Domus 1061 opens with an editorial by guest editor Tadao Ando, presenting the theme of the October issue: the frontiers of art and space. A reflection “on the history of artistic and architectural expression”, from the most renowned artistic movements, such as Cubism and Futurism, to the student revolutions symbolic of their time. Ando includes some historical examples, including Thomas Heatherwick's UK Pavilion for Shanghai Expo 2010 and Frank Gehry's house designed for himself in Santa Monica.

thumbnail_professors-rebeca-mendez.png

professors-rebeca-mendez.png

Professors REBECA MENDEZ and CASEY REAS featured in DOMUS 1061.

reas_casey_a2172f1d0f.jpg

Casey Reas

Professor

Custom software, digital images, computer, screen
Dimensions variable, vertical

large_reas_ideology_0_0b6de57c20.jpg

medium_reas_ideology_0_0b6de57c20.jpg

small_reas_ideology_0_0b6de57c20.jpg

thumbnail_reas_ideology_0_0b6de57c20.jpg

reas_ideology_0_0b6de57c20.jpg

 Today’s Ideology

moeller_christian.jpg

Christian Moeller

Sitting at the intersection of the art, architecture, and media arts departments in one of California’s leading public research universities, the UCLA Game Lab champions “conceptual risk-taking and the development of new modes of expression and form through gaming.”

KILLSCREEN - DOWN A RABBIT HOLE - UCLA Game Lab

stern_eddo.jpg

Eddo Stern

thumbnail_huhtamo_erkki.jpg

huhtamo_erkki.jpg

Erkki Huhtamo

steinkamp_jennifer_45c63c7db6.png

Jennifer Steinkamp

drucker_johanna.jpg

Johanna Drucker

lunenfeld_peter.jpg

Peter Lunenfeld

Department Vice Chair

November 4, 2021–January 9, 2022
Laguna Art Museum Art + Nature Festival
Opening: November 4, 6–9 PM
Open and free to the public

Any-Instant-Whatever, 2020
2-channel video projection, color, sound. 90 minutes, loop. 16 x 39 feet. Captured in Los Angeles in winter 2019–2020. Sound composition by Drew Schnurr.

Rebeca Méndez is a Los Angeles based artist who uses design, photography and video to connect the human experience to the environment and ecological issues of our time. Her monumental artwork Any-Instant-Whatever is a study of the Los Angeles sky filmed from sunrise to sunset on a sunny January day. Using Time-Slice Video, Méndez presents 48 vertical bands of moving sky, wind and variations of light and color. Together they represent 12 hours of time, each band 15 minutes of time ahead of the next. The technique impresses upon us that the progression of time and the forces at play in our atmosphere are ever in motion, inspiring and unifying us through the physics of light and sensation.

The video still images in this gallery freeze time and allow the eye to rest upon the complexity of the clouds and the spectrum of refracted blue light we experience in a day. Inside the gallery, and of equal importance to the video presentation, is a sound piece by Drew Schnurr. Crystal like water vapor naturally refracts light. The composition was created from playing crystal bowls tuned with water, digitized and played back in layers. The result brings union between visual frequencies and sound frequencies.

Any-Instant-Whatever asks us to be mindful of the non-human creatures who share our sky—especially those that use it as a critical path of migration from the far reaches of the north to the most southern skies of our planet. Light, noise, structures and pollutants—these human-added elements change the shared sky space for us all, and effect those who are the most vulnerable disproportionately.

A person is silhouetted in front of a projection.

small_rebeca-mendez-any-insta.jpg

thumbnail_rebeca-mendez-any-insta.jpg

rebeca-mendez-any-insta.jpg

Any-Instant-Whatever is a study of the Los Angeles sky filmed from sunrise to sunset on a sunny January day.

REBECA MENDEZ: Any-Instant-Whatever

medium_mendez-rebeca.jpg

small_mendez-rebeca.jpg

thumbnail_mendez-rebeca.jpg

mendez-rebeca.jpg

Rebeca Méndez

Department Chair, Director Counterforce Lab

anderson-steve.jpg

Steve Anderson

vesna-victoria.jpg

Victoria Vesna

henri_lucas_willem.jpg

Willem Henri Lucas

Few topics today are as controversial as Artificial Intelligence (AI). Indeed, AI is a technology that triggers euphoria and scepticism in equal measure, for it impacts us in our very souls as human beings. How reliable and neutral are automated processes? What sort of criteria does AI use to reach its decisions – and what are those decisions? Can our personal privacy and our self-determination when it comes to information content be protected from access by AI? Participating artists include Memo Akten, Timo Arnall, M. Eifler, Cheng Guo, Adam Harvey, Mario Klingemann, Lauren Lee McCarthy & David Leonard, Anna Ridler, Philipp Schmitt, Mimi Onuoha.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Machine Learning Human Dreams
06. Nov 2021 - 28. Aug 2022
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
Postfach 120 162, 01002 Dresden

AI is a technology that triggers euphoria and skepticism in equal measure, for it impacts us in our very souls as human beings.

