- Micha Cárdenas
-
Micha Cárdenas 
Becoming DragonBorn 1977 Nationality American Field Performance Training University of California San Diego Influenced by Stelarc Micha Cárdenas is a transgender performance and new media artist. Her work deals with the interplay of technology, gender, sex, immigration and biopolitics. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Contents
Education
Cárdenas is currently a PhD Student at the University of Southern California in the Interdivisional Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) program. She received her MFA at the University of California San Diego in the summer of 2009, and holds a Master's degree in Media and Communications with distinction from the European Graduate School and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Florida International University.
Career
Cárdenas was a Lecturer in the Visual Arts Department[1] and Critical Gender Studies Program[2] at UCSD in 2009 and 2010. She was previously the Interim Associate Director of Art and Technology for the Culture, Art and Technology program at UCSD[3] and a researcher at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, CalIT2 and the UCSD School of Medicine.[4]
Artwork
Cárdenas has performed and presented her work in many places around the world, including the 2010 California Biennial,[5][6], the 2009 Mérida Biennial[7] and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics 7th Encuentro in Bogotá, Colombia. [8] In 2008, Cardenas performed "Becoming Dragon", a 365 hour mixed reality performance in Second Life.[9] Recent projects include virus.circus, a collaboration with Elle Mehrmand.[10] Cárdenas also worked in the Experimental Game Lab at CRCA on the Scalable City project.[11] She has also curated exhibits in Tijuana, Mexico [12]
Cárdenas has also published several works related to the theoretical issues raised in her performances including "Becoming Dragon, A Transversal Technology Study" [13] and I Am Transreal [14] in the book Gender Outlaws the Next Generation, edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman. Additional published works include "Technesexual Interface: Erotic Mixed Reality Performance",[15] in Digimag.it co-authored with Elle Mehrmand. Cárdenas' book, co-authored with Barbara Fornssler, Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs discusses an experimental conception of politics based in desire.[16]
As a member of the Electronic Disturbance Theater/b.a.n.g. lab,[17] She helped design the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a GPS device that is designed to help illegal immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border find water stations during their journey.[18] Cardenas argued that the aim of this project was "about giving water to somebody who's dying in the desert of dehydration,"[19] but which critics claimed was an irresponsible use of government funds, and a tool that would also help facilitate other illegal activity, like smuggling, as well.[20]
External links
- Cardenas' Homepage at UCSD's Culture, Art and Technology Program
- Cardenas' Blog
References
- ^ Visiting Faculty, UCSD Visual Arts Department
- ^ critical gender studies fall courses, UCSD Critical Gender Studies Program
- ^ Micha Cardenas, Culture, Art and Technology Program Website
- ^ Productive confusions: learning from simulations of pandemic virus outbreaks in Second Life (Proceedings Paper)
- ^ Another Righteous Transfer, Not the Same Old Song and Dance: Recent Encounters with Karen Adelman and Flora Wiegmann
- ^ Screw-Embedded Football ‘Breathes’ on Respirator
- ^ Biennale: Arte Nuevo Interactiva '09
- ^ Micha Cárdenas and Elle Mehrmand
- ^ Online-world immersion probes possibilities of transformation, San Diego Union Tribune, by Scott LaFee
- ^ MCA Presents Here Not There, Will Bowen, sdnews.com
- ^ Scalable City by Sheldon Brown and the Experimental Game Lab
- ^ HOUSE OF ART: Lui Velazquez, Derrik Chinn, SignOnSanDiego.com, San Diego Union Tribune
- ^ Becoming Dragon, A Transversal Technology Study
- ^ Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation – Book Review Part 2
- ^ Technesexual Interface: Erotic Mixed Reality Performance
- ^ e-misferica, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, NYU
- ^ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/10/critics-blast-transborder-immigrant-tool-irresponsible-use-technology/
- ^ http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/2010921143941147153.html
- ^ http://www.kansas.com/2009/12/30/1116673/activists-want-to-give-gps-to.html
- ^ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/10/critics-blast-transborder-immigrant-tool-irresponsible-use-technology/
Categories:- 1977 births
- Living people
- Contemporary artists
- New media artists
- American performance artists
- American women artists
- American academics
- Transgender and transsexual writers
- LGBT writers from the United States
- LGBT artists from the United States
- Transgender and transsexual artists
- University of California, San Diego alumni
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