Victoria Vesna

Victoria Vesna (born 1959) is a professor and digital media artist.

Early life and education

Victoria Vesna was born in Washington D.C. She received a Fine Arts Diploma from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1984 and in 2000 completed her Ph.D. at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Interactive Arts, University of Wales.^[1]

Career

Victoria Vesna is chair of the Department of Design|Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture as well as director of UCLA's Art|Sci Center and the UC Digital Arts Research Network. She received the Oscar Signorini award for best net artwork in 1998 and the Cine Golden Eagle award for best scientific documentary in 1986.^[2] Through creative research, she examines perception and identity shifts in connection with scientific innovation as well as examining bio and nanotechnology through art.^[3]Exhibitions include Spaceship Earth at the Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Torun (2011) and MORPHONANO at the Beall Center for Art and Technology, Irvine, California (2012).^[4] MORPHONANO (made in collaboration with nanoscientist James Gimzewski) comprised many individual works that produced an interactive art experience, based on nanotechnology, in which viewers got to touch, hear, and see elements move and change in response to the participants' presence. In Christopher Hanson's review of her book Database aesthetics: Art in the age of information overflow, he says that Vesna provides an engaging collection of essays about changing aesthetics in interactive art and its relationship to the database.^[5]

Works

• Octopus Mandala Glow (2013), in collaboration with Ray Zimmerman, Dawn Faelnar, Mike Datz, Peter Rand, Steven Amrhein, and others
• ACOUSTIC NETWORKS OF BIRDS (2012), in collaboration with biologist Charles Taylor and physicist Takashi Ikegami
• Quantum Tunneling(2008)
• Water Bowls(2006)
• Mood Swings (2006)
• Datamining Bodies (2004) in collaboration with Gerald de Jong and David Beaudry
• Zero@wavefunction (2002) in collaboration with nanoscientist James Gimzewski
• Cell Ghosts (2001)

Publications

• Database aesthetics: Art in the age of information overflow (2007), University Of Minnesota Press.
• Mel Chin-Provocative Eco-Art in Action Academic journal article from Art Journal, Vol. 65, No. 1.
• Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between Art and Electronic Media. Phaidon Press. 2008.

Exhibitions

• MORPHONANO: Beall Center for Art and Technology, Irvine, California (2012)*Spaceship Earth: Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Torun (2011)
• Hox Zodiac: Microwave International New Media Arts Festival ALCHEMY, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.(2011)
• Quantum Tunneling: Median Kunst Labor (Media Art Laboratory), Graz, Austria.(2008)
• Cell Ghosts: Apeejay Media Gallery, New Delhi.(2005)
• Zero@wavefunction: Biennale for Electronic Arts, Perth. John Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. (2002)

References

External links

• Artist website: http://victoriavesna.com
• Artist talk: http://vimeo.com/52159955