Two eminent contemporary practitioners who paved the way for New Media Art are juxtaposed in Irina Kulik’s next lecture.
Jeffrey Shaw (b. 1944) is the pioneer of New Media Art—a movement which derives from the experiments of the 1960s and employs interaction and digital technologies. Trained in art and architecture in Melbourne, Milan and London, Shaw remains a world renown artist and curator, initiating projects in many countries, including the world’s biggest new media art venue—the Institute for Visual Media in Karlsruhe. His own installations (The Legible City,1989; The Virtual Museum, 1991, Place—A User’s Manual, 1995) integrate video projections into architecture, creating 3-D spaces which the visitors can explore using various devices. Shaw’s research and practice are strongly associated with the spread of such concepts as virtual reality, interface design, digital cinema and the new media in general. He is also known for collaborations with musicians and fellow artists who work in the multimedia field, e.g. his inflatable pig dubbed Algie, launched above London’s Battersea Power station in 1977, is featured on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album.
Tony Oursler (b. 1957) graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 1979, where among his teachers were John Baldessari and Laurie Anderson, while together with fellow students Mike Kelley and John Miller he was involved in the music and performance group Poetics. As an artist, he works in traditional mediums, such as painting, sculpture and photography, and does public art projects around the world. Oursler has become more known, however, for his videotapes and multimedia installations, which embrace video, sculpture and architecture. In 1992, his multilayered piece The Watching was exhibited at dOCUMENTA IX, where it spread over several levels of the Fridericianum Museum. A close friend of David Bowie, Oursler made one of his last music videos (Where We Are Now, 2013) featured in Bowie’s extensive retrospective at the V&A Museum in London that same year. He also collaborates with the members of the music band Sonic Youth. Manhattan born Tony Oursler lives and works in New York.
