[Leonardo/ISAST Network] Leonardo Board member Sonya Rapoport to speak at UC Berkeley, Nov 29th

[Leonardo/ISAST]

UC Berkeley Art, Technology and Culture Series, 
Monday, November 29, 7:30 PM, 
160 Kroeber Hall, U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Way

FROM HOMUNCULUS TO GOLEM: TRACKING AN ALTER AVATAR
Sonya Rapoport, Artist, Berkeley

In recent years, scientists have advanced our ability to understand and
control human sexuality, reproduction, and gender. These developments have
been highly controversial and have implications for the constitution of
artificially created beings. Berkeley-based media artist Sonya Rapoport
draws on alchemy and Jewish mysticism to construct multimedia art works that
address these dilemmas.

Combining ancient myths with modern technological sophistication, Rapoport
will trace the evolution of her artwork through the past four decades,
starting from her abstract expressionist paintings of the 60s to net art.
Robert Edgar, media artist and historian, summarizes her early
interdisciplinary work as a "mix between Marcel Duchamp and the
anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss." Rapoport will present slides, video,
and her recent interactive webworks, REDEEMING THE GENE, and KABBALAH/KABUL,
in which she attributes a soul to an artificially created being, the golem.

Sonya Rapoport is a multi-media artist and pioneer in computer based art.
Her multi-cultural net artworks have been shown in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Ars
Electronica, Austria; Documenta, Kassel, Germany; the Kuopio Museum,
Finland; the SETI Workshop, Paris and the Buenos Aires Bienniel, Argentina.
as well as ISEA conferences and traveling exhibitions sponsored by the U.S.
Information Service and the National Endowment for the Arts. National venues
include Siggraph, Digital Salon and one-person exhibitions at The Palace of
the Legion of Honor, the Peabody Museum at Harvard, the San Jose Museum, The
New School, Artists Space, Franklin Furnace, and 80 Langton Street, Rapoport
serves on the governing board of LEONARDO/ISAST. Her critiques appear in
their MIT publications. She also serves on the Executive Committee for
University of California Art Practice Alumni Group.

The ATC is sponsored by UC Berkeley's: Center for New Media, Office of the
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, College of Engineering
Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Center for Information Technology in the
Interest of Society, Consortium for the Arts, BAM/PFA, Townsend Center for
the Humanities, and the Intel Corporation.

ATC Director: Ken Goldberg
ATC Associate Director: Greg Niemeyer
ATC Assistant: Therese Tierney
Curated with ATC Advisory Board

Full F04-S05 series schedule and video
archive:http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/lecs/