Peter Williams: Walls, Screens

Peter Williams: Walls, Screens

June 29 to August 18, 2017
Reception Thursday July 13, 2017 at 5:30 pm; Artist Talk at 6:30 pm

Walls and Screens_repImagePeter Williams is a New Media artist originally from Canada. Specializing in generative and interactive art, he makes tactically unstable works that complicate and hybridize place in physical, digital and augmented situations. Media are elastic and chimerical, more and more resembling us. Through his art, Williams struggles with this recursion. His works have been presented in Asia, Canada, Europe, the U.K. and USA at venues such as the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), The Lumen Prize Exhibition, SIGGRAPH Asia and the Association of Computing Machinery Conference on Human Computer Interaction (ACM SIGCHI).  He is currently Assistant Professor of New Media Art at California State University, Sacramento.

Recent Works from the Building Imagination Initiative

Recent Works from the Building Imagination Initiative

May 11–June 23, 2017
Reception Thursday, May 11 at 5:30 pm

 

BFA video projects

Housed within the Video & Time-Based Media program of the California State University Stanislaus Art Department, the Building Imagination Initiative is a uniquely service learning oriented, interdisciplinary, academic and research program. The Building Imagination Initiative is offered to students who wish to gain core industry experiences through a project based, integrated learning environment which has strategic partnerships with leading non-profits. Dedicated to creative applications of digital technologies and targeted service learning opportunities within Modesto, CA and the greater Central Valley, the Building Imagination Initiative is a highly innovative research program which focuses upon the low quality of life rankings of the Central Valley and the re-imagining of its future as a metaphorical bridge for social struggles endemic to humanity itself. Faculty and students representing interdisciplinary interests create a unique academic environment dedicated to realizing individual artistic intentions while creating a collaborative structure for critical thinking and the understanding of media ecology.

 

The Building Imagination Initiative’s mission is to:

  • To support a highly interdisciplinary educational program dedicated to experimentation, research and creative production involving technology, art, and service learning.
  • To facilitate student research and educational opportunities through service learning, programming, research, exhibitions, publishing, conferences and events.
  • To facilitate dialog and cross-departmental student research and educational opportunities between the Department, the University, and the community.
  • To facilitate diverse cultural experiences for students while generating an understanding of the depth and complexity of the visual arts.

 

The Building Imagination Initiative fosters technological competencies and sparks critical discourse between artists, writers, scientists, and social outreach groups on issues related to creative applications of new forms of digital art.

Benjamin Rosenthal

from this side of space to the other side of the signal

April 8 to May 6, 2017
Reception Thursday April 13, 2017 at 5:30 pm; Artist Talk at 6:30 pm

Benjamin Rosenthal (b. 1984, New York, NY,  lives and works in Lawrence, Kansas) holds an MFA in Art Studio from the University of California, Davis and a BFA in Art (Electronic Time-Based Media) from Carnegie Mellon University. His work has been exhibited internationally in such venues as the Stuttgarter Filmwinter (Stuttgart, Germany), High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary (Chicago, IL) FILE Electronic Language International Festival (São Paulo, Brazil), Vanity Projects (New York, NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina(Nov,i Sad, Serbia), and online via the Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum (Is.CaM), among others.  Pulling from a variety of fields in the humanities and sciences, he questions the authenticity of our physical experience in an age where the boundaries between reality and the virtual become indistinguishable. Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of Expanded Media, in the Department of Visual Art at the University of Kansas where he teaches Video Art, Performance Art, and interdisciplinary practices.

My practice examines the strategies of how we perform—the systems of control we set in place, and the way we negotiate our psychological, tangible and virtual positions. Most recently I find myself questioning the greater emphasis placed on physical experiences as a measure of authenticity in an age where the boundaries between physical reality and the virtual become nearly indistinguishable. Employing broader themes such as militarism, religion and technology, I expose and challenge the changing condition of bodies and psyches as they collide against each other within these often dysfunctional atmospheres. While my primary discipline is in video and other new media, my practice is interdisciplinary and my work traverses disciplines within the field of visual art—manifesting itself in such other formats as sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing.

Jessica Gomula: Complicit Participants

Jessica Gomula
Complicit Participants

March 4 to April 1, 2017
Reception Thursday March 9, 2017 at 5:30 pm
Artist Talk at 6 pm

Filling Her Shoes production stillJessica Gomula creates collaborative intermedia artwork which addresses socially conscious subject matter. Through video and animation projects, live performances, and responsive systems, her projects creatively respond to the physical and social character of an environment in an effort to bring diverse people together to inspire, and be inspired. Gomula’s work revolves around the Central Valley, with recent work focusing upon Modesto, CA.

