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Leonardo Electronic Directory
Eduardo Kac
Leonardo Editorial Board member
| Eduardo Kac Art & Tech. Dept. School of the Art Institute of Chicago 112 S. Michigan Ave., Room 414 Chicago, IL 60603 U.S.A. E-mail: ekac@artic.edu Web site: http://www.ekac.org |
Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his interactive net
installations and his bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in
the pre-Web '80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced "Katz") emerged in the
early 1990s with his radical telepresence and biotelematic works. His
visionary combination of robotics and networking explores the
fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world. His work
deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online
experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology
(Genesis); from the changing condition of memory in the digital age
(Time Capsule) to distributed collective agency (Teleporting an
Unknown State); from the problematic notion of the "exotic" (Rara
Avis) to the creation of life and evolution (GFP Bunny).
At the dawn of the twenty-first century Kac shocked the world with his "transgenic art"--first with a groundbreaking net installation entitled Genesis (1999), which included an "artist's gene" he invented, and then with his fluorescent rabbit called Alba (2000). From his first experiments online in 1985 to his current convergence of the digital and the biological, Kac has always investigated the philosophical and political dimensions of communication processes. Equally concerned with the aesthetic and the social aspects of verbal and non-verbal interaction, in his work Kac examines linguistic systems, dialogic exchanges, and interspecies communication. Kac's pieces, which often link virtual and physical spaces, propose alternative ways of understanding the role of communication phenomena in creating shared realities. Kac merges multiple media and biological processes to create hybrids from the conventional operations of existing communications systems. Kac first employed telerobotics in 1986, motivated by a desire to convert electronic space from a medium of representation to a medium for remote agency. He creates pieces in which actions carried out by Internet participants have direct physical manifestation in a remote gallery space. Often relying on the indefinite suspension of closure and the intervention of the participant, his work encourages dialogical interaction and confronts complex issues concerning identity, agency, responsibility and the very possibility of communication. Kac's work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Exit Art and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Maison EuropÚenne de la Photographie, Paris, and Lieu Unique, Nantes, France; OK Contemporary Art Center, Linz, Austria; InterCommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo; Julia Friedman Gallery, Chicago; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; and Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro. Kac's work has been showcased in biennials such as Yokohama Triennial, Japan, Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Gwangju Biennale, Korea. His work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, among others. He is currently working on a public art commission for the University of Minnesota, which will be on the permanent collection of the Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis. Kac's work has been featured both in contemporary art publications (Flash Art, Artforum, ARTnews, Kunstforum, Tema Celeste, Artpress, NY Arts Magazine) and in the mass media (ABC, BBC, PBS, Le Monde, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Times). The recipient of many awards, Kac lectures and publishes worlwide. His work is documented on the Web in eight languages: http://www.ekac.org. Kac is a member of the editorial board of the journal Leonardo, published by MIT Press. Kac's writings on art, which have appeared in several books and periodicals in many countries, have been collected in two volumes: Telepresence and Bio Art : Networking Humans, Rabbits and Robots (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005) and Luz & Letra (Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa, 2004). Books about Kac's work include: The Eighth Day: The Transgenic Art of Eduardo Kac, Sheilah Britton and Dan Collins, eds., (The Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe / D.A.P. Distributed Art Publishers, New York, 2003) and Eduardo Kac: Telepresence, Biotelematics, Transgenic Art (Maribor, Slovenia: Kibla, 2000). Eduardo Kac is represented by Julia Friedman Gallery, New York; Laura Marsiaj Arte ContemporÅnea, Rio de Janeiro; and Galerie J. Rabouan Moussion, Paris. | |
| Updated 28 April 2005. |
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