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Sara Condo

Lecturer

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Bio

Sara Condo is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago, Illinois. She uses personal experiences as a living site for exploration into complex narratives surrounding gender, technology, and history. Condo uses an experimental media based practice to explore unwritten stories and deploys them in the present form to envision new futures.

Education: Condo studied Media Arts at DePaul University, received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute in 2009 and received her MFA at University of Illinois at Chicago in 2016. Group Exhibitions: Condo’s work has exhibited her work nationally and internationally with selected group exhibitions at Gallery 400, Sullivan Galleries, Roots and Culture Contemporary Art Center (Chicago, IL). Recent Solo Exhibitions: Recent solo exhibitions include at Rare Air Exhibitions Governor’s Island (New York, NY), Randy Alexander Gallery (Chicago, IL). Performances: She has screened her performance and moving image work in various experimental platforms such as Palace Film Festival(Chicago, IL), ACRE TV: (Chicago, IL, Pensacola, FL) and Temporary Resurfacing (Milwaukee, WI). Residencies: She has held residencies at Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist Residency, ACRE Artists Cooperative and Residency, and WZFR Residency for Experimental Filmmakers. Research: In addition, she has completed research in software programming for sound and video at the Center Computer for Research Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. Condo continues to live and make work in her home studio in the Heart of Chicago, Illinois where she is a professor teaching Intro and Advanced Topics in Photography, Audio and New Media.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

Students are introduced to using light as a means for creative control. By studying the light around us, we are able to better serve our work through specific choices with regard to existing or ambient light and light augmented by other sources of illumination. Students learn the rudiments of metering, mixing light sources, including the use of on-camera or hand-held electronic flash within existing lighting conditions. This is a practical course that enables students to better control and use light and lighting in their work.

Class Number

1361

Credits

3

Description

Large Format Photography introduces students to the ideas and aesthetics associated with a large-format view camera. Students will learn pre-visualization, camera movements, perspective control, large-format optics, and how to handle large format sheet film. Assignments focus on portraiture, landscape, studio, and architecture. Students are encouraged to develop a personal style via flexible assignments. Technical skills acquired include view camera setup and control, experience with sheet film, the zone system, large format scanning, and analog and digital printing. All enrolled students are assigned a 4x5 studio camera and will have access to an 8x10 and 4x5 field cameras, along with a variety of optics and accessories. A variety of technical readings from multiple sources will help students understand perspective control, camera setup, lens choice, bellows extension, available film choices, exposure, and reciprocity compensation associated with large format photography. Additional readings and screenings will provide examples of historical and contemporary work created utilizing large format photography, and highlight the cameras meditative qualities and excellent resolution and control.

Class Number

1350

Credits

3

Description

Exploratory Media examines the fluidity and connection between various forms of media. The course builds on the history of Conceptualism, an artistic practice born in the 1960s that prioritized the idea, allowing the medium to follow as well as the highly influential theory of the medium itself being meaning and message. This course will highlight the history of artists who worked with a wandering “nomadic” mindset due to access to new technologies such as video art collectives of the 1970’s as well as photographers who work within a non-traditional lens based practice. This laboratory-like course encourages students to experiment and iterate: In this course students are asked to consider their artistic intentions through different kinds of media like performance, sculpture, sound, while also focusing on different outputs for lens based work such as alternative photographic substrates, performance, installation. The course structure relies on assignment-based projects, frequent hands-on studio experimentations, peer-to-peer feedback, and looking at other artists' work in a variety of mediums. Intermittent readings, lectures, and screenings provide a conceptual framework for this work.

Class Number

1825

Credits

3