Event

Lecture: New Media Documentary: Digital Art and Activism, Sharon Daniel and Erik LoyerPost an Event »

University of California, Berkeley

October 14 - October 14, 2009

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Berkeley

,

CA

94720
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340 Moffitt Hall Sharon Daniel is a Professor of Film and Digital Media and Chair of the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Erik Loyer is an interactive media artist whose internationally-exhibited award-winning work uses tactile and performative interface in the service of audiovisual storytelling. Artist/activist/scholar Sharon Daniel and interactive media designer Erik Loyer will present two database-driven interactive documentaries, "Public Secrets" [publicsecrets.net], and Blood Sugar [bloodsugararchives.net] as case studies of alternative media activism. In "Public Secrets" incarcerated women reveal the secret injustices of the Criminal Justice System and the Prison Industrial Complex. "Blood Sugar" examines the social and political construction of poverty, alienation, addiction and insanity in American society through the eyes of those who live it. The online interfaces and extensive audio databases compiled for these two projects emerge out of the a hybrid public art practice in which information and communication technologies are employed in the service of social justice and social inclusion. This talk will address both how these two interactive documentaries were created, and how they transcend the boundaries between art and political activism by engaging the question, “what can art do?” in relation to some of our most troubling social problems. Organized by Gender and Women's Studies, cosponsored by Blum Center for Developing Economies and Center for New Media, Li Ka Shing and the Berkeley Center for New Media.