LAUREN LEE McCARTHY and DAVID LEONARD exhibiting IA Suzie at Deutches Hygiene Museum

To address the circumstances created by the pandemic, in 2020 the Institute united its Film Music, New Frontier labs and Theater programs to create the Interdisciplinary Program, which brings a holistic approach and an equitable focus to supporting creators. Cultivating the cross-pollination of artists at various stages in their respective practices, the IDP fosters a dynamic, year-round interdisciplinary community, bridging silos by scaffolding experimentation and collaboration. Each grantee was supported in a designated field or combination of fields, including emerging media, interdisciplinary, music, and/or theater.


To address the circumstances created by the pandemic, in 2020 the Institute united its Film Music, New Frontier labs and Theater programs to create the Interdisciplinary Program.

LAUREN LEE McCARTHY named Sundance Interdisciplinary Program Grantee

Starting this month, the Sundance Institute Art of Practice Fellowship will focus on these newly convened communities, offering opportunity, exploration, and inclusive recovery. Rooted in the qualitative research with artists and field leaders that helped shape the program’s design, including the commissioned Emerging from the Cave field study, the Art of Practice Fellowship uses long-standing Institute program infrastructures as a foundation. Testing, prototyping, and co-creating, the fellowship keeps a generous community of unique voices at its heart. Incorporating a collaborative approach to artist advisory, Xin Xin joins the cohort as one of five community leaders selected for their singular voice and excellence in activating their respective communities.

LAUREN LEE McCARTHY and alum XIN XIN awarded Sundance Institute Art of Practice Fellowships

Join the Los Angeles Spoonie Collective for an informative workshop on the emergence and development of Disability Justice activism; a modern civil rights movement. We will discuss many topics and concepts of ableism and saneism (the forms of marginality disabled people encounter) including: Patty Berne of Sins Invalid’s Principles of Disability Justice, Christine Miserandino’s Spoon Theory, johanna hedva’s Sick Woman Theory, and more. Our workshop will close with a discussion on how folks can learn to stand in solidarity with disabled people in their lives, and how to appropriately support and affirm disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill people. This event is held as part of the curriculum for students enrolled in DESMA171 Disability, Design, and the Web, but open to all. It is hosted by UCLA Design Media Arts and co-sponsored by UCLA Disability Studies Inclusion Labs. 

Los Angeles Spoonie Collective logo two spoons bent to spell L A with a pill for the crossbar on the A on a pink background

small_image004.jpg

thumbnail_image004.jpg

image004.jpg

Hosted by UCLA Design Media Arts and co-sponsored by UCLA Disability Studies Inclusion Labs

Disability Justice 101 with the Los Angeles Spoonie Collective

Installation

Performance

Programming

Large distorted woman's head watches over spheres containing different homes.

small_image001_4a083ad532.jpg

thumbnail_image001_4a083ad532.jpg

image001_4a083ad532.jpg

Lauren Lee McCarthy

Associate_Professor

 I attempt to become a human version of Amazon Alexa, a smart home intelligence for people in their own homes. The performance lasts up to a week. It begins with an installation of a series of custom designed networked smart devices (including cameras, microphones, switches, door locks, faucets, and other electronic devices). I then remotely watch over the person 24/7 and control all aspects of their home. I aim to be better than an AI because I can understand them as a person and anticipate their needs. The relationship that emerges falls in the ambiguous space between human-machine and human-human.

LAUREN is a meditation on the smart home, the tensions between intimacy vs privacy, convenience vs agency they present, and the role of human labor in the future of automation.



four electronic devices, camera with a cyan and magenta dye colored stand, a purple cylindrical speaker, a purple rectangular outlet and a white to purple gradient rectangular microphone with a lump next to one of the longer edges.  

large_1290511_edited_o_a518521c7e.jpg

medium_1290511_edited_o_a518521c7e.jpg

small_1290511_edited_o_a518521c7e.jpg

thumbnail_1290511_edited_o_a518521c7e.jpg

1290511_edited_o_a518521c7e.jpg

gallery space with a white bed, night stand and light above the bed header.

large_bed_install_e6b914066c.jpg

medium_bed_install_e6b914066c.jpg

small_bed_install_e6b914066c.jpg

thumbnail_bed_install_e6b914066c.jpg

bed_install_e6b914066c.jpg

exhibition space with five screens on the wall, a video playing on each one and a gray desk with a chair and lap in the corner.

