Arts and Electronic Media June 7, 2009

European interdisciplinary arts scholar Edward Shanken the author of Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon, 2009),will be interviewed by arts commentator Dorka Keen, at the Exploratorium on Sunday, June 7, at 3pm, followed by a signing and reception. This event is included in the price of admission to the Exploratorium.

This highly anticipated book demonstrates the formidable history of artistic uses of electronic media, a history that parallels the growing pervasiveness of technology in all facets of life. Over 200 artists and institutions from more than 30 countries are represented. Among the artists featured, based in the Bay Area are Lynn Hershman Leeson, Paul DeMarinis, Ken Goldberg, Jim Campbell. Survival Research Labs, and
Alan Rath. With the possible exception of Rath, each of these artists has had a relationship with the Exploratorium and its artists-in-residence or exhibition programs.

The centrality of artists as theorists and critics is reflected in the focus on artists’ writings. The goal is to enable the rich genealogy of art and electronic media to be understood and seen – literally and figuratively – as central to the histories of art and visual culture. For more on the book go to : http://artelectronicmedia.wordpress.com

About the Author
Edward A. Shanken writes and teaches about the entwinement of art, science, and technology with a focus on interdisciplinary practices involving new media. He is Universitair Docent in New Media, University of Amsterdam, and a member of the Media Art History faculty at the Donau University in Krems, Austria. He was formerly Executive Director of the Information Science + Information Studies program at Duke University and Professor of Art History and Media Theory at Savannah College of Art and Design. Recent and forthcoming publications include essays on art and technology in the 1960s, information aesthetics, interactivity and agency, and the cultural implications of cybernetics, robotics, and biotechnology. He edited Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness (University of California Press, 2003). His second book, Art and Electronic Media was published by Phaidon Press in 2009.

About the Host:
Dorka Keehn is is a political activist and an artist that works in many mediums. Recently she worked with Brian Goggins on Language of the Birds, a site-specific sculptural installation commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission, for a new public plaza in North Beach, SF . She has produced several documentary films including "OF CIVIL WRONGS & RIGHTS: The Fred Korematsu Story" which won two Emmys in 2001. She is a founder of EMERGE, a leadership training program for Democratic woman across the country who want to run for political office at the local and state levels; and of Women Count, a national nonpartisan media campaign and educational program that mobilized women voters for the 2000 elections. Mayor Willie Brown appointed her twice and Mayor Gavin Newsom recently re-appointed her to the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. She was the West Coast Director of Gloria Steinem's Voters For Choice, the largest non-partisan, independent pro-choice political action committee in the U.S. And she has served on innumerable Boards of Directors of women's, environmental, media and educational organizations. Dorka Keehn is the host of KEEHN ON ART, an arts and culture radio show in the Bay Area, on Green AM 960 every Sunday @ noon.