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Art | Digital Arts and New Media | Film and Digital Media | Music | Theater Arts | Sesnon Gallery

Art

Visiting Artist Program features talk on Michael Heizer
Julian Myers gave a presentation titled “Panic in Detroit: On Michael Heizer's Misadventure in the Motor City” as part of the Visiting Artist Program. The lecture considered the reactions and intentions of “Dragged Mass,” an earthwork created when Heizer dragged a 35-ton granite block across the north lawn of the Detroit Institute of the Arts in March 1971.

Myers, a critic and historian, is an assistant professor in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts and a visiting professor in Arts at UCSC. His writings have appeared in Documents, October, Afterall, frieze, and other periodicals. His published works include essays in Ellsworth Kelly in San Francisco (2002), Sightlines (2005), and Super-Pride and Super Prejudice (2005). He received his Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley, writing on earthworks and the production of space, in 2006.

The Art Department’s Visiting Artist Program, which combines Visiting Artist Special Topics courses and the Visiting Artist Lecture Series, will be fully implemented in the 2007 to 2008 academic year.

 

Students exhibit work during March Open Studios
Open Studios, sponsored by the UCSC Art Department, was held at Baskin Visual Arts on March 16. The quarterly event, which is free and open to the public, showcases a variety of student work, including metal sculptures, oil paintings, photographs, intermedia installations, drawings, prints and electronic inventions.

 

Takemoto presents ‘Mourning, Malady, Memoirs of Bjork-Geisha’
Tina Takemoto’s March 12 presentation, “Mourning, Malady, Memoirs of Bjork-Geisha,” considered the traumatic impact of illness on artistic collaborations in performance. Takemoto, a performance artist and associate professor of visual studies at the California College of the Arts, presented Her/She Senses Imag(in)ed Malady. The collaborative project with Angela Ellsworth documents the shifting physical and psychological effects of cancer within the dynamic of a long-distance relationship and artistic collaboration. She also discussed her recent appearances as Bjork-Geisha in theater, at art openings, and on youtube.

Takemoto received a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester and holds a MFA in Visual Art from Rutgers University. She has received grants from Art Matters Inc., the Irvine Foundation and the NEA. Her articles have appeared in Art Journal and Performance Research.

 

Murray lecture focuses on socially engaged artistic practices
In a March 13 lecture titled "Obscene Jouissance: Some Notes on Socially Engaged Art and Recognition," Derek Murray considered the intersection of capitalism, subject formation, and spectatorship in relation to socially engaged artistic practices. His study also unpacks the ritualized transmutation of the 'Othered' body into a commoditized and 'brandable' symbolic within the domain of high art. Exploring the 'negative ecstasy' associated with the consumption of identity-based forms of fetishism, the presentation considered its far-reaching impact on contemporary artists.

Murray is an art critic, historian, and interdisciplinary theorist specializing in contemporary art (post 1945), theory and criticism, cultural studies, and visual culture. Murray has a special interest in African Diaspora art, as well as the intersection of postmodern, social and psychoanalytic theories. His current writings and research focuses on canon formation within art history and visual studies as they relate to the politics of recognition, diversity theory, and academic pluralism. This emphasis is also concerned with the effects of globalization, transnationalism, and global cosmopolitanism on contemporary art production and its historiography. Murray is a frequent contributor to Parachute, Art in America, and Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. He has also published two articles in the College Art Association's Art Journal.

 

Digital Arts and New Media

UC Santa Cruz collaborates with three universities for live online concert
Musicians from UC Santa Cruz and three other universities improvised music over the internet simultaneously from different locations in a live telematic music concert on March 22. A live stream of the performance was broadcast on the internet.

As part of her MFA Thesis in Digital Arts and New Media (DANM), UC Santa Cruz graduate student Cynthia Payne performed with her group E2.510 from the UCSC campus at Engineering 2, Room 506 and 510 (studio).

The online concert featured the UCSC group collaborating with three other performing ensembles: the Weave Soundpainting Orchestra in Chicago; Pauline Oliveros' Tintinabulate Ensemble in New York; and the SOUNDWire Group at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics.

UCSC’s E2.510 includes Cynthia Payne, Richard Caceres and leaf tine, with video art by Jamie Burkart and Phoenix Toews, and audio mixing by Chris Preston.

 

Whitney Museum curator discusses ‘Digital Art—Public Space’
UCSC’s Digital Arts and New Media M.F.A. Program (DANM) sponsored a presentation by Christiane Paul—adjunct curator of new media arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art and director of Intelligent Agent, a service organization and information resource dedicated to digital art—in February.

