Victoria Vesna
{{Short description|American digital media artist}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Victoria Vesna
| image = Octupus_Mandala_(52291646).jpeg
| image_size =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1959|6|9}}
| website = https://victoriavesna.com/
| known_for = nanoart, digital art, computer art, video art
| caption = Victoria Vesna performing Octupus Mandala at Santa Monica Glow. Photo: Brandon Choe.
| notable_works = Zero@wavefunction (2002), Datamining Bodies (1999), and Bodies Corp 2.0 (2015)
| education = University of Wales and University of Belgrade
| birth_place = Washington D.C.
| awards = Oscar Signorini Prize
}}
Victoria Vesna (born 1959) is a professor and digital media artist. She is known for her feminist video, computer and internet art and has been active since the early 1980s.{{Cite book|jstor=10.5749/j.cttts8r3.19|title=Women of Vision|chapter=Victoria Vesna|date=2001|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|isbn=9780816633715|edition= NED - New|series=Histories in Feminist Film and Video|volume=9|pages=235–247}}{{Cite journal|last=Colman|first=Alison|date=2005|title=Constructing an Aesthetic of Web Art from a Review of Artists' Use of the World Wide Web|jstor=20715365|journal=Visual Arts Research|volume=31|issue=1|pages=13–25}}{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=Kristen|date=1999|title=Trends in computer and technological art.|url=https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/58696/ArtCriticism_V14_N02.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y|journal=Art Criticism|volume=14 |issue=2|pages=94–106|via=ARTBibliographies Modern, ProQuest}} Along with collaborator Jim Gimzewski she is thought to have created one of the first interactive artworks related to nanotechnology (sometimes called nanoart){{Cite journal|last=Spector|first=Tami I.|date=2008-07-25|title=Nanotechnology, Nanoscale Science and Art|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/243499|journal=Leonardo|language=en|volume=41|issue=4|pages=348–349|doi=10.1162/leon.2008.41.4.348|issn=1530-9282|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web|url=http://notime.arts.ucla.edu/zerowave/zerowave.html|title=Zero@wavefunction|website=notime.arts.ucla.edu|access-date=2018-03-28}} and defines her art practice as experimental research.
Early life and education
Victoria Vesna was born in Washington, D.C., on June 9, 1959.{{Cite web|url=http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/bio/bio_frameset.htm|title=Victoria Vesna - Biography|website=vv.arts.ucla.edu|access-date=2020-03-27}} She graduated from the High School of Art & Design in New York City, New York, in 1976. She received a Fine Arts Diploma from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1984. In 2000, she completed her Ph.D. at CAiiA (The Centre for Advanced Studies in Interactive Arts) at the University of Wales with a thesis entitled "Networked Public Spaces: An Investigation into Virtual Embodiment" in 2000.[http://dma.ucla.edu/faculty/profiles/?ID=1 UCLA faculty profile]; accessed December 2, 2017.
Career
= Teaching =
Victoria Vesna was the chair of the Department of Design Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture as well as director of UCLA's Art|Sci Center and the UC Digital Arts Research Network.
= Awards =
She received the Oscar Signorini award for best net artwork in 1998 and the CINE Golden Eagle award for best scientific documentary in 1986.[http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/en/recursos/personas/victoria-vesna Profile], LABoral website; accessed December 2, 2017.{{Cite web|url=http://noemalab.eu/specials/xxv-oscar-signorini-prize-robotic-art/|title=XXV Oscar Signorini Prize – Robotic Art – NOEMA – Technology & Society|website=noemalab.eu|date=16 December 2008 |language=en-US|access-date=2018-03-28}}
= Artwork =
Through creative research, she examines perception and identity shifts in connection with scientific innovation as well as examining bio and nanotechnology through art.[http://elmcip.net/person/victoria-vesna Profile], elmcip.net; accessed December 2, 2017.
Exhibitions include Spaceship Earth at the Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń (2011) and MORPHONANO at the Beall Center for Art and Technology, Irvine, California (2012).[http://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Victoria-Vesna/023DEA948335D5B2 Profile], MutualArt.com; accessed December 2, 2017.
Artweek reviewer Claudine Isé writes, “Vesna has created a number of Web-based works that examine the dichotomy between concepts of “virtual’ and ‘concrete.’ Her on-line projects include an upcoming electronic conference about the cultural production of death as well as a popular site called Bodies INCorporated, which gives visitors an opportunity to design their own ‘cyber bodies’ from a selection of organic and synthetic textures, such as water, lava, chocolate, rubber or plastic.”{{Cite journal|last=Isé|first=Claudine|date=1996|title=Everywhere and nowhere at once: out on the web|journal=Artweek|volume=27| issue = 2|pages=11}}
= Author =
In Christopher Hanson's review of her book Database aesthetics: Art in the age of information overflow, he says that Vesna provides an engaging collection of essays about changing aesthetics in interactive art and its relationship to the database.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/41389773?seq=1 Christopher Hanson, review of Database Aesthetics in Discourse 29:1, Winter 2007, p. 189.], jstor.org;
accessed December 2, 2017.
