Kathryn High (born 1954) is an American interdisciplinary artist, curator, and scholar known for her work in

BioArt BioArt is an art practice where artists work with biology, live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes and practices such as biology and life science practices, microscopy, and biotechnology (including ...

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

Background

Kathy High graduated with a BA from

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theologi ...

in 1976 and an

MAH ''Mångha'' (') is the Avestan for "Moon, month", equivalent to Persian ''Māh'' (; Old Persian ). It is the name of the lunar deity in Zoroastrianism. The Iranian word is masculine. Although Mah is not a prominent deity in the Avestan script ...

from the Center for Media Studies at

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

in 1981 where she studied with media pioneers

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both d ...

Hollis Frampton Hollis William Frampton, Jr. (March 11, 1936 – March 30, 1984) was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer, theoretician, and pioneer of digital art. He was best known for his innovative and non-linear structural films that defin ...

, and

Steina Vasulka Steina Vasulka (born Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir in 1940)
Soros Center for Contemporary Arts Budapest and Woody Vasul ...

. High was a founding member of

The Standby Program The Standby Program is a non-profit, video post-production service organization in New York City. Since 1983, Standby has provided editorial services to independent film and video producers on a wide range of projects, including documentaries, video ...

in New York City and initiated the video exhibition program at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, NY in the 1980s. In 1991, she founded
FELIX: A Journal of Media Arts and Communication
' produced in conjunction with The Standby Program''.'' She is co-editor of ''The Emergence of Video Processing Tools: Television Becoming Unglued'', with Sherry Miller Hocking and Mona Jimenez. She has been a professor of video and new media at

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany a ...

since 2002. Since the early 1980s, High has been creating and exhibiting art in the form of videos, photographs, performances and installations. High's work intersects art, technology and science (often collaborating with scientists) and addresses topics including gender and technology, empathy, and animal sentience. Her work has appeared in the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

Catalyst Arts Catalyst Arts a non-profit artist-run space based in Belfast city centre. History Catalyst Arts was formed in 1993 in response to what was seen as a cultural vacuum. In accordance with its constitution it is run by unpaid volunteers, and seeks t ...

MASS MoCA The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...

, and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

among others and she has received grants 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 ...

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

, and

New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996), ...

. High's video works are distributed through

Video Data Bank Video Data Bank (VDB) is an international video art distribution organization and resource in the United States for videos by and about contemporary artists. Located in Chicago, Illinois, VDB was founded at the School of the Art Institute of Chic ...

and her films ''I Need Your Full Cooperation/Underexposed'' and ''Underexposed'' are distributed by

Women Make Movies Women Make Movies is a non-profit feminist media arts organization based in New York City. Founded by Ariel Dougherty and Sheila Paige with Dolores Bargowski, WMM was first a feminist production collective that emerged from city-wide Women's Li ...

Notable Works

* Animal Attraction ''-'' a video documentary about telepathic communication with animals. ''Animal Attraction'' was first exhibited at the

in New York City, and was additionally featured on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

and

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

in New York City. * Death Down Under - a video documentary, co-directed by Cynthia White, focuses on care for the dead, green burials, and the ecology of death. * Blood Wars - an interdisciplinary art and science project.
Blood Wars
is an ongoing experiment that pits human white blood cell samples against one another in a series of tournament-style battles. The project was funded by a 2010 fellowship from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

with additional support from

. * Embracing Animal - a performance involving live rats that was commissioned for the exhibition ''Becoming Animal'' at

. For this project, High purchased two rats for use in a series of biological experiments involving the artist's DNA and homeopathic medicine.

References

External links

Official Website

Video Data Bank
distributor for several of High's video works
Women Make Movies
distributor for several of High's films

media arts journal founded and edited by High {{DEFAULTSORT:High, Kathy Living people 1954 births Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty Interdisciplinary artists BioArtists American women video artists American women performance artists American video artists American performance artists University at Buffalo alumni American women academics 21st-century American women