Panel Statement
Panel: Short:Circuit: Cross Border Communications in New Media Between US and Turkey
In this presentation I will discuss three works: “RTUK”, a browser extension that enables users to collectively black out any text on the Web, “Darwin’s Birthday”, a collection of Google’s main pages as they were localized in 100+ different countries in one specific day, and “Delegations”, an interactive installation showing viewers’ reconstructed faces using statistically extracted face features of the host country’s members of the parliaments. These pieces exemplify my interest in the tensions between the local and the global within the larger framework of micro vs. macro processes that can be encountered in many fields such as economy, management, sociology, computer science, linguistics where top-down and bottom-up approaches are used in conjunction, e.g. in urban development organic and planned architecture function together to form cities and in human brain analytic and synthetic thinking together help us make sense of the world.
- Ali Miharbi is an artist whose work can take many forms from photographic, graphic or sculptural pieces to dynamic systems driven by live or stored data. His recent work explores our complex two-way relationship with technology within larger frameworks. In 2010 he completed his M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University after acquiring a dual degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Art Theory & Practice with a concentration in Painting from Northwestern University in 2000. Not only his academic background, but also living back and forth between USA and Turkey gave him the mental flexibility to jump back and forth between different modes of thinking. His work has been exhibited in Turkey, Mexico, South Korea, USA and Australia. ??Claudia Costa Pederson is interested in examining histories about the relationship of media with art and activism. Before focusing on art history, she produced radio and video works in collaboration with activists and women artists in the Netherlands and Germany. She is currently concluding a doctorate at Cornell University on the work of artists using digital games and play for social critique.