Technology, Pedagogy and Civil Disobedience: A Conversation with...

UC San Diego's Visual Arts Department: Technology, Pedagogy and Civil Disobedience: A Conversation with Ricardo Dominguez, Steve Kurtz and Elizabeth Losh Monday, September 27, 2010, 6-8:00PM UC San Diego, Visual Arts Facility, Performance Space Join us for an open discussion of academic freedom, civil disobedience and new technologies on the university campus in a post-9.11 world, with Ricardo Dominguez of the UCSD Visual Arts Department, Steve Kurtz of the University of Buffalo Department of Visual Studies, Elizabeth Losh, Director of Academic Programs at Sixth College, and moderator Grant Kester (Chair of the UCSD Visual Arts Department) Participant Biographies: Ricardo Dominguez is an Associate professor in the Visual Arts department at UCSD, a former member of Critical Art Ensemble, and a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), a group who developed Virtual-Sit-In technologies in 1998 in solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. His recent Electronic Disturbance Theater project with Brett Stalbaum, Micha Cardenas and Amy Sara Carroll, the *Transborder Immigrant Tool* (a GPS cell phone safety net tool for crossing the Mexico/U.S border, received a "Transnational Communities Award" from the "Cultural Contact" fund of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico). Steve Kurtz is a Professor of Art at the University of Buffalo and a founding member of the award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Since its formation in 1987 in Tallahassee, Florida, CAE has been frequently invited to exhibit and perform projects examining issues surrounding information, communications and bio-technologies by museums and other cultural institutions. The collective has written six books, and its writings have been translated into 18 languages. Its work has been covered by art journals, including Artforum, Kunstforum, and The Drama Review. Kurtz's work was the subject of a controversial Federal prosecution under the Patriot Act between 2004 and 2008 (he was fully exonerated after a lengthy and destructive investigation). Elizabeth Losh is Director of Academic Programs in Sixth College at UCSD. She has been working with e-learning and e-government initiatives since 1987, when she ran an after-school computer program for at risk youth that was funded by the California Youth Authority. She is the author of Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making in a Time of War, Scandal, Disaster, Miscommunication, and Mistakes. Her current book project, Early Adopters: The Instructional Technology Movement and the Myth of the Digital Generation, looks at a range of digital projects in higher education and the conflicts between regulation and content-creation that universities must negotiate. Grant Kester is the Chair of the UCSD Visual Arts Department. His books include Art, Activism and Oppositionality: Essays from Afterimage (Duke University Press, 1997), Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art (University of California Press, 2004) and The One and the Many: Agency in Contemporary Collaborative Art (Duke University Press, forthcoming) For more information please email [email protected] or call 858-822-7755