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Abstract

Is This Art?

Fringe Exhibitions began in 1999 as an independent curatorial practice. My primary area of research was the intersection of art, science, and technology. I decided go this route because I was interested in finding a way to engage the contemporary art audience. I was inspired by Eduardo Kac, an artist I first worked with as a curator on an exhibition featuring his “Holopoems”. I continued working for several more years organizing exhibitions in university art museums and galleries where support for this type of interdisciplinary work and experimentation was well received and encouraged. The research I conducted for a wide assortment of various projects would dramatically and directly influence the direction and trajectory of my curatorial vision.

I wanted to branch out and start something new and different from what was already out there. Fringe Exhibitions opened in the beginning of 2006 as an experimental art gallery in Los Angeles as a project space for cutting edge experiential art. A range of ambitious exhibits were presented along with related programs and events featuring commissioned works, site-specific installations, performance art, robotics, bioart, nanotechnology, sound, light, video, holography, and virtual reality shows that created memorable experiences. To this day I have not come across anything quite like it. http://fringexhibitions.com

At the end of 2008 the gallery in Los Angeles closed and I relocated to the Seattle area in Washington. During this transition I began to work completely outside the box with D. V. Rogers an artist from Australia on LAMoves: A Seismic Disaster Machine Action that was a socially driven, art-science installation comprised of a temporary disaster relief camp assembled around an earthquake shake table machine planned for an eight day performance in Pershing Square, Los Angeles during October 2010. Employing social awareness techniques, the project was a cultural engineering exercise attempting to create attention within the downtown Los Angeles community towards encouraging greater earthquake awareness and preparedness as part of the Californian, 'Great ShakeOut'. At the eleventh hour a $21,021 city permit fee prevented the project from happening.

http://allshookup.org

Another continuous project I am involved with is Lightning on Demand. The goal is to construct the world’s largest lightning generator. The project proposes to build two 10 story high Tesla coils that arc 200 feet of lightning. Currently operational, a 1:12 scale model has been built for a series of artistic directed energy projects. http://lod.org

Since the beginning of my career I continue to work with Mark Pauline and Survival Research Labs (SRL) producing large-scale robotic performances that rival major popular cultural events. SRL attempts to create new levels of sensory and emotional intensity in concert with artistic expression, ideas are transformed into visceral experiences. http://srl.org

For the next Fringe phase perhaps another space with a similar agenda but instead of a store front, a warehouse that holds exhibits for longer runs such as museum length shows of 3-4 months instead of the 5 week run that are routine gallery shows. Currently I am in the process of building an apartment, gallery, and workshop in the basement of my house for artists residencies that will be ready this fall. Collaborations between artists, architects, engineers, scientists, mathematicians, writers, performers, and musical composers inspire creativity and are the wave of the future.

Author/Artist Bio

Susan Joyce is director of Fringe Exhibitions, an independent curatorial practice dedicated to the support of cutting edge experiential art by creative minds working at the intersection of art, science, and technology. She is also a principal member of Survival Research Laboratories producing exhibits and large-scale mechanical performances. Fringe Exhibitions was an experimental gallery located in Los Angeles; it featured dynamic and challenging projects of an interdisciplinary nature. Now relocated in the Seattle area, Fringe will begin an artist residency and exhibit program this fall.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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