DANM MFA Exhibition 2024

EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments presents the thesis research and culminating projects of the Digital Art and New Media (DANM) MFA graduating cohort of Spring 2024. The exhibition features immersive installations, performances, puzzle-based experiences, games, and VR addressing queer and trans identity politics, erotic energy in the digital age, visual cultures of gay social spaces, ableism, access, and cultural trauma.
Building from spaces of deep inquiry and exploration, the work of these artists – Jordan Fickel, Kristopher Funk, Robbie Trocchia, Saul Villegas, and Elliot Rex White – creates spaces of personal and cultural transformation, offering a radical reconsideration of the arts as privileged domain in favor of cultural interventions that question authority, convention, and tradition.
Embodiments critiques and calls out, but also invites us into and beyond our own embodiments through the convergence of art, technology, and community. The artists’ resilience, commitment and ambition encompass far more than a culminating MFA thesis, rather acts of resistance which provoke critical reflection through immersive and engaged experiences of experimentation, catharsis and play.
Faculty Curator G. Craig Hobbs
Jordan Fickel
Saul Villegas
Kristopher Funk
Elliot Rex White
Robbie Trocchia

Embodiments

A Digital Arts and New Media MFA Exhibition 
 

General Information

Location:

Digital Arts Research Center (DARC) University of California, Santa Cruz

Exhibition Dates:

April 26th and 27th, 12-5 pm

May 1st – 4th, 12-5 pm

Opening reception:

April 26th, 2024, 4 pm, location TBA

Artist presentations: TBA

 

Free and open to the public.

About the Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA Program at UC Santa Cruz

DANM researches the creative potentials and social implications of emerging technologies and digital cultural practices. The two-year MFA program emphasizes artistic and technological innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and social action. Faculty closely mentor emerging artists to become deep thinkers, artistic innovators and responsible leaders. DANM faculty are internationally renowned artists and scholars. The principal faculty, including distinguished professor Isaac Julien, come from across the Arts Division and the Baskin School of Engineering. Many affiliate faculty expand DANM’s expertise even further, offering students an unparalleled depth and breadth of mentors and interdisciplinary opportunities throughout a top-tier research university.

For more information about the UCSC Arts Division and events

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Exhibition Map

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Panel 5

Archives

DIGITAL ARTS & NEW MEDIA

Master's Exhibition Archive
 

A collection of the seminal exhibition research projects of the graduating students of the Digital Art & New Media program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  

Heap is Full: Event Listing

2023

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: HEAP IS FULL

IAN COSTELLO
NICKI DUVAL
CARL EREZ
ANGELA FAN
ROSE KLEIN
LIVIA PEREZ
PATRICK STEPHENSON
RORY WILLATS
Heap is Full is a viscerally immersive exhibition offering alternative orientations to our mediated worlds. Eight exceptionally talented artists – Ian Costello, Nicki Duval, Carl Erez, Angela Fan, Rose Klein, Livia Perez, Patrick Stephenson and Rory Willats – present new works of media art developed through concentrated inquiry over a two-year period. Heap is Full is curated by Yolande Harris in collaboration with the artists of the DANM 2023 cohort.
Heap is Full: Event Listing
Smoke Out: Event Listing

Above: Rose Klein’s Games of the Oppressed.

Background: Rory Willats’ Come, Fur(r)ies, Dance.

Above: Forest Reid’s THE LAST GALACIAN SWITCHBOARD.

Background: Laura Boutros’ AMDUAT: THE 12 HOURS OF RA.

2022

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: UNFORGETTING

MOHAMADREZA BABAEE
dani wright
LAURA BOUTROS
DAVE CRELLIN
FOREST REID

The UC Santa Cruz Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA program presents unforgetting the culminating exhibition of the 2022 MFA cohort. Five artists, Mohamadreza Babaee, Laura Boutros, Dave Crellin, Forest Reid and dani wright present new works of media art in the form of installations, games, experimental theater, video and site-specific installation, curated by Yolande Harris.

