Media artist, professor at the department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts. Director of the recently established UCLA Art|Sci center and the UC Digital Arts Research Network.

http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/
http://artsci.ucla.edu/BlueMorph/concept.html
http://www.sr.se/p1/SRc/bluemorph/index.html

 Vibrations of Metamorphosis 

This talk will center on sound vibrations from natural systems both metaphoric and actual applied in three artworks that seek to create an experience though immersive, vibrational interactive environments. Through these works, I will argue that amplified inaudible vibrations are critical in media arts explorations. Mood Swings creates states of emotion and perception by translating the viewer’s body into a swarm of moving particles that change “moods” by radically audio and color vibrations. The piece was developed in close interaction with a psychiatric research group in UCLA who look at the relationship of sound pollution and depression. Cell Ghosts was inspired by a new cutting edge field of study coined as “sonocytology” by nanoscientist Gimzewski. This field represents a new realm of challenge and potential for scientists, artists, and in particular for musicians. The tool with which the cell sounds are extracted - the atomic force microscope (AFM) - can be regarded as a new type of musical instrument. Unlike microscopes that use optical imaging, the AFM “touches” a cell with its small tip, comparable to a record needle “feeling” the bumps in a groove on a record. With this interface, the AFM “feels” oscillations taking place at the membrane of a cell. These electrical signals are then amplified and used in the piece. This same technique was used to create the Blue Morph piece — raw data files of the caterpillar membrane “sound” vibrations were sped up and amplified to reveal that metamorphosis does not happen gradually as we would like to imagine. This is experienced in a site specific installation that immerses the participants in blue color and vibrations of metamorphosis.

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Victoria Vesna is a media artist, professor at the department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts. She is also director of the recently established UCLA Art|Sci center and the UC Digital Arts Research Network. Her work can be defined as experimental creative research that resides between disciplines and technologies. She explores how communication technologies affect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. Her most recent installations — Blue Morph, Mood Swings and Water Bowls, all aim to raise consciousness around the issues of our relationship to natural systems. Other notable works are Bodies INCorporated, Datamining Bodies, n0time and Cellular Trans_Actions.

Victoria has exhibited her work in 18 solo exhibitions, over 70 group shows, published 20+ papers and gave a 100+ invited talks in the last decade. She is recipient of many grants, commissions and awards, including the Oscar Signorini award for best net artwork in 1998 and the Cine Golden Eagle for best scientific documentary in 1986. Vesna’s work has received notice in numerous publications such as Art in America, National Geographic, the Los Angeles Times, Spiegel (Germany), The Irish Times (Ireland), Tema Celeste (Italy), and Veredas (Brazil) and appears in a number of book chapters on media arts. She holds a PhD from the University of Wales and is he North American editor of AI & Society and author of Database Aesthetics.