Edward A. Shanken (born 1964) is an American

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

, whose work focuses on the entwinement of art, science and technology, with a focus on experimental

new media art New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D pri ...

and visual culture. Shanken is Professor, Arts Division, at

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

. His scholarship has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and has been translated into many languages. Shanken is the author of ''Art and Electronic Media'' (Phaidon Press, 2009), among other titles.

Background

Edward A. Shanken graduated from

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducationa ...

(1986) and then obtained an MA (1999) and Ph.D. (2001) in

Art History Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...

after receiving an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

in 1990. He was the executive director of the Information Science Information Studies program (ISIS) at Duke University from 2001 to 2004. From 2004 to 2007 Shanken was Professor of Art History and Media Theory at Savannah College of Art and Design and Senior Researcher at the UCLA Art , Science Center and Visiting Scholar at the California NanoSystems Institute from 2007 to 2008. He joined the Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam in 2008, where he served as Universitair Docent, New Media and Digital Culture, 2008-2010 and as a Researcher, 2010-2012. In 2010, he was the inaugural Louis D. Beaumont Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis. Since 2007 he has served on the faculty of the Media Art Histories MA program at Donau University, Krems, Austria. In 2013 he joined the faculty at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (

DXARTS The Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media, or DXARTS, is a program offering PhD studies in new media art at the University of Washington. The goal of doctoral education in Digital Arts and Experimental Media is to create opportunities f ...

) at

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

. In 2016, Shanken joined

as Director of the innovative Digital Arts/New Media (DANM) MFA program. Shanken has been awarded fellowships from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

and the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

. He was formerly chair of the Leonardo Education Forum and a member of the

College Art Association The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their unders ...

Education Committee and has served as an advisor to the

Media Art New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D pri ...

Histories conference, ISEA, the journal Technoetic Arts, and the Leonardo Pioneers and Pathbreakers project. He has conducted extensive research on the theorist and art critic

Jack Burnham Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. (born New York City, November 13, 1931 - February 25, 2019) was an American writer and theorist of art and technology, who taught art history at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland. He is one of the mai ...

and into

cybernetics Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson ma ...

as applied to

systems art Systems art is art influenced by cybernetics, and systems theory, that reflects on natural systems, social systems and social signs of the art world itself. Systems art emerged as part of the first wave of the conceptual art movement extended i ...

in the 1960s.

Charlie Gere Charlie Gere is a British academic who is professor of media theory and history at The Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, The University of Lancaster and previously, director of research at the Institute for Cultural Research at The ...

, ''Art, Time and Technology: Histories of the Disappearing Body'' (2005) Berg, p. 137

Research Activity

Recent and forthcoming publications include essays on art and technology in the 1960s, interactivity and agency, the historiography of art and technology, parallels between conceptual art and art and technology, and the cultural implications of

, telematics, robotics, and biotechnology. Shanken’s current research examines art-science

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

and the relationship between the discourses of mainstream contemporary art and new media art. Following the first concern, he chaired the panel discussion,"Artists in Industry and the Academy: Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations" at the 2004 Annual Conference of the

and served as guest

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, or ...

of a special series of essays under the same title in the Leonardo Journal (38:4 and 38:5) in 2005. More recently he guest-edited a special series of essays, “The Reception and Rejection of Art and Technology: Exclusions and Revulsions,” which appeared in the journals ''a minima'' (Mar 2008) and ''Leonardo'' 42: 2 (Apr 2008). Following the second concern, he organized and chaired a panel discussion with

Nicolas Bourriaud Nicolas Bourriaud (born 1965) is a curator and art critic, who has curated a great number of exhibitions and biennials all over the world. With Jérôme Sans, Bourriaud cofounded the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where he served as codirector from ...

Peter Weibel Peter Weibel (; born 5 March 1944 in Odessa, USSR) is an internationally known Austrian post-conceptual artist, curator and new media theoretician. He started out in 1964 as a visual poet but soon jumped from the page to the screen within the sen ...

and Michael Joaquin Grey at Art Basel in June 2010 (see external link below) and organized and chaired a panel discussion at the College Art Association Annual Conference (CAA) in 2011, the papers of which were published in a special issue of ArtNodes (see links below). A further research area is the use of social media to expand and democratize the production and dissemination of art criticism. This is exemplified by th
''Art and Electronic Media Online Companion''
a

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

site.

Teaching Activity

Shanken currently teaches at

. He has previously taught media and art history at

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private nonprofit art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. Founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the Uni ...

, the University of Amsterdam, Donau University (Austria), the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington.

Publishing Activity

Shanken is the editor of ''Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness'', the collected writings of

Roy Ascott Roy Ascott FRSA (born 26 October 1934) is a British artist, who works with cybernetics and telematics on an art he calls technoetic by focusing on the impact of digital and telecommunications networks on consciousness. Since the 1960s, Ascott ...

(

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facul ...

, 2003). His essay, "Art in the

Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...

: Technology and

Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called ins ...

" received honorable mention in the Leonardo Award for Excellence in 2004. His book ''Inventing the Future: Art, Electricity, New Media'' was published in Spanish in 2013. He is also the editor of the antholog
Systems
published in 2015 through

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

and

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publ ...

References

Bibliography

* Shanken, Edward A. ''Systems''. London and Cambridge MA: Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, 2015. *Shanken, Edward A.
Inventar el Futuro: arte - electricadad - nuevos medios
'' Trans. Everardo Reyes García y Pau Waelder Laso. Brooklyn: Departamento de Ficción, 2013. . * Shanken, Edward A. ''Art and Electronic Media''. London: Phaidon, 2009. * Ascott, Roy. ''Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness''. Edited and with an essay by Edward A. Shanken. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Key Essays

*2019 "Pushing the Limits: Surrealism, Possession, and the Multiple Self: Juan Downey and ''The Laughing Alligator''" *201
"A Sounding Happens: Pauline Oliveros, Expanded Consciousness, and Healing"
(co-authored with Yolande Harris) *2016
“Contemporary Art and New Media: Hybrid Discourse or Digital Divide?”
* 201
“Investigatory Art: Real Time Systems and Network Culture”
* 201
"The History and Future of the Lab: Collaborative Research at the Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology"
* 200
"Reprogramming Systems Aesthetics: A Strategic Historiography"
* 200
“Historicizing Art and Technology: Forging a Method and Firing a Canon”
* 200
"Artists in Industry and the Academy: Collaborative Research, Interdisciplinary Scholarship, and the Interpretation of Hybrid Forms"
* 200
"Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s"
* 200
"Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art"
* 200
"Tele-Agency: Telematics, Telerobotics, and the Art of Meaning"

External links

Official site of Edward A. Shanken

Official site of Ed's students' thoughts on Post-Internet art

''Art and Electronic Media''

''Art and Electronic Media Online Companion''

''Contemporary Art and New Media: Towards a Hybrid Discourse''
Art Basel Conversation moderated by Shanken, with Nicolas Bourriaud, Peter Weibel, Michael Joaquin Grey
Research blog, including podcasts of CAA conference panel

ArtNodes No. 11 (2011) essays from CAA conference panel in English & Spanish.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shanken, Edward A. 1964 births American art critics American art historians Living people Cultural historians Mass media theorists