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Department of World Arts and Cultures
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ART + ACTIVISMDuring the coming year, WAC continues to explore meanings and modes of activism within the context of artistic creativity and the study of culture and performance. Highlights include events that focus on the theme of “Food and Democracy” and a series of lectures on performance studies co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of Theater and the UCLA Center for Performance Studies.
Adam Zaretsky is a Vivoartist working in Biology and Art Wet Lab Practice. This involves biological lab immersion as a process towards inspired artistic projects. His personal research interests revolve around life, living systems, exploration into the mysteries of life and interrogating varied cultural definitions that stratify life's popular categorizations. He also focuses on legal, ethical and social implications of some of the newer biotechnological materials and methods: Molecular Biology, ART [Assisted Reproductive Technology] and Transgenic Protocols. Zaretsky also teaches Vivoarts: Ecology, Biotechnology, Non-human Relations, Live Art and Gastronomy. A major focus is on artistic uses and the social implications of molecular biology, tissue culture, genomics and developmental biology. Adam Zaretsky has been published in Nature Magazine, Red Herring, Leonardo, The Washington Post and Johnny's Unstoppable Bathroom Reader. He has spoken at Harvard, NYU, CAA and SCIARC.
Norman Klein is a cultural critic, and both an urban and media historian, as well as a novelist. His books include "The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory," "Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon," and the data/cinematic novel, "Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-86" (DVD-ROM with book). His next book will be "The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects." (Fall, 2003). His essays appear in anthologies, museum catalogs, newspapers, scholarly journals, on the WEB-- symptoms of a polymath's career, from European cultural history to animation and architectural studies, to LA studies, to fiction, media design and documentary film. His work (including museum shows) centers on the relationship between collective memory and power, from special effects to cinema to digital theory, usually set in urban spaces; and often on the thin line between fact and fiction; about erasure, forgetting, scripted spaces, the social imaginary.
Beatriz da Costa is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher who works at the intersection of contemporary art, engineering, politics, and the life sciences. Beatriz is a former collaborator of Critical Art Ensemble and a co-founder of Preemptive Media, an arts, activism and technology group. Beatriz is an Associate Professor of Arts, Computation, Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. |
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