large_FKV_How_to_Make_a_Paradise_Lauren_Lee_Mc_Carthy_LAUREN_Foto_Norbert_Miguletz_01_1920x1292_5f2cb141e1.jpg

medium_FKV_How_to_Make_a_Paradise_Lauren_Lee_Mc_Carthy_LAUREN_Foto_Norbert_Miguletz_01_1920x1292_5f2cb141e1.jpg

small_FKV_How_to_Make_a_Paradise_Lauren_Lee_Mc_Carthy_LAUREN_Foto_Norbert_Miguletz_01_1920x1292_5f2cb141e1.jpg

thumbnail_FKV_How_to_Make_a_Paradise_Lauren_Lee_Mc_Carthy_LAUREN_Foto_Norbert_Miguletz_01_1920x1292_5f2cb141e1.jpg

FKV_How_to_Make_a_Paradise_Lauren_Lee_Mc_Carthy_LAUREN_Foto_Norbert_Miguletz_01_1920x1292_5f2cb141e1.jpg

Lauren

srinivasan_ramesh.jpg

Ramesh Srinivasan

Close-up of the face of a white man with curly hair and a short salt and pepper beard. He is wearing glasses and a black t-shirt. The image is tinted purple.

medium_quar-purple.png

small_quar-purple.png

thumbnail_quar-purple.png

quar-purple.png

Chandler McWilliams

Assistant_Professor

thumbnail_caravello-jenna.png

caravello-jenna.png

Jenna Caravello

Black and white headshot of a woman with light hair

thumbnail_Unknown.jpeg

Unknown.jpeg

Carolina Trigo

Lecturer

A person with a beard and salt-and-pepper hair in a white v-neck tshirt

thumbnail_cuellar-chris.jpg

cuellar-chris.jpg

Chris Cuellar

Black and white headshot of a woman with dark hair

thumbnail_cooney-erin.jpg

cooney-erin.jpg

Erin Cooney

medium_Ju Headshot (1).jpg

small_Ju Headshot (1).jpg

thumbnail_Ju Headshot (1).jpg

Ju Headshot (1).jpg

Julieta Gil

An african american woman on the beach wearing a large colorful mirror shade

large_IMG_3164 crop.jpg

medium_IMG_3164 crop.jpg

small_IMG_3164 crop.jpg

thumbnail_IMG_3164 crop.jpg

IMG_3164 crop.jpg

Nikita Gale

AUDIENCING examines the role of the audience as a social arena, taking on formal aspects of spectacle found in live music and political speeches. Drawing from the architecture of the VW Dome, the work references similar domed structures and their relationship to narratives of spectatorship and survival—as biological experiments or as refuge for victims of natural disasters.

The core of the work is an original score, which takes cues from a wide range of audio genres including pop, political speeches, voice-overs, and experimental noise. AUDIENCING questions how technological innovations have created limitless potential for consumption of entertainment, complicated the dynamic between performers and their audiences, and placed unattainable demands on the biological body, sometimes with dire consequences as in the cases of Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Prince.

Responding to the aestheticization of performers' labor, as well as the pain and exhaustion of performance and its visibility, there are no live performers in this work. Instead, the audience is seated beneath a vaulted stage in an arrangement that refuses any unified perspective, undermining the stage’s function as a frame for performance. A programmed and automated sound and lighting system transforms the dome into a multidimensional playback device.

People surrounding a stage setup with lights and scaffolding. There is fog pervading the scene. Red and orange lights make the fog glow.

large_MoMA PS1_Sunday Sessions_02 23 2020_Nikita_Gale_Baranova-5100.jpg

medium_MoMA PS1_Sunday Sessions_02 23 2020_Nikita_Gale_Baranova-5100.jpg

small_MoMA PS1_Sunday Sessions_02 23 2020_Nikita_Gale_Baranova-5100.jpg

thumbnail_MoMA PS1_Sunday Sessions_02 23 2020_Nikita_Gale_Baranova-5100.jpg

MoMA PS1_Sunday Sessions_02 23 2020_Nikita_Gale_Baranova-5100.jpg

AUDIENCING

A black and white closeup of a man with dark hair

medium_Screen Shot 2020-10-26 at 10.15.08 PM.png

small_Screen Shot 2020-10-26 at 10.15.08 PM.png

thumbnail_Screen Shot 2020-10-26 at 10.15.08 PM.png

Screen Shot 2020-10-26 at 10.15.08 PM.png

Parag K. Mital

A man with short hair and tight cropped beard in a green shirt wearing a camelback.

Design Media Arts

People

Faculty

Lecturers

Emeriti

In Memoriam