UCLA California NanoSystems Institute
(CNSI), 5th floor
JENNIFER MOON explores the possibilities of virtual world-building for ameliorating psychic pain and social anxiety in her 2018 body of work, “Familial Technologies.”
This exhibition is curated from a larger body of work first exhibited at Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles and includes virtual living spaces and personal avatars developed for use in Avakin Life, a virtual world game that Moon and her parents and brother used to experience family therapy sessions under self-determined circumstances in conjunction with visits to a therapist “IRL”. Moon’s family members are represented here by “player cards” that profile their avatars, screen shots of their individual dwellings in Avakin Life, and screen recordings of their ongoing weekly Avakin Life family relationship sessions.
Through the idealized, mediated virtual platform, the Moon family is able to access aspects of their emotional psyches free of the barriers that physical embodiment presents.
Stealth Drones is comprised of seven embroidery hoops hung in formation. Each hoop contains fractal patterns and ornamentation embroidered in white thread. The hoops are presented on a black velvet backdrop. At regular intervals UV lights are activated in the exhibition space. The embroideries react to the UV light and reveal a new type of information. Once the regular room lights are turned back on, this information disappears.
Please join us for our monthly LASER talk following the opening reception for Stealth Drone by Anne_Niemetz.
ART EXHIBITION + LEONARDO ART SCIENCE EVENING RENDEZVOUS (LASER): CYCLING THROUGH MILANKOVITCH
Please join us for our monthly LASER talk following the opening reception for Cycling Through Milankovic by Dona Jalufka
UCLA California NanoSystems Institute | ArtSci Gallery + Presentation Space (Fifth Floor)
570 Westwood Plaza, Building 114, 5th floor, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Parking information for Parking Structure 8 https://map.ucla.edu/
Jocelyn Ho in collaboration with Margaret Schedel and Matthew Blessing
Women’s Labor repurposes old domestic objects laden with functionalities traditionally pertaining to women to become new musical instruments using emerging technologies. At its heart, it is a feminist initiative to revalue traditional women’s work. Throughout the project, the public will interact with the domestic-object-turned instruments as installations and in workshops. Female-identifying composers will write new compositions with the instruments, to be feature in concert performance with works by past female composers. Domesticity is recast in a new light through public engagement and performative spectacle. The ironing instrument will be showcased in this preview.
Women’s Labor interrogates the pressing issue of gender inequality by jolting the audience’s perspective of gendered activities. Moreover, in a city such as Los Angeles with a staggering socio-economic divide, domestic activities in affluent households are often exclusively done by female house-workers from poorer families. Women’s Labor democratizes domestic activities where people from all walks of life—not only women or domestic workers—engage hands-on with these domestic-object-turned instruments. While a feminist agenda of breaking the glass ceiling in traditionally male-dominated industries is important, the validation of traditionally “feminine” skillsets and their adoption by men are equally crucial to pay equality.
Artistic director, project creator, composer, performer: Jocelyn Ho
Collaborators: Margaret Schedel (composer, technical consultant) and Matthew Blessing (technical director)
Image Credit: Jean-Baptiste Jules Trayer, "Breton seamstresses in a shop" 1854
“You are a part of everything you consume: food, material goods, and energy. And everything you consume affects the world that you live in. Know how to gather good data, understand what it means, make your choices based on quality information, and take action. You are made of energy and have the power.”
This is the crux of Andrea Polli’s project Hack the Grid, which reveals how photography, digital imagery, and data visualizations can inspire community activism and political action. Polli is an artist working at the intersection of art, science, and technology. For Hack the Grid, she presents past and current projects that reveal how data visualizations create emotional impact and societal change. Polli also engages in conversations with scientists, activists, technologists, and designers in Pittsburgh, a city at the intersection of technological advancements and longstanding ecological concerns.
Hack the Grid is a project of the Hillman Photography Initiative, in which Carnegie Museum of Art invites artists to investigate contemporary social issues through photography’s measurement of light and time. In addressing the relationship between light and environmental sustainability using data visualization, Polli pushes the boundaries of photography and reveals the power of imagery to inspire citizens and change the world for the better.
“Every bit of matter and energy exists in a state of blurry flux, allowing it to occupy not just two locations but an infinite number of them simultaneously.” (Roger Penrose)
This exhibition will be located at two distinct and distant geographical locations at the same time – one in Singapore and one in LA. For this occasion, a wide compendium of diverse art works will be focusing at the experimental animated artworks by Mark Chavez done in collaboration with Ina Conradi at the emergence of Media Art Nexus at the Nanyang Technological University Singapore. The future goal of the exhibition is reinforcing a holistic approach to issues of arts education and art production within Singapore and internationally.
Coyotes in Two Directions is a new body of works by Sarah Rosalena Brady. Coyotes in Two Directions examines the signifier of the trickster and shapeshifter as a symbolic metaphor to create techno-hybrid forms. Coyotes are symbolic in mythology and present in Western urban landscapes as one of the most successful animals surviving the Anthropocene. Emergent forms are employed through sculpture, automata, and 3D scans.
"Sonata Machine, Sewnata Machine, I will be the Maestro of my own fate” is a live concert performance by Nicole Cooke. Performing in drag as a classical musician, Cooke will “play” a converted Singer sewing machine as the principle musical instrument.
5-8 PM Reception
CNSI Building at UCLA
Art | Sci Center Gallery, 5th Floor
HYPNAGOGIA is the liminal state between consciousness and dream, a transitional flow that occurs in the mind. This installation and video piece illustrates the hypnagogic duality with lights orchestrated by her consciousness, using brainwave sensors, as the artist reveals her subconsciousness, by reading aloud the dreams she's written down from the past six years.
CNSI Building at UCLA
Art | Sci Center Gallery, 5th Floor
THE ACT OF FORGETTING
The video installation, "The Act of Forgetting", is an exploration of stream of consciousness. The intent is to forget all learned rules and move freely through the environment between us. Through this method, Friend discovered a strong correlation between abstraction of reality and human connection. The absence of detail allows for more assimilation between the various states of being.
