Panel Statement

Panel: Virtual Doppelgangers: Embodiment, Morphogenesis, and Transversal Action

Since the Vic­to­rian era, hob­bies have served as a form of leisure that offer both plea­sure and sub­ver­sively re­in­force spe­cific be­hav­iors, value sys­tems, and ide­olo­gies of the dom­i­nant cul­ture. Ac­tiv­i­ties such as col­lect­ing, gar­den­ing, or model build­ing uti­lize many of the same tools and tech­niques found in the work­place. An anal­o­gous re­la­tion­ship be­tween leisure and labor be­gins to emerge–work under the guise of play. If we fast-for­ward into the dig­i­tal age, the tools and tech­niques of the past are now vir­tu­al­ized. The no­tion of col­lect­ing hap­pens in Flickr and Face­book, gar­den­ing in Far­mville, and model build­ing in vir­tual en­vi­ron­ments such as Sec­ond Life. And sim­i­lar to our Vic­to­rian hand­i­crafts and 1950’s soap­box derby, the ide­o­log­i­cal and eco­nomic are in­ter­twined. Yet, what was once an anal­o­gous re­la­tion­ship be­tween our labor and leisure is now di­alec­ti­cal. In the world of so­cial media there are no bound­aries. Through a brief sur­vey of a few key so­cial media ap­pli­ca­tions and pro­jects cre­ated in vir­tual en­vi­ron­ments that tra­verse both busi­ness and en­ter­tain­ment, this di­alec­ti­cal re­la­tion­ship will be put on the round table. How af­fect is pro­duced through these em­bod­ied in­ter­ac­tions and the role of strate­gic in­ter­rup­tions in lo­cat­ing sites of agency will be on the agenda. It will be fun.

• Stephanie Rothen­berg cre­ates provoca­tive in­ter­ac­tions that ques­tion the bound­aries and so­cial con­structs of man­u­fac­tured de­sires. Through par­tic­i­pa­tory per­for­mance, in­stal­la­tion and net­worked media, her work in­ves­ti­gates the me­di­a­tion of the phys­i­cal, ana­log body through the dig­i­tal in­ter­faces of com­mod­ity cul­ture. She has ex­hib­ited, per­formed and lec­tured in the US and in­ter­na­tion­ally at venues in­clud­ing the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, In­ter­na­tional Sym­po­sium on Elec­tronic Art (ISEA) in Helsinki, Sin­ga­pore, and Belfast, Whit­ney Mu­seum of Art In­ter­net Art por­tal, Moscow In­ter­na­tional Bi­en­nial for Young Art, 01SJ/Zer01 Fes­ti­val, Banff New Media In­sti­tute, LAB­o­ral Cen­ter for Art & In­dus­try, In­ter­ac­cess Media Arts Cen­ter, Tram­po­line Ra­di­a­tor Fes­ti­val New Tech­nol­ogy Art, Stu­dio XX, and the Cen­tral Acad­emy of Fine Art in Bei­jing. Re­cent awards in­clude a 2009 Cre­ative Cap­i­tal in Emerg­ing Fields and a 2008 New York State Coun­cil on the Arts In­di­vid­ual Artist Award (NYSCA). She has been in res­i­dence at Eye­beam Art & Tech­nol­ogy Cen­ter, Har­vest­works Media Art Cen­ter, and free103­point9 Wave Farm. In ad­di­tion to her own artis­tic prac­tice, Stephanie is Co-Di­rec­tor of REV-, a non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tion based in New York City, that fur­thers so­cially-en­gaged art, de­sign, and ped­a­gogy. She is As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor in the De­part­ment of Vi­sual Stud­ies at the State Uni­ver­sity of New York at Buf­falo, USA. stephanierothenberg.com