Personal life
Formerly married to Bogdan Maglich, Vesna has two children by that marriage, which ended in divorce.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}
Works
- [Alien] Star Dust (since 2019)
- Noise Aquarium (since 2016)
- Brainstorming (since 2015)
- Bodies Corp 2.0 (2015)
- Octopus Mandala Glow (2013), in collaboration with Ray Zimmerman, Dawn Faelnar, Mike Datz, Peter Rand, Steven Amrhein, and others
- ACOUSTIC NETWORKS OF BIRDS (2012), in collaboration with biologist Charles Taylor and physicist Takashi Ikegami
- Quantum Tunneling (2008)
- Water Bowls (2006)
- Mood Swings (2006)
- Datamining Bodies (2004) in collaboration with Gerald de Jong and David Beaudry
- Zero@wavefunction (2002) in collaboration with nanoscientist James Gimzewski{{Cite journal|last=Ridder-Vignone|first=Kathryn D. de|date=2012-08-31|title=Public Engagement and the Art of Nanotechnology|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/484772|journal=Leonardo|language=en|volume=45|issue=5|pages=433–438|doi=10.1162/LEON_a_00440|issn=1530-9282|url-access=subscription}}
- Cell Ghosts (2001)
- Building a Community of People with No Time (2001)
- Datamining Bodies (1999)
- Bodies© InCorporated (1996){{Cite journal|last=Kurtz|first=Glenn A.|date=April 1997|title=Victoria Vesna at the San Francisco Art Institute|journal=Artweek|volume=28|pages=20}}
- Virtual Concrete (1995) {{Cite web|title=Virtual Concrete Essay|url=http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/projects/95-97/concrete/essay/concrete_public.htm|access-date=2021-03-09|website=vv.arts.ucla.edu}}
- Nanomandala {{Cite web|title=NANO {{!}} nanomandala|url=http://nano.arts.ucla.edu/mandala/mandala.php|access-date=2021-03-09|website=nano.arts.ucla.edu}}
- Another Day in Paradise (1992){{Cite journal|last=Vesna|first=Victoria|date=1998|title=Another Day in Paradise and Virtual Concrete: Installation and Telepresence Works|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607577/summary|journal=Leonardo|language=en|volume=31|issue=1|pages=13–19|doi=10.2307/1576542|jstor=1576542|s2cid=193021182|issn=1530-9282|url-access=subscription}}
Publications
- Database aesthetics: Art in the age of information overflow (2007), University Of Minnesota Press.{{Cite journal|last=Murray|first=Soraya|date=2009|editor-last=Vesna|editor-first=Victoria|editor2-last=Paul|editor2-first=Christiane|title=Digital Aesthetics: Two Handbooks|jstor=25676496|journal=Art Journal|volume=68|issue=3|pages=112–115}}
- Mel Chin-Provocative Eco-Art in Action Academic journal article from Art Journal, Vol. 65, No. 1.
- Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between Art and Electronic Media. Phaidon Press. 2008.
Exhibitions
= Solo exhibitions =
- MORPHONANO: Beall Center for Art and Technology, Irvine, California (2012)*Spaceship Earth: Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Torun (2011)
- Hox Zodiac: Microwave International New Media Arts Festival ALCHEMY, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.(2011)
- Quantum Tunneling: Median Kunst Labor (Media Art Laboratory), Graz, Austria.(2008)
- Cell Ghosts: Apeejay Media Gallery, New Delhi.(2005)
- Zero@wavefunction: Biennale for Electronic Arts, Perth. John Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. (2002)
= Group exhibitions =
- TechNoBody, Pelham Art Center, New York, NY (2015){{Cite web|url=https://anti-utopias.com/editorial/virtually-real-conversations-on-technobody-part-i/|title=Virtually Real: Conversations on TechNoBody – Part I {{!}} Anti-Utopias|website=anti-utopias.com|access-date=2018-03-28}}{{Cite web|url=https://anti-utopias.com/editorial/virtually-real-conversations-on-technobody-part-ii/|title=Virtually Real: Conversations on TechNoBody – Part II {{!}} Anti-Utopias|website=anti-utopias.com|access-date=2018-03-28}}
- "Red Angel," Installation. Art & Science, Aperto '86, Venice Biennale, Italy (1986)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- Artist website: http://victoriavesna.com
- Artist talk: http://vimeo.com/52159955
- Social Media
- Facebook: [https://www.facebook.com/vivesna/ https://www.facebook.com/vivesna/]
- Instagram: [https://www.instagram.com/victoriavesna/ https://www.instagram.com/victoriavesna/]
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/vivesna
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vesna, Victoria}}
Category:American people of Serbian descent
Category:Artists from Washington, D.C.
Category:University of Belgrade alumni
Category:Alumni of the University of Wales
Category:UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture faculty