A conversation about experimental systems in contemporary art and design
Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 7pm
209 East 23 Street,
3rd-Floor Amphitheater,
New York City
Free and open to the public
212.592.2010
http://www.sva.edu/events
For the last 20 years artist Michael Joaquin Grey’s work has bridged the boundaries between art, science and media. His interdisciplinary practice revolves around the development and origins of life and language. Grey is also the inventor of the toy ZOOB, a versatile modeling system that emulates the building blocks of nature. Grey’s work has been widely exhibited, most recently in a 2009 solo exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. His work has also been shown at bitforms gallery, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.
Architect and urban designer Mitchell Joachim, PhD, is the co-founder of Terreform ONE (Open Network Ecology) and Terrefuge, non-profit design groups that promote green design in cities. His work has earned the Infiniti Design Excellence Award for the City of the Future, Time magazine’s Best Invention of the Year 2007 and a spot on WIRED magazine’s 2008 Smart List, among other honors. His firm’s proposal for a Habitat for Humanity dwelling using live trees—a structure grafted into shape with prefabricated Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) reusable scaffolds, known as Fab Tree Hab—was exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Dr. Mitchell is a TED2010 Fellow and currently serves as the Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at the University of Toronto. He is also on the faculty at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and at Parsons The New School for Design.
Conceptual artist and interspecies communication researcher Aimee Morgana is an avian behavior expert whose work bridges the disciplines of art and science and focuses on the relationships between humans and other species. Since 1997, Morgana has been working with the African gray parrot N’Kisi, developing methods to teach N’Kisi language by adapting techniques used for teaching children. N’Kisi has learned to communicate using human language and is considered one of the top language-using animals in the world. Morgana’s work has been exhibited at the Royal Society of the Arts, London; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and the 1989 Whitney Biennial; and has been presented at numerous film festivals and scientific conferences worldwide.
BFA Fine Arts Department Chair Suzanne Anker is a visual artist and theoretician working at the intersection of art and the biological sciences. She is a leading voice in a growing group of artists in the field of sci-art, an emerging movement that blurs the boundaries between art and science. Anker’s studio practice incorporates both traditional mediums and new technologies, ranging from drawing and silkscreen printing to computer-assisted three-dimensional modeling and installation. Anker’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art, Japan. Her 2009 exhibitions include “The Hothouse Archives” at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin; “The Glass Veil” at the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charite, Berlin; “Corpus Extremus” at Exit Art, New York; and “Inside (Art and Science)” at the Cordoaria, Lisbon, Portugal. Anker is the author of the recent book Visual Culture and Bioscience (D.A.P., 2009).
With a faculty of approximately 100 active artists, critics and curators, a distinguished roster of guest lecturers and various exhibition opportunities, the BFA Fine Arts Department at SVA offers direct and multifaceted engagement with the largest art community in the world. From coursework in anatomy, figure drawing and color theory, to interdisciplinary workshops in digital and photo-based media, the curriculum provides the broadest possible means of expression.
School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.