San Jose Museum Presents Brides of Frankenstein

Saturday, 30 July 2005 12:00

SAN JOSE, CA.- Guest curated by Marcia Tanner, Brides of Frankenstein is an exhibition of experimental work by a new generation of female artists working with video, electronics, robotics, the Internet, computer games and animation, and other digital and traditional media to animate synthetic creatures with virtual life. Presenting visually and conceptually compelling pieces by approximately fifteen artists. In Brides of Frankenstein, the artists are the “brides." As metaphorical consorts of Mary Shelley’s fictional and archetypal scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, they engender lifelike creatures. Like his, their artificial progeny embody complex responses to the human implications of the technologies they use. And like Shelley's fiction, their projects question the unreflective drive to reconfigure nature that motivated Dr. Frankenstein and explore the profound social, cultural and moral issues his activities raise. The "creatures" in Brides are strange hybrid forms that Frankenstein never dreamt of, mingling animal with vegetable, the organic with the inorganic, human-like intelligence with unconscious machinery. They exemplify the world we live in now, where contemporary digital, medical, and biological technologies  including the technologies of image-making and reproduction  are dissolving age-old distinctions between what's alive and what's not, what's conscious and what's not, what's human and what's not, and what's "natural" versus what's "cultural." Alluring, engaging and often humorous, the works in Brides of Frankenstein provoke questions about the ways we interact with these technologies, and how they challenge our understanding of what it means to be human. Participating artists include: Andrea Ackerman, Peggy Ahwesh, Erzsèbet Baerveldt, Kirstin Geisler, Elizabeth King, Heidi Kumao, Kristin Lucas, Amy Myers, Patricia Piccinini, Sabrina Raaf, Tamara Stone, Camille Utterback, Katherine Wetzel, Gail Wight, and Adrianne Wortzel.

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~