Curating

Curating has been a significant aspect of my university service as well as being integrated with my own research and creative practice. But most importantly, I see it as a means of giving visibility to alternative media practices. As co-Chair of 24/7: A DIY Video Summit, I helped curate more than twelve hours of genre-based screening programs as part of a three-day festival at USC in 2008, with a follow-up event in 2010; and in 2007, I curated the USC Arts & Humanities Initiative Visions & Voices event Remixing the Archive, which included workshops, screenings, performances and panels devoted to an in-depth investigation of remix culture. The previous year, I curated two programs for the Annenberg Center’s Networked Publics media festival: The Digital Handmade and Political Remix. And in 2002, I co-curated with Holly Willis the Digital Media Salon for the Race in Digital Space 2.0 conference, which featured performances, sound art, interactive installations, a net art exhibit and multiple video programs. For more than a decade I served on the Board of Directors of Filmforum, Los Angeles’ oldest venue for experimental media, and for the past eight years I have co-curated with Holly Willis the screening series Blur + Sharpen at USC, which showcases new work by digital artists in the fields of design, motion graphics, animation, video and interactive media. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of contemporary digital media, these curatorial efforts allow me to remain current with often ephemeral work by cutting edge designers, artists and amateurs, while also allowing me to serve as an advocate for work that is particularly innovative, challenging or provocative. For me, curating also serves to enrich the creative and intellectual culture in Los Angeles and provides inspiration for my own scholarly and creative work.

24/7: Collective Action
Co-curator with Mimi Ito and Holly Willis
A one-hour program of DIY videos highlighting collaborative and collective practices in online video
Fall 2010

Blur + Sharpen
Co-curator with Holly Willis
A screening series at USC for recent digital media
2001-present

24/7: A DIY Video Summit
Co-chair (with Mimi Ito)
Three-day international conference and festival at USC
Spring 2008

The Digital Handmade
Curator, screening program; moderator of panel discussion for artists
Networked Publics Conference and Media Festival
Annenberg Center for Communication
Spring 2006

Political Remix
Co-curator, screening program and interactive display
Networked Publics Conference and Media Festival
Annenberg Center for Communication
Spring 2006

Race in Digital Space 2.0 Digital Salon
An evening of performances, screenings and interactive artwork for the Race in Digital Space 2.0 conference
Fall 2002

Los Angeles Filmforum
Member of Board of Directors
LA’s oldest screening venue for experimental film and video
Spring 1999-2010

Blur+Sharpen returns Thursday 2/26: Time Out of Place

The Blur + Sharpen Screening series presents: “Time Out of Place”
Thursday, February 26 at 8:00pm in SCA 108
The city becomes both a focal point and the backdrop for a series of videos made over the last decade that reflect a fascination with urban space, movement, mapping and the possibility of art. Highlights include Thomson & Craighead’s “desktop documentary” titled Flat Earth, Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt’s Time Out of Place, which attempts to portray the city’s past, present and future simultaneously, and the usual array of music videos and design shorts.

Blur+Sharpen presents Machinima Artistica

Blur + Sharpen, a screening series sponsored by the Institute for Multimedia Literacy, is pleased to present Machinima Artistica. This program of artist-made machinima focuses on a full range of expression, from the elegiac force of Phil Solomon and Mark Lapore’s haunting Untitled (for David Gatten) to a range of politically motivated critiques of violence and war, explorations of virtual being, and kinetic, abstract pieces that completely transform game worlds into spaces of awe and beauty. This is machinima like you’ve never seen it before! Curated by Holly Willis.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 : 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Robert Zemeckis Center’s Ron Howard Theater
Free and open to the public

24/7 A DIY Video Summit registration opens

Registration is now open for:
24/7: A DIY VIDEO SUMMIT
February 8-10, 2008
School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California
Conference web site: http://www.video24-7.org
Blog: http://diy.video24-7.org
Spaces are limited for attendance at the academic panels and the workshops. The video screenings are free and open to the public. Please help us spread the word about this event.
24/7: A DIY Video Summit will bring together the many communities that have evolved around do-it-yourself (DIY) video: artists, audiences, technology providers, academics, policy makers and industry executives. The aim is to discover common ground, and to chart the path to a future in which grassroots and mainstream, amateur and professional, artist and audience can all benefit as the medium continues to evolve.

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Remix Weekend Continues!

The Remix Weekend continues this afternoon and evening at the Annenberg Center! At 2:00 we will screen the winners of the Night of the Living Dead remix contest (good luck, Mike!), followed at 3:30 by a panel discussion on the Roots and Future of Remix. At 5:00, IMD’s own Perry Hoberman will perform a live, algorithmic remix of a Laurie Anderson talk, followed by our closing keynote address by Joi Ito at 5:30. A reception and Blur+Sharpen remix video program follows and then the weekend concludes with the mind-altering antics of the TV Sheriff at 7:30PM. You don’t want to miss this!
Complete schedule is here.

Remix Weekend is here!

Don’t miss the start of Remix Weekend at the Annenberg Center this Saturday November 4! This 2-day extravaganza begins at 12:30 with a series of hands-on remix workshops, including Barbara Lattanzi’s Optical De-dramatization Engine and the low-tech magic of Animal Charm. At 6:30PM archivist, artist and activist, Rick Prelinger will deliver our first keynote presentation/collage/call to arms in the copyright wars, followed by a VJ performance and file-sharing party hosted by Rene Garcia and Leonardo Bondani: bring your DVDs and put on your own VJ show! And at 9:30, we are very proud to host the world premiere of Anne McGuire’s Adventure Poseidon, The (The Unsinking of My Ship), a cinematic spectacle unlike anything you have ever experienced! Complete schedule is here.

Blur+Sharpen Tonight: The Horror

Halloween may be over but the horror continues with an entire show of spine-tingling, experimental digital shorts and music videos tonight at 8:00PM in the Ron Howard Theater. Where else can you see Hieronymus Bosch images brought to life by the sounds of Buckethead and bikini-clad girls performing amputations with dull instruments?
Blur+Sharpen screenings take place in the Ron Howard Theater at the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (3131 S. Figueroa St. across from the Shrine Auditorium). Free and open to the public. More Information

Blur+Sharpen: The Pleasures of Text

Blur + Sharpen returns with a show of text-based videos that showcase the power of designed typography. Highlights include Dutch graphic artist Mieke Gerritzen’s acclaimed Beautiful World, a confrontational exploration of visual signs, codes and slogans that questions globalization and consumer identity in a fast-paced moving graphics extravaganza. We’ll also screen a pair of jazzy, Web-based pieces by the Korean collective Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, the ASCII vision of Beck by Associates in Science and other shorts and music videos. Complete program is here.
The show will begin immediately after Simon Penny’s 511 presentation on September 27 at 8:00PM in the Ron Howard Screening Room, Zemeckis Center, 3131 South Figueroa – Free and open to the public!

The Computational Sublime

Blur+Sharpen presents: The Computational Sublime!
Wednesday February 15th at 8:30 PM
Ron Howard Theater, Robert Zemeckis Center
The recent proliferation of algorithmic and computational imaging has marked a radical redefinition of art-making, and along with it, a reconceptualization of contemporary technologies of vision, time, space and experience. This month’s Blur+Sharpen brings together a provocative array of generative, algorithmic and mathematically derived videos, all of which suggest new directions for thinking about the creative possibilities for time-based, computational media.

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