Black Sheep Talks, a production of the Museum of Contemporary Cuts (MoCC) and Art Administration @ Boston University, launches its first podcast with an interview of augmented reality artist Mark Skwarek.
Mark Skwarek is an artist working to bridge the gap between virtual and physical world with augmented reality. His art explores the translation our everyday digital experience into the physical world using mobile augmented reality. He organized the augmented reality artist group manifest.AR, the arOCCUPYWALLSTREET movement, and co-organized We AR in MoMA. Skwarek’s practice is also largely based in art activism with emerging technologies. He has a long record of international augmented reality work, ranging from “erasing” the DMZ battlements between North and South Korea (a piece he did on site), to the virtual elimination of the barricades between Palestine and Israel, at the Gaza Strip. He has created political work and symbols in a variety of locations across the United States, including pieces at Wall St., U.S. Mexico Border and the Whitehouse to name a few.
Skwarek earned his M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design’s Digital Media Department. He is full time faculty at New York University Polytech, where he teaches 3D Graphics and the Augmented Reality Grad Class. His artwork has been written about by the New York Times, Art in America, Boing Boing, WIRED, the Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, NPR, BBC, Leonardo, and Creative Capital. Skwarek has exhibited in various venues, including: the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; ISEA; Dumbo Arts Festival, UCLA Digital Grad Gallery; the CyberArts Festival; the Sunshine International Art Museum, Beijing; and the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois. Upcoming shows include FACT in Liverpool England, Siggraph 2013, The 2013 Augmented World Expo, and The Corocran Gallery of Art.
Listen to Mark talk about the emergence of the augmented reality art movement as a global community unifier in association with transitioning technological access, the chaos of Wall Street, and the political commentary uniquely available with augmented reality art in the first Black Sheep talks podcast. Mark Skwarek‘s full interview with Lanfranco Aceti – artist, curator and director of Arts Administration @ Boston University – is available at: Vimeo
Black Sheep Talks: Mark Skwarek from Museum of Contemporary Cuts on Vimeo.
Black Sheep Talks is a series of podcast interviews with artists, academics, and activists across the globe who self-define with the concept of the black sheep. Conceived by Lanfranco Aceti and realized in collaboration with Sarah Bradshaw and Rosemary Bucher, students of Arts Administration – the interviews showcase conceptual innovators at the forefront of their respective fields, challenging and blurring the stereotypical notions of boundaries and success while enveloping elements of contemporary issues. Black Sheep Talks is a production of Arts Administration @ Boston University and the Museum of Contemporary Cuts (MoCC).
Bailout Citibank, Mark Skwarek (2011). Courtesy of the artists.