“While not a native to Modesto, it is where I have lived the longest, having lived throughout the country during my youth. Growing roots in this community has had a profound impact on my artwork, and my sense of personal expression and art activism.”

Jessica Gomula’s video and interactive media works have been showcased internationally at ISEA, Dubai, UAE; Eastern Bloc, Montreal, Canada; Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture, Kefalonia Greece; OZU, Monteleone Sabino, outside Rome, Italy; POP Revolution Festival, Lecce, Italy; CST Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology, Zurich; MuseumsQuartier Wien, Vienna, Austria; Institut Intermédií, Prague, Czech republic. Her work has also been shown nationally at Quench ArtSpace, Waitsfield, Vermont; Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico; ARTS Lab, Albuquerque, New Mexico; CounterPulse, San Francisco, California; Climate Theatre, San Francisco, California; BASIC, San Diego, California; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California; Dance Mission Theatre, San Francisco, California.

 

Instinct/Extinct: The Great Pacific Flyway

Instinct/Extinct: The Great Pacific Flyway

January 24–February 25, 2017
Reception Thursday, February 9 at 5:30 pm
Artist talk at 6:00 pm
Valerie Constantino, Glenda Drew, Ann Savageau

instinct-extinct-picInstinct/Extinct is a multi-disciplinary contemporary art installation that explores and celebrates the Pacific Flyway, a migratory path stretching from Alaska to Argentina. The exhibition reveals the biology and beauty of the phenomenon through a range of lenses, including wildlife habitats, agriculture, recreational commons, and conservation stories.

Paul Taylor

Paul Taylor
#selfiesuit


December 3, 2016 to January 14, 2017
Reception Thursday December 8, 2016 at 5:30 pm; Artist Talk at 6:30 pm

soloselfie_stillPaul Taylor is a multimedia artist based in the San Francisco Bay area. His work explores the effects of increased digital immersion on our perceptions of and interactions with our surroundings and each other, and has been included in group exhibitions and screenings throughout the United States and abroad.

 

Matthew Gottschalk

Matthew Gottschalk
Towards the Very Close Future

October 31  to November 26, 2016
Reception Tuesday, November 1, 2016 at 5:30pm; Artist Talk at 6:30 pm

m_gottschalkMatthew Gottschalk is a multi-disciplinary artist who’s practice involves puppetry, sculpture, painting, video/sound and photography. He has shown throughout the Bay Area and internationally. His awards and honors include the Jay DeFeo Prize in 2012 from Mills College, a 2009/2010 Fellowship for New Media from the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, and the Yale-Norfolk 2007 Summer Arts Fellowship. Matthew is currently based between the Bay Area and the Foothills of Northern California.

Alyssa Lempesis

Alyssa Lempesis

October 1 to October 27, 2016
Reception Thursday October 13, 2016 at 5:30 pm; Artist Talk at 6:30 pm

 

Alyssa Lempesis works from imaginative speculation on uncanny ecologies. Her work merges the natural and the fantastic to create animated scenes of a world that exists somewhere between the unknown and the familiar, the present and the future.

Lempesis received an MFA from University of California at Davis (2014) and a BA at University of California at Berkeley (2012). She is an artist and educator living and working in the East Bay. Recent solo exhibitions include Aggregate Space (Oakland), Diablo Valley College (Pleasant Hill), and Alter Space Gallery (San Francisco) as part of the Jail Cell Residency Program.

Rob Fatal: THE BUDDY SYSTEM

Rob Fatal: THE BUDDY SYSTEM

August 22 to September 24, 2016
Reception Thursday September 8, 2016 at 5:30 pm; Artist Talk at 6:30 pm

Rob FatalAs an activist, educator and artist of Native American, Xican@ and queer roots I have found community and culture to be my greatest artistic inspiration. To create with the collective minds of unique individuals is a practice that brings to me a great spiritual catharsis; a feeling of joy and power tied to the realization of what people working together can accomplish when in harmony: a home, a shared reality, justice, and healing.  As such, my art practice is primarily tied to mediums that necessitate community participation: filmmaking, video art, performance, large-scale installations, and curating. The looks of my work are as diverse the communities who create them, but most contain a sense of macabre, camp, Xican@/Native sensibility: A feature length, all drag sequel to the 1984 Chicano classic La Bamba;  A projection mapping video aimed at the floor displaying a shadow entombed in flowers and candles made as memory to our fallen trans and queer Latin@ brothers and sisters who have been largely ignored by society;  a marathon Dia de los Muertos dance party and VJ installation set to the music of all dead musicians complete with an Eazy E pinata. As a result our creative collaborations are mutual investigations into the unknown depth of our cultures, identities, desires, fears, joys and communities. See his work at: www.vimeo.com/RobFatal