Victoria Vesna

Victoria Vesna was visiting artist at the University of Applied Arts Vienna from September to November 2015. The residency of the well-known media artist, professor in the Department of Design | Media Arts at the University of California and director of the University of California’s Art|Sci Center marked the beginning of the Angewandte Resident Artist Programme, ARA.

The aim of the programme is to bring artists whose practice is particularly interesting and stimulating into contact with those areas of study at the University of Applied Arts that are connected with their work, and in so doing to contribute to the continuous development of the university institution as a place of encounter, of lively and diverse artistic and scientific productivity, teaching and research, a place where artistic, scientific and cross-disciplinary practices can be examined and discussed along with their significance with respect to the areas of work concerned and to society. This international exchange should allow both the University and an interested public to derive benefit from the great variety that characterizes modern work methods and research.

Victoria Vesna became known for her work with nanoscientists, neuroscientists, biologists and composers in art-based research as well as for her installations, in which she investigates how communications technology influences collective behaviour and perception and how perception of identity changes in relation to scientific innovation. Vesna has presented her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world.

The University of Applied Arts Vienna attaches particular importance to vitalizing its exhibition spaces so as to ensure they remain spaces for art and encounter open to experimentation and to an inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approach to the work of staging exhibitions, that is, to multidisciplinary forms of work that allow theory and practice to intertwine. In recent years, artistic research has become one of the University’s fields of expertise. This can be seen in the multifaceted nature of the work done in the various departments and institutes of the University as well as in project development, which has been exceptionally vigorous and successful, the approach adopted very frequently being inter-disciplinary.