Future of Reality
an artist collective interested in past, present and future forms of reality
| Artist: | Silvia Ruzanka |
| Title: | Dots and Dashes |
| Year: | 2006 |
| Project Description: | Dots and Dashes is an interactive narrative in virtual reality. It tells the story of a romance in a different kind of virtual world, the world of the telegraph. Listening in on the wire, the viewer follows Nattie, a telegraph operator, and her online conversations with another operator, a man known only as "C". Their story emerges in bits and pieces, fragments of communication in dots and dashes in between the primary business of the telegraph wires, the business of linking financial institutions and burgeoning industries. As Nattie discovers that "C" may not be the man he appeared to be on the wire, the line between the real world and the electric world of the telegraphs begins to blur. This piece is based on the novel Love on the Wire - a Romance in Dots and Dashes (an Old Story Told in a New Way), by Ella Cheever Thayer, published in the 1850's. The uncanny similarities between this story and the world of the Internet, online dating, and today's virtual environments provides the springboard for an exploration of a wealth of anxieties and dreams that link two time periods over a hundred years apart. |
| Bio: | Silvia Ruzanka (b. Cuzco, Peru) is a media artist whose projects include video, installation, performance, and virtual environments. Her work is concerned with the archaeology and memory of technology and media, and their intersections with everyday life. She has presented her artwork and research internationally at galleries, museums, and festivals, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Boston Cyberarts Festival, the New Forms Festival (Vancouver), SIGGRAPH, the Gosia K oscielak Gallery (Chicago), DeadTech (Chicago), and the Museum of New Art (Detroit), among others. Silvia holds a BA in Physics from Smith College and an MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has taught interactive media, programming, physical computing, and interactive arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Indiana University, and the University of Hartford. She currently lives and works near Albany, New York, and teaches digital art and animation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. |
| Website: | http://silviaruzanka.com/ |
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