Unforgetting: Event Listing
Amduat: event Listing

2021

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: SIGNS OF LIFE

M. JAMES BECKER
NICK JUNIUS
ERIN SINGLE
STEPHANIE LAYTON
DAYNA DIAMOND
REY CORDOVA
HAORAN CHANG
PATRICK STEFANIAK

During their program at UC Santa Cruz the cohort of 2021 which graduates this year have endured a series of trials: the viral pandemic, which forced them to adopt new modes of virtual working; a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) strike in which many of this cohort were active; an unusually active fire season in which the flames grazed the UCSC campus and the Black Lives Matter protests– an outswelling of public rage against the pandemic of US racism. This exhibition is not ‘about’ any of these things, but the works presented bear the traces of students’ negotiation of these processes and events as they make the transition to artistic practice outside of the University.
Signs of Life: Event Listing

Above: Erin Single’s DUST WARNING.

Background: Patrick Stefaniak’s CLOTH^3.

Above: Evie Chang’s Buddytale.

Background: Marjan Khatibi’s Virtual Empowerment.

2020

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS:

EVIE CHANG
MARJAN KHATIBI

Virtual Empowerment is an immersive experience and visual narrative in the form of sociopolitical fiction. The project is designed to inhabit both virtual and physical spaces.

Buddytale is a game exploring our attachments to virtual pets and the nature of our relationships to them. The game invites players pick out and care for their own virtual buddy and play through snapshots of their life together: their first meeting, picking out a toy at the pet shop, comforting them during a particularly bad storm, and so on, until they must say goodbye.

2020 DANM Exhibition: Event Listing

2019

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: RECEIVERSHIP

SHIMUL CHOWDHURY
KATHLEEN DECK
KAVI DUVVOORI
KEEGAN FARRELL
RICHARD GRILLOTTI
CHELSEA JONES
YANZI LI
JORDAN MAGNUSON
AVITAL MESHI
MATTHEW MITCHELL
ZOE SANDOVAL
LAURA STEVENSON
GREGORY SULLO

The Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) program presents Receivership, its 2019 MFA Thesis Exhibition. The exhibition represents the culmination of two years of intensive study and creative work, encompassing a range of artistic practices and approaches to the use and examination of new media. The Digital Art/New Media MFA program of UC Santa Cruz brings together the arts, digital technologies, the humanities, and the sciences to produce artworks and scholarly research that together examine culture, society, and the digital world.
Receivership: Event Listing

Above: Richard Grillotti’s Resonant Waves: Immersed in Geometry.

Background: Shimul Chowdhury’s Stiching Solidarity.

Above:  Tony Assi’s Gaze Relations.

Background: Carinne Knight’s Presence Interference.

2018

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: INTERSTICIES

ANN ALTSTATT, TONY ASSI, CHRISTOPHE IVINS, CARINNE KNIGHT, LINDSAY MOFFAT, SIMON BOAS, COLLEEN JENNINGS, IAN NEWMAN, PARUL WADHWA

The 2018 DANM MFA exhibition represents the culmination of two years of intensive study and creative work, encompassing a range of artistic practices and approaches to the use and examination of new media. The exhibition’s title, Interstices, alludes pointedly to the historical moment and conditions that have shaped their work and lives. Meaning “an intervening space” and “an interval between things, parts, or times,” Interstices signals the artists’ conviction that this a time of transition and seeking, a time to find the cracks in current reality, to see beyond it and break through to a new space. Their work testifies to the belief that art can and should help change the world. 

DANM Event Page

2017

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: ultraSHIFT

MATTHEW R.F. BALOUSEK, SL BENZ, FINLEY COYL, KATIE GREEN, MARGUERITE KALHOR, DARRELL “MC” RUPPEL, SCOTT TOOBY

The 2017 graduates from the Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA Program are presenting their work in the exhibition, ultraSHIFT. The DANM MFA Program serves as a center for the development and study of digital media and the cultures that they have helped create. Faculty and students are drawn from a variety of backgrounds, such as the arts, computer engineering, humanities, the sciences, and social sciences, to pursue interdisciplinary artistic and scholarly research and production in the context of a broad examination of digital arts and cultures.