Christiane Paul

Titled “Digital Art—Public Space,” the presentation gave an overview of the ways in which digital art has expanded, challenged, or even redefined notions of public art and space. Among the topics discussed were enhanced possibilities of interventions in public space; the network as public space; remote intervention in a site-specific public installation (telepresence); the enhancement of physical sites and existing architecture; and the merging of physical and virtual space.

Paul has written extensively on new media arts. Her book Digital Art (part of the World of Art Series by Thames & Hudson, U.K.) was published in 2003, and she is currently editing an anthology on “Curating New Media” (forthcoming from UC Press) and coediting—with Victoria Vesna and Margot Lovejoy—a book on context and meaning in digital art (forthcoming from University of Minnesota Press).

Paul teaches as an adjunct in the M.F.A. programs of the Computer Art Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the Digital Media Department of the Rhode Island School of Design, and has lectured internationally on art and technology. At the Whitney Museum she curated the show “Data Dynamics” (2001); the net art selection for the 2002 Whitney Biennial; the online exhibition "CODeDOC" (2002) for artport, the Whitney Museum’s online portal to Internet art, for which she is responsible; as well as "Follow Through" by Scott Paterson and Jennifer Crowe (2005).

 

Frieling lecture focuses on Media Art Net
Rudolf Frieling, an international art and media expert, presented “Media Art Net: Generating and Navigating Contexts.” Sponsored by the Digital Arts and New Media M.F.A. Program, the talk contextualized Media Art, based on some ideas related to Media Art Net while sketching a broader background to collecting, sorting, presenting and updating.

Born in Germany in 1956, Frieling studied humanities at the Free University of Berlin and received a Ph.D. from the University of Hildesheim. He has lectured and published internationally on art and media since 1990 and has served as Curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA and an adjunct professor at the California College of Arts, San Francisco since 2006. Frieling also has served as a curator of the International VideoFest Berlin; a curator and researcher at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany; head of the Internet project “Media Art Net” at ZKM; and head of the restoration, exhibition and publishing project “40yearsvideoart.de” at ZKM. He has taught at the University of Art Berlin, Hochschule fuer Gestaltung und Kunst Zurich, and MECAD Academy Barcelona, and was a visiting professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz.

 

Film and Digital Media

UCSC Students win honors in American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest
Nate Edelman, a 2006 graduate of Porter College with a bachelor’s degree in cinema and theater studies, and Matt Golad, a film and digital media major, received honors in the fourth annual American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest for work they completed in Natasha V's Screenwriting class last year. Edelman was a semifinalist for his script "Scavengers of County Hell," and Golad was a quarterfinalist with "The Sutterman Bill." These first-time screenwriters were competing in a pool of 2,500 entries.

The contest, sponsored by Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, aims “to seek out and encourage compelling film narratives, and to introduce the next generation of great screenwriters to today's leading production companies and agencies."  Director Gus Van Sant was a guest judge for this year’s contest.  

 

Macer discusses race, religion and politics on TV
Monica Macer, a Vassar College graduate with a major in Africana Studies, presented "Demystifying the Writers' Room: How Race, Religion, and Politics Influence Television" in early March. In the lecture, Macer discussed how issues of race, religion, and politics influence television. Based on her experience, Macer illustrated how those issues are discussed and dealt with during the story development process.

Macer, who is of Korean American and African American heritage, began her career in the theater in New York City, as an up-and-coming director and assistant director. After moving to Los Angeles, Macer served as a co-producer on the independent feature film Park Day. After, she focused on feature and television development as an assistant for Nickelodeon Movies at Paramount Studios and as a creative executive with the Walt Disney Co. After leaving Disney, Macer was selected for the Fox Writers Program and later landed the writers' assistant position on the Fox show 24. After two seasons at 24, she got her big break as a staff writer on ABC's Lost and has since moved on to be a writer for Prison Break.

The lecture was sponsored by a Porter Artist & Lecturer Grant, the Asian American/Pacific Islander Resource Center, the Department of Film and Digital Media, and the African American Resource and Cultural Center.

 

Thai media artist visits UCSC
Michael Shaowanasai, a media artist based in Bangkok, visited UCSC in February in conjunction with a film screening and photo exhibition and reception. Shaowanasai, who’s work includes a video series and feature film based on his “Iron Pussy” character, fielded questions from audience members after the screening of The Adventure of Iron Pussy. The 2003 film features Iron Pussy, a 7-11 clerk by day and transgender superheroine by night, who fights crime and corruption. The comedy stars and was directed by Shaowanasai. 

In an exhibition and reception titled “An Evening with Michael Shaowanasai” at Porter Faculty Gallery, the artist’s recent work was discussed and displayed. The images showed the artist in drag, performing iconic representations of Thai femininity. 

Made possible by the support of Porter College, the events were co-sponsored by the Department of Film and Digital Media and the Asian American/Pacific Islander Resource Center.

