Blended Realities: Creativity, Simulation, & Art Lecture by Visual
Media Artist Kathleen Ruiz
Tuesday, September 14, 7:00 p.m.
August 17, 2004
Kathleen Ruiz, Associate Professor of Integrated Electronic Arts, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, will lecture about her recent work as a visual media artist who incorporates simulation, photography, sculpture and performance. The talk will be held at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 14, 2004, in the Cousins Studio Theatre of the Modlin Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Richmond, Admission is free and open to the public.
Ruiz will discuss Stunt Dummies, her award-winning interactive multimedia game installation, which was recently exhibited in Mexico, Argentina, and Germany, and is sponsored in part by Sony Computer Entertainment. Stunt Dummies is concerned with the duality of the promise of technology, while also illustrating aspects of control and manipulation. The installation poses the questions: Are we controlling technology or is technology controlling us? Do we humans ask too much from our technology? Or does our technology ask too much from us?
She will also discuss The Ava Project, her multimedia performance piece which features AVA -- an animated, humanoid game character who jumps off a computer screen to dance with real dancers -- in an exploration of the delicate relationship between humanity, technology, and creativity. This work poses the questions: How do our technological tools reinvent their makers? What can be learned from the collaborative dynamics between digital and traditional arts practice and aesthetics? What new ethical issues arise from the creation of synthetic characters capable of moving and even posing as humans?
Ruiz will also discuss Bang, Bang (you're not dead?), a satirical interactive three-dimensional game, which looks at the "oxymoron of virtual violence" in a humorous and open forum.
Ruiz is an Associate Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where she teaches courses in interactive simulation, game studies, digital photography, sculpture, and emerging multidisciplinary genres. Ruiz's art has been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia, and has been reviewed/published in The New York Times, Aperture, Art News, Wired, and other publications. Her web site is http://www.rpi.edu/~ruiz.
The lecture is presented by the University's Mathematics and Computer Science Department and University Museums, and is sponsored by the Richmond Quest III, a two-year focus by University of Richmond students, faculty, and staff on a broad and pervasive question that confronts the academic world and contemporary society. The question posed for the 03-04 and 04-05 school years is "How do we know which question to ask?"
Ruiz's talk is part of a host of programs offered in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition New Math: Contemporary Art and the Mathematical Instinct, which will be on view from October 26 to December 12, 2004, in the Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums. Additional programs include
Lecture, Monday, October 25, 2004, 7-9 p.m.
"Art, Math, Instinct," Peter Spooner, Curator, Tweed Museum
of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth, and curator of the exhibition
Cousins Studio Theatre, Modlin Center for the Arts
8-9 p.m., Reception and viewing of the exhibition, New Math: Contemporary
Art and the Mathematical Instinct, Booth Lobby, Marsh Art Gallery,
University of Richmond Museums, Modlin Center for the Arts
Lecture, Thursday, November 4, 7-9 p.m.
"Visual Thinking/Visual Computing," Anne Morgan Spalter, Visual
Computing Researcher and Artist in Residence, Brown University Graphics
Research
Cousins Studio Theatre, Modlin Center for the Arts
8-9 p. m., Viewing of the exhibition, New Math: Contemporary Art and
the Mathematical Instinct, Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond
Museums, Modlin Center for the Arts
University of Richmond Museums comprises the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, the arts and natural sciences museum; the Marsh Art Gallery, the art museum; and the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center. Admission to all museums is free and open to the public. Call (804) 289-8276 for information and directions or visit our website at http://oncampus.richmond.edu/museums.