[-empyre-] Artistic threads as we move into our zoom discussion on Friday.

[Renate Ferro]

Hello -empyre-
Thanks to xtine, Kat, Margaretha and Margaret for posting this past week.  Arshiya and I are looking forward to our -empyre- dive into zoom.  The mini-conference brings together a multi-disciplinary group of artists and others to think about the future.  The Dawn of Aquarius:  Art, Intuition and Technology March 19th at 9:30 am EST. The registration link is
https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUqdemsrzspH9Qs924AZuHFNHHXudUcSdaA

A huge welcome to our Week 3 guests including Ritkika Merchant, Derek Curry, and Jennifer Gradecki. Really looking forward to making connections between the discussion last month that Derek and Jennifer participated in and this month's.  Ritkika, Derek, Jennifer and I are all practicing artists so we will round out the week talking about some of the artistic "threads," both real and virtual, in relation to our discussion as it leads into Friday's discussion.  
Best, 
Renate

Biographies: Week 3
Rithika Merchant (b. 1986) received her Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School of Design, New York (2008). Since graduating, she has exhibited her work extensively, including a number of solo exhibitions in India, Spain, Germany, France and the United States.
Her most recent solo shows include, Birth of a New World at TARQ, Mumbai (2021), Mirror of the Mind at Galerie L.J, Paris, France (2019); Where the Water Takes us at TARQ, Mumbai (2017) and Ancestral Home at Galeria Bien Cuadrado, Barcelona (2017).Her recent group exhibitions include a two-person show Osmosis at TARQ, Mumbai, curated by Shaleen Wadhwana (2019); Spring! A Group Show of Contemporary Drawing at Galerie LJ, Paris (2019) and Chloe Couture at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kieve, Ukraine (2019).Other groups shows include Homo Faber at The Michaelangelo Foundation, Venice ( 2018) ; Portal at October Gallery, London (2018) and Sensorium / The End Is Only The Beginning Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts, Goa (2018).She has also collaborated with Chloé, a French fashion house on multiple collections for which she was awarded the Vogue India Young Achiever of the Year Award at its Women of the Year Awards 2018. She was also named one of Vogue Magazine’s Vogue World 100 Creative Voices.She currently divides her time between Mumbai and Barcelona.

Derek Curry 
Derek Curry is an artist-researcher whose work critiques and addresses spaces for intervention in automated decision making systems.  His work has addressed automated stock trading systems, Open Source Intelligence gathering (OSINT), and algorithmic classification systems.  His artworks have replicated aspects of social media surveillance systems and communicated with algorithmic trading bots.  Derek earned his MFA in New Genres from UCLA's Department of Art in 2010 and his PhD in Media Study from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2018. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
 
Curry has exhibited his work internationally at venues such as Ars Electronica (Linz), Science Gallery Dublin, NeMe Cultural Center (Cypress), North East of North (Scotland), the Athens Digital Art Festival, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the AC Institute (New York), Hallwalls (Buffalo), and the USF Institute for Research in Art (Tampa). His projects have been funded by Science Gallery Dublin and the Puffin Foundation, and the NEoN festival. http://derekcurry.com/

Jennifer Gradecki 
Jennifer Gradecki BFA Sculpture/Psychology, MFA New Genres, PhD Visual Studies, is an artist-theorist who investigates secretive and specialized socio-technical systems. Her artistic research has focused on social science techniques, financial instruments, mass surveillance, intelligence analysis, artificial intelligence, and the spread of misinformation on social media. She has presented and exhibited at venues including Ars Electronica (Linz), New Media Gallery (Zadar), Media Art History (Göttweig), The New Gallery (Calgary), Critical Finance Studies (Amsterdam), ISEA (Vancouver), ADAF (Athens), and the Centro Cultural de España (México). She is an Assistant Professor of Art + Design at Northeastern University in Boston. Her research has been published in Big Data & Society, Visual Resources, and Leuven University Press. Her artwork has been funded by Science Gallery Dublin, the Puffin Foundation, and the NEoN Digital Arts Festival. www.jennifergradecki.com 

Renate Ferro
Visiting Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Art
Tjaden Hall 306
rferro at cornell.edu