DANM Event Page

Above: Scott Tooby’s Embedded Soundscaping.

Background: Marguerite Kalhor’s the this: artifice + superfice: two scoops of banality.

Above: Mónica Andrade’s Marqués.

Background: David Harris’ Edges of Color.

2016

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: BLIND SPOT

NICK ANDRADE, ZACH CORSE, TIMOTHY FURSTNAU, DAVID HARRIS, HOPE HUTMAN, SARAH FAY KROM, MARCELO VIANA NETO, SEAN PACE, ADRIAN PHILLIPS, BEN SPALDING, ANDREA STEVES, MICHAEL THOMÉT, STEVEN TRIMMER

The 2016 graduates from the Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA Program are presenting their work in the exhibition, Blind Spot. Thirteen artists are creating and iterating within realms not easily decipherable and detected in the conventional art world. Each artist has worked in the critical spaces of game design, performance, post cinematic space, scientific theory, economic systems, or interactive media to resist and expand long-established, canonical meanings of art.

DANM Event Page

2015

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: NEW ALCHEMY

JANA BOLOTIN, JOEL DREAM, STEVE GERLACH, KRISTIN GILLETTE, WAYNE BOOTH MARCI, SEAN MCGOWEN, WES MODES, NATHAN OBER,  JOAN RAPSO, ALEXANDRA TEIXEIRA RIGGS, KELLY SKYE, DIETRICH “SQUINKY” SQUINKIFER,

Alchemy can be defined as “a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination.” This same definition could be used to describe the artist process, and speaks to science, discovery, and the unattainable. This year’s works include sculptural installations, interactive documentary, playable digital media experiences, and even the recreation of a 1940’s shantyboat. In New Alchemy, transformation is at the core of the artists’ work, and is core to their personal journeys during their two years as graduate students.

DANM Event Page

Above: Steve Gerlach’s Topological Projections.

Background: Nathan Ober’s Orbits.

Above: Lisa Banks’ Suspended Motion Series II: Scroll II (detail).

Background: Holly Findlater’s Rendering O(H)M.

2014

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: UNDERCURRENTS

LISA BANKS, GENE A. FELICE II, HOLLY FINDLATER, DAVID HARRIS, MATTHEW JAMIESON, PHIL LY, STACEY MASON, JOHN MAWHORTER, JONATHAN MENENDEZ, DAVID W. MOODY, DANIELLE WILLIAMSON

Eleven emerging artists push back against prevailing ideas and definitions of digital art.  Undercurrents of information and meaning run through the exhibition, connecting themes of conservation, activism, and representation.

DANM Event Page

2013

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: ground (ctrl)

JOHN-PATRICK AYSON, DEREK FRANZ, JACOB GARBE, CATALINA GIRALDO, DAN HELLER, ANDREW SILLER, EVE WARNOCK, LAURA WRIGHT

The artists invite the viewer to redefine the meanings of “digital arts” and “new media” through hybridized video installations, interactive experiences, and improvisational performances that examine the social impact of new media on our lives.

DANM Event Page

Above: Catalina Giraldo’s Verde Oscuro.

Background: Laura Wright’s Radidio.

Above: Emily Martinez’s On (Collective) Memory, Light, and Vision (Working Title).

Background: james b. pollack’s be there.

2012

THE DIGITAL ARTS AND NEW MEDIA MFA PROGRAM PRESENTS: I’VE GOT SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND

DUNCAN BOWSMAN, DANIEL CHRISTOPHER, JESSE FULTON, SABRINA HABEL, HEATHER LEE LOGAS, EMILY MARTINEZ, NATALIE MCKEEVER, ALEXEI OTHENIN-GIRARD, HELEN HYUN-KYUNG PARK, JAMES B. POLLACK, JOLIE RUELLE

Entitled, I’VE GOT SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND. presents the work of eleven MFA candidates who employ advanced technologies for creative potential. Through storytelling about places, times and players, these artists experiment with digital media to produce unforeseen, imaginative outcomes.

DANM Event Page