Interdisciplinary artist Paul Vanouse will present at IGNITE at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 21 in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts.
The IGNITE colloquium involves guest lectures, workshops and seminars around creative and professional development. IGNITE is free and open to the public.
Vanouse will be discussing his most recent project, “Labor” (2019), a scent-based, bio-media installation that produces the scent of human sweat — not with humans, but with three glass bioreactors. The project poetically reflects upon industrial society’s shift from human and machine labor to increasingly pervasive forms of microbial manufacturing and positions viewers to contemplate the changing borders defining what is human.
The project was awarded the Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica, the world’s most time-honored media arts competition, in 2019.
“Labor” will be on display at Fiendish Plots in Lincoln from Oct. 21 to Nov. 20. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 21. The gallery, located at 2130 Magnum Circle, is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays or by appointment.
Vanouse has been working in emerging media forms since 1990, and his electronic cinema, biological experiments and interactive installations have been exhibited in more than 25 countries and widely across the United States.
In 2022, he received the Award for Excellence for “Difference Machines,” which he co-curated with Tina Rivers Ryan at Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo for Best Exhibition with up to $10 million operating budget from the Association of Art Museum Curators.
His work has been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (2019), Renew Media/Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (2008-2010), Creative Capital Foundation Fellowship (2006-2011), among others.
Vanouse is a professor of art at the University at Buffalo, New York, where he is also founding director of the Coalesce Center for Biological Art, a major facet of the university’s Community of Excellence in Genomics, Environment and Microbiome.
He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University at Buffalo, and a Masters of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University.
