Ruth Sergel is an American director, writer, activist, and interactive technology designer in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. She works across multiple mediums to exploit technical prowess while creating opportunities for community engagement. Her work has been supported by

NYSCA 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), ...

The Jerome Foundation
and the

Experimental Television Center The Experimental Television Center (ETC) (1969–2011) was a nonprofit electronic and media art center located in upstate New York. History The Experimental Television Center (ETC) was founded in 1971 by Ralph Hocking. The center was the result ...

amongst others. Her films were screened at

MOMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

, and aired 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 the Interdependent Film Channel (IFC). Ruth was also a Resident Researcher at th
Interactive Telecommunications Program
at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Tisch School of the Arts and teaches interactive technology and video in various contexts. Her main efforts focus on art and social engagement.

Public work

Ruth Sergel is the founder and leader of the Triangle Fire Coalition which grew out of her commemorative art project Chalk. The creation of these projects and their impact is recounted in her book, ''See You In the Streets: Art, Action and Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire''. Her public art work includes ''Voices of 9.11'' documenting the lived experiences of the September 11 attacks. * Triangle Fire Coalition – Ruth is the founder of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, a group action to strengthen and coordinate the diverse initiatives to commemorate the infamous

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The ...

for the March 25, 2011 centennial and the establishment of a permanent memorial. Th
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
is composed of over 200 partners nationwide. * Chalk – Collective action where volunteers fan out across the city to inscribe in chalk the names and ages of the victims in front of their former homes. (2004 – present) * Voices of 9.11 – A video oral history archive with over 550 testimonies from survivors, witnesses and first responders in

Shanksville Shanksville is a borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. It has a population of 197 as of the 2020 U.S. census. It is part of the Somerset, Pennsylvania Micropolitan Statistical Area and is located southeast of Pittsburgh and west of Philade ...

, PA,

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

and inside the

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

recorded in private video booths to be published on-line. ''Voices of 9.11'' was established at here is New York: a democracy of photographs and has been exhibited at the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

and the

New York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...

. (2002–2003). The testimonies were placed online in 2011 a
Voices of 9.11
* $700 billion for the arts... Because we're too big to fail!! – Initiative to strengthen the artists position politically in the face of the

US government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

bail-out plan for failing banks and insurance companies. (2009)
$700 billion for the arts on Facebook

Films

Ruth's award-winning films have screened at New York City's

, and aired on

and the Interdependent Film Channel (IFC). * Belle – presents a fable of old age and beauty. Created together with a group of 83- to 90-year-old women who performed and advised in the process of its making. :35mm / 16 min. / color / 2004 :

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

br>
* CUSP – portrays a girl hitting early adolescence and the ensuing turmoil in her world, a film about friendship and struggle at an age when identity is at stak
CUSP
premiered at New Directors/New Films Festival, New Directors/New Films (

) and aired on

and Interdependent Film Channel (IFC). Additional screenings include Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (European Premiere)

Women Make Waves Women Makes Waves is a film festival based in Taiwan since 1993. It is the first and only women's film festival in the country. It is the largest women's film festival in Asia, and predates the Taipei Film Festival, which was founded in 1998. Sinc ...

(Asian Premiere), the UN (for the Special Session on Children), Boston Museum of Fine Art, Hamptons International Film Festival, Women in the Director's Chair and dozens of other festivals worldwide. :35 mm / 25 min. / color / 2000 * Bruce – three graceful minutes with dancer Bruce Jackson in his wheelchair. Bruce premiered at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and aired on

. Other screenings include:

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

The Place The Place may refer to: * The Place (London) The Place is a dance and performance centre in Duke's Road near Euston in the London Borough of Camden. It is the home of London Contemporary Dance School and the Robin Howard Dance Theatre, and former ...

(London), Passages (Milan),

Exploratorium The Exploratorium is a museum of science, technology, and arts in San Francisco, California. Characterized as "a mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse, and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one", the participatory natur ...

(San Francisco), El Infinito (Mexico), American Dance Festival, Toronto Worldwide Shorts, General Roca Festival (Argentina) and dozens of other festivals worldwide. :35 mm / 3 min. / b&w / 1998

Live performance

* Alchemy of Light – Multi-media performance that melds 19th century illusionism with current interactive technologies
Alchemy of Light
depicts the life of the legendary magician Torrini as a parable from a time when our lives first became mediated by machines. Work in progress. (2010 – present) * Pisces Vorat Maior Minorem – Site-specific performance created as part of an international residency a
CESTA
in the Czech Republic. (2006) * Don't Worry – Video for live performance o
Don't worry
in collaboration with LOSS for Torino Contemporanea 3 (2006)

Interactive installations

* Magic Box – Wooden box with peepholes at opposite ends and two projection installations inside. Peering inside the box one can watch a film that is not visible to the other viewer. At dark moments, one can see through the box into the eyes of the other participant. The sliders on the front panel of the box select which film is visible to each viewer. If both people move to the far position of the slider their hands will touch. Exhibited at th
Shift Festival 2009
(Basel, Switzerland and 3 LD Art & Technology Center (New York City). (2008)
Video documentation of Shift Festival
(for Magic Box see the title image and the video at 3min. 33 sec.) * For Ethel (2007), Turing Machine (2007), and Al (2005) se
Streetpictures.org

Awards

* 2017, American Book Award

References

External links

Official websiteVoices of 9.11NYT on Ruth
*

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...

:

* Brooklyn Rail:

*

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

:

*Ruth's Internet Movie Database, IMDB entry: http://imdb.com/name/nm1519349/ *Interview with Ruth by the Fund for Women Artists
womanarts.orgTriangle Fire Coalition on FacebookTriangle Fire Coalition on TwitterThe Jewish Daily Forward
*Conference presentation listing (Page 20): http://alpha.dickinson.edu/oha/pdf/2005programfinal.pdf {{DEFAULTSORT:Sergel, Ruth Writers from New York City Living people New York University staff American Book Award winners Year of birth missing (living people)