 

Colloquium speaker discusses satellites
Lisa Parks, an associate professor of film studies at UC Santa Barbara, gave a lectured titled “Obscure Objects of Media Studies: Echo, Hotbird and Ikonos” as a part of the 2006-2007 Film and Digital Media Colloquium Series. In her late January lecture, Parks described practices of production, distribution and consumption in relation to the Echo, Hotbird3 and Ikonos satellites, detailing their institutional histories, their uses, and their positions within global media economy and presented a set of propositions for making the satellite less obscure in the field media studies.

Parks is the author of Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual and co-editor of Planet TV: A Global Television Studies Reader and of Red Noise: Television Studies and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She has published in numerous books and in journals such as Screen, Television and New Media, Convergence: A Journal of New Media Technologies, Ecumene: A Journal of Cultural Geography, and Social Identities. She is also co-producer of Experiments in Satellite Media Arts, a DVD produced with Ursula Biemann at the Makrolab in 2002, and is a co-investigator in several international funded projects including the Missing Links/Oxygen Media Research Project (UCSB-Utrecht) and the Transcultural Geography Project (Zurich-Cologne-Ljubljana). She is currently writing a new book called Mixed Signals: Media Technologies, Geography, and Mobility.

The event was sponsored by the Department of Film and Digital Media with support from the UCSC Diversity Fund.

 

Music

UCSC Opera Program wins national award
The UCSC Opera Program has been honored with the National Opera Association's "Opera Production Award" for its production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream last year. Music lecturer and program director Brian Staufenbiel traveled to New York last month to represent the UCSC Music Department and accept the award at the opera association's 52nd Annual Convention.

"It was a great pleasure and honor to receive the award for the music department and the opera program," said Staufenbiel. "This is a very important step in the development of our opera program and in building national recognition for the high quality of productions we do here at UCSC."

The National Opera Association was founded in 1955 "to promote a greater appreciation of opera and music theatre, to enhance pedagogy and performing activities, and to increase performance opportunities by supporting projects that improve the scope and quality of opera." Members in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia participate in a wide array of activities in support of this goal. Its annual convention features performances, panels, workshops, and other educational opportunities for opera educators, professionals, and students.

 

Theater Arts

African American Theater Arts Troupe presents Don't Get God Started
The Theater Arts Department and the African American Theater Arts Troupe presented Don't Get God Started by Ron Milner at the UCSC Second Stage Theater in February and in March at two other locations in the community. The play was produced and directed by Don Williams, who founded the troupe.

Written in the mid-1980s, this former Broadway production deals with the complexity of relationships that stand in need of healing work and progress. This play provides a dramatic backdrop of action and conflict, yet is pregnant with resolution and hope. It is filled with an array of inspirational, heartfelt, uplifting, spirit-strengthening, hand-clapping, foot-stomping, infectious gospel music.

The production was sponsored by UCSC Student Affairs, the Council on Ethnic Programming, Center for Cultural Arts and Diversity, Student Initiated Outreach, UCSC Division of the Arts, Monterey Peninsula College, and UCSC Theater Arts Department.

 

Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery

Squeeze

Sesnon features work of Sotak, Anand
Two exhibitions — Erin V. Sotak: Squeeze and T.S. Anand: REST — ran from February 7 to March 17 at the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery.

For Squeeze, Sotak fabricated a new space in the gallery using a variety of materials, including wood, wall coverings, raw silk, and pomegranates. The piece revisits ideas of constraint versus restraint, seen versus unseen, interior versus exterior, and the distinct blur of the separateness of experience that occurs in a singular shared moment. She is an installation and performance artist concerned with notions of absurdity, futility, consumption, labor, and aesthetics. She creates images through the construction of space via three-dimensional objects including the human body. Her work is best described as a moving tableau that is re-rendered through the photographic process.

Rest

Anand’s REST is the final installment of the Mosquito Net Trilogy. Part One premiered at the Tree Museum of Gravenhurst, Canada, in 2003 and was recreated last summer at Sierra Azul Nursery, Watsonville, for the Pajaro Valley Arts Council. Part Two was presented in 2005 at the Cathcart Gallery, Santa Cruz, especially for the Santa Cruz Institute of Contemporary Art. In Part Three at the Sesnon, Anand again invited her audience to experience for themselves the interface of art and life. Anand is an interdimensional artist interested in creating thought provoking, visually stimulating, and trance inducing environments. Previously known for her multi-channel videos and durational performances, Anand has most recently been exploring the use of portable sound installations to bring unexpected experiential interactivity to art-going audiences. Her mosquito net listening stations create energetic spaces that are sensually inviting and at the same time visually permeable.