initiatives.