[-empyre-] Beatriz da Costa (1974-2012)

[Timothy Conway Murray]

Dear Friends,

On behalf of -empyre-, we want to express our deepest sympathy to the close friends and family of Beatriz da Costa, who passed away on Thursday night after a long and courageous battle against cancer.  Beatriz was a co-founder with Jaime Schulte and Brooke Singer of Preemptive Media, a former collaborator of Critical Art Ensemble, and Associate Professor of Art at the University of California, Irvine, where she specialized in the intersections of art, science, engineering, and politics.  As so many of you know, Beatriz was an innovator in the use of wetware in her artistic interventions and more recently had been experimenting with the potential of interspecies co-production in promoting the responsible use of natural resources and environmental sustainability.  She also was a leader in our broad field of adapting emergent technologies to address the politics and configurations of social justice.

Beatriz was always one of the first to respond to our e-mails about monthly -empyre- themes, and was a brilliant interlocutor on -empyre-.   At exhibitions, conferences, and when visiting Cornell, we always marveled at her warm generosity with students and members of the public who requested further discussion about her projects.  Yes, she was the epitomy of an artist experimenting with the flexibilities of soft-skinned spaces.

In the next few months, we will be organizing a special monthly discussion in her memory on wetware and interspecies co-production.  Please feel free to contact us if you would be interested in participating as a featured guest.

All our best, 

Tim and Renate

Tim Murray and Renate Ferro
Co-Managers, -empyre- soft-skinned space

Director, Society for the Humanities
Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
A. D. White House
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York. 14853
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