Panel Statement
Panel: Site Specifics: Mobile Media Art and the Contexts of Place
Each of my works require extensive interaction with sites through the simple act of walking. Both in production and reception, my work emerges through a process that I have come to think of as a form of “kinesthetic attunement.” Walking is the ground from which my work evolves as a form of experiential knowledge. It is also the basis upon which I seek to challenge and critique abstract models of spatial representation and the theoretical foundations of technologies associated with locative media. Drawing upon the philosophy of embodiment as well as anthropological methods and ethnographic practices employed in current projects, I will discuss insights from my over fifteen years experience making site-specific sound and media installations using GPS and other location-sensing technologies.
- Teri Rueb works at the intersection of interactive media, sound, land, and environmental art. She pioneered the form of GPS-based interactive installation with her project “Trace,” which was developed at the Banff Centre for the arts from 1996-1999. She is the recipient of numerous awards including a Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in 2008 for her project “Core Sample” set on a landfill in the Boston Harbor. Her site-specific works have been presented in contexts as varied as the Wadden Sea (The Netherlands), the Heathland and the Oldenburg Botanical Garden in Northern Germany, the Boston Common and Public Gardens, the Viru Keskus shopping mall in post-Soviet Tallinn, Estonia, the Berlin Tiergarten, and highway systems across the United States. She recently completed her doctorate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design where her research focused on constructions of wilderness and subjectivity in mobile network society. Her work has been funded by the Banff Center for the Arts, Edith Russ Site, Klangpol, LEF Foundation, Turbulence.org, and Artslink and many state arts councils. From 2004-2009 she served as founding faculty and was later appointed Department Head of the graduate Digital + Media Department at the Rhode Island School of Design. Rueb is currently Professor in the Media Study Department at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) where she is Founder and Director of Open Air Institute, a platform for connecting field-based learning and collaborative partnerships at the intersection of landscape, technology, media art and design.