A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Edward Kac

Professor

Contact

Bio

Professor, Art and Technology Studies (1997). Education: BA, 1985, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro; MFA, 1990, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; PhD, 2003, University of Wales, Great Britain. Exhibitions: Kac’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Pompidou Center, Paris; MAXXI-Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; Power Station of Art, Shanghai; and Seoul Museum of Art, Korea. Kac's work has been showcased in biennials such as Yokohama Triennial, Japan; Biennial of the End of the World, Ushuaia, Argentina; Gwangju Biennale, Korea; Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil; International Triennial of New Media Art, National Art Museum of China, Beijing; and Bienal de Habana, Cuba. Collections: His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Frac Occitanie—Regional collections of contemporary art, Les Abattoirs—Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Toulouse, France; the Museum of Modern Art of Valencia, Spain; the ZKM Museum, Karlsruhe, Germany; Art Center Nabi, Seoul; and the Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo, among others. Awards: Kac has received many awards, including the Golden Nica Award, the most prestigious award in the field of media arts and the highest prize awarded by Ars Electronica.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course examines the impact of new technologies on the aesthetics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Issues explored in the course include the structure of synthetic pictorial spaces, creating art in a global scale, responding to images of pure light, the aesthetics of motion, behavior in virtual environments and the experience of interactive artworks. In some cases the emphasis is on a particular new medium and the multiple artistic approaches to it; in other cases, the emphasis is on particular artists and their experimental work.

Main lecture topics include: Moholy-Nagy's work, early radio and the impact of auditory images, kinetic art, robotic art, telecommunication art, computer art, digital photography, virtual reality, telepresence, holographic art, and bio art Readings include texts by featured artists and historians including Dieter Daniels, Rudolf Frieling, Philip Auslander, as well as original texts by the instructor.

Course work will include weekly reading assignments, in-class discussions, a midterm research proposal, a 15-page research paper, and a final presentation.

Class Number

2347

Credits

3

Description

This course examines the impact of new technologies on the aesthetics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Issues explored in the course include the structure of synthetic pictorial spaces, creating art in a global scale, responding to images of pure light, the aesthetics of motion, behavior in virtual environments and the experience of interactive artworks. In some cases the emphasis is on a particular new medium and the multiple artistic approaches to it; in other cases, the emphasis is on particular artists and their experimental work. Main lecture topics include: Moholy-Nagy's work, early radio and the impact of auditory images, kinetic art, robotic art, telecommunication art, computer art, digital photography, virtual reality, telepresence, holographic art, and bio art Readings include texts by featured artists and historians including Dieter Daniels, Rudolf Frieling, Philip Auslander, as well as original texts by the instructor. Course work will include weekly reading assignments, in-class discussions, a midterm research proposal, a 15-page research paper, and a final presentation.

Class Number

2342

Credits

3

Description

This course is meant to provide an informal critical backdrop for those working within the broad range of art and technology. Students meet once a week to present and discuss their work. The faculty leader facilitates the dialog, which is designed to aid students to formulate their ideas and articulate a critique of their own work as well as that of their peers.

Class Number

2202

Credits

3

Description

Since the early 1960s the social impact of computer technology has been a dominant issue and since the early 1980s the digital revolution has been provoking profound changes in the way we live. Now, as we move into the twenty-first century, we realize that the next frontier of artistic and technological investigation is biology. The field of biological studies is changing from a life science into an information science. Biosemiotics, for example, is an interdisciplinary science that studies communication and signification in living systems. Biotechnologies are introducing complex ethical issues, such as the patenting and sale of genes. Genetic engineering is transforming forever how society approaches the notion of 'life.' A few contemporary artists have been responding to this change and are already working with modified bacteria, interspecies communication, and hybridization techniques to redefine the boundaries between the artwork and living organisms. This seminar discusses the complex and fascinating relationship between biology and art in the larger context of related social, political, and ethical issues.

Class Number

2284

Credits

3