Beatriz da Costa (June 11, 1974 – December 27, 2012) was an interdisciplinary artist known for her work at the intersection of contemporary art, science, engineering, and politics. Her projects took the form of public interventions and workshops, conceptual tool building, and critical writing.

Early life and education

Laura Gabriela Beatriz Noronha da Costa (Beatriz da Costa) was born in Berlin, Germany. Raised and educated in

Ahrensburg Ahrensburg () is a town in the district of Stormarn, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is located northeast of Hamburg and is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Its population is around 31,000. ''Schloss Ahrensburg'', the town's symbol, is ...

in northern Germany, da Costa moved to southern France in 1995 to study art at the École supérieure d’art, Aix-en-Provence, and in 1999 came to the United States, where she became a graduate student at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. While at CMU, da Costa served as both an associate researcher and courtesy faculty. After graduating in 2001, she taught briefly at Chatham College and as a visiting assistant professor at the State University of New York in Buffalo. In 2003 she took a joint appointment as assistant professor in the Department of Studio Art and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

. Da Costa was brought to UC Irvine as a founding member of the Arts Computation, Engineering (ACE) graduate program, an interdisciplinary program housed between the schools of engineering, computer science, and arts. She was also affiliate faculty in the Informatics Department, as well as in the Culture and Theory Ph.D. program. In 2007, after receiving tenure at UC Irvine, she began work on a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz, where the feminist scholar

Donna Haraway Donna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies. Sh ...

was her chief mentor. Da Costa battled cancer several times during her life, first at the age of 14 and then again when her cancer recurred at 19 and 21. In 2009, Da Costa was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer, which she fought until dying on December 27, 2012.

Career

Beatriz da Costa was a co-founder with Jamie Schulte and

Brooke Singer Brooke Singer (born 1972) is a New York City–based media artist, co-founder of the art, technology and activist group Preemptive Media, and a professor of New Media at Purchase College, State University of New York. She works across discipline ...

of Preemptive Media, and a former collaborator of

Critical Art Ensemble Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. For CAE, tactical media is situat ...

(CAE). She also created work on her own, with a special interest in the intersections of art, science, engineering, and politics. Da Costa's artwork took whatever form served it best, including robotics, micro-electronics, installation, sculpture, performance, interactivity, net art, photography, and video. She experimented with the use of biological materials and organisms in her artistic interventions and was intent on using these interspecies projects to promote the responsible use of natural resources and environmental sustainability. Da Costa and her collaborators frequently engaged the public by running workshops that translated challenging new technical and scientific developments into something accessible to a more general public. Some of her better-known projects include ''Swipe'', ''Zapped'', and ''Air'' (Preemptive Media); ''Molecular Invasion'', ''Free Range Grains'', ''GenTerra'' (CAE), and ''Pigeonblog''. Da Costa exhibited at venues including

dOCUMENTA ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...

(13), Eyebeam (New York), the Andy Warhol Museum, the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Sevilla (Spain), the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (Germany), the Museum of Contemporary Art, (Serbia), Exit Art Gallery (New York), Cornerhouse (Manchester, UK), A Foundation (London, UK), Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts (Montreal), John Hansard Gallery (Southampton, UK, and the Natural History Museum, London. Writing was also an important part of her practice, and she co-edited the 2008 MIT Press anthology ''Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience'' with former UC Irvine professor of history Kavita Philip. Da Costa continued to work up until her death, producing a range of projects addressing her cancer and advocating an "'alternative' approach to healing" through healthy and preventative eating. Her late works include "The Cost of Life," a Creative Capital-supported project, ''The Endangered Species Finder'' and ''Memorial for the Still Living'' (commissioned by

Arts Catalyst Arts Catalyst is a Sheffield-based contemporary arts organisation, known for commissioning artists' projects and research at the intersections of art, science and technology. Since 1994, the organisation has commissioned more than 170 artists’ ...

, London), ''The Life Garden'' and ''Dying for the Other'' (with

Eyebeam Art and Technology Center Eyebeam is a not-for-profit art and technology center in New York City, founded by John Seward Johnson III with co-founders David S. Johnson and Roderic R. Richardson. Originally conceived as a digital effects and coding atelier and center for ...

, New York), and ''The Delicious Apothecary''
"The Anti-Cancer Survival Kit"
part of ''The Cost of Life'', was funded in part through a Rockethub campaign. In September 2012, Da Costa contributed to dOCUMENTA (13)'s "The Worldly House," a collaborative piece recognizing the work of

.Press release.
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Publications

* da Costa, Beatriz, and Philip, Kavita. ''Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience.'' Foreword by Joseph Dumit. MIT Press, 2008. * da Costa, Beatriz, Schulte, Jamie, and Singer, Brooke. "Surveillance Creep!" In ''Radical History Review: New Imperialisms'', 2006:95, Spring 2006. * da Costa, Beatriz, and Claire Pentecost. "Of Patriots and Profits: New Tools for Keeping Academic Research in Line". In ''Radical History Review: Homeland Securities'', 2005:93, Spring 2005.

References

External links

Beatriz da Costa website

ex:pose Laguna Art Museum Show, 2013

Artillery Review of da Costa's ex:pose exhibition

Alex Juhasz, Catherine Lord, Donna Haraway Panel on da Costa, 2013

Art21 Essay on Working with da Costa's, 2013

Dying for the Other - Final Creative Project, 2012

Creative Capital Project Site, 2012

Anti-Cancer Survival Kit Website, 2012

Anti-Cancer Survival Kit Plant Database, 2012

Art21 Review of da Costa's work, 2012
{{DEFAULTSORT:Costa, Beatriz da 1974 births 2012 deaths 21st-century German women artists Artists from Berlin Artists from Schleswig-Holstein Interdisciplinary artists People from Stormarn (district) German emigrants to the United States Carnegie Mellon University alumni