Urban Culture Project Presents NETWORK TOPOGRAPHIES 9/29

Charlotte Street Foundation's Urban Culture Project is pleased to present a free lecture by Sara Schnadt, an internationally recognized, Chicago-based artist working in new media, installation and performance art. Schnadt will focus on her current project, Network, which explores the profound impact of the internet on our sense of special relationships, as it collapses geography and provides unprecedented access to an expansive network of information and relationships in our daily lives.

"With the widespread adoption of mobile devices, we are increasingly gaining this access not just while on a computer, but at any time as we move through ordinary space. In this way we are, more and more, existing in ordinary and virtual space simultaneously," writes Schnadt.

Network visualizes this idea of the infinitely expansive virtual space we now inhabit, using large quantities of electric yellow twine (tied in patterns based on both social network structures and Internet network infrastructure) and mirrors to suggest a 'virtual' network landscape cutting through an otherwise ordinary space.

Since November 2009, site-specific versions of Network have been created in Chicago for an unused store front downtown, a gallery space at Hyde Park Art Center, and a house in
Oak Park (What It Is project space), where it inhabited the entire space and extended out into the garden, and where the home's inhabitants lived with the work for a month, negotiating their routines around it. A version will also be presented this fall in a converted industrial space at MOCAD Detroit, and in the curated exhibition for Upgrade! Soft Borders, an international conference of new media artists in Sao Paolo in October.

Sara Schnadt has shown her in work in Chicago at Hyde Park Art Center, Pop-Up Art Loop temporary gallery series, 12x12: New Artists New Work at the MCA Chicago, Looptopia,the Site Unseen Performance Festival, Balloon Contemporary, and at Antena Gallery. National and international shows include MOCAD Detroit, Exchange Rate public projection series in LA and New York, Upgrade! -Chain Reaction in Skopje, Macedonia, CINEA Paris, FreeManifesta in Frankfurt, and the Busan Biennale in Busan, South Korea.

Sara co-curates the IN>TIME Performance Series and is co-founder and technologist for Chicago Artists Resource website at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. She also serves on the Artists Advisory Committee for the Chicago Artists Coalition. Sara holds an MFA in performance art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For more about the artist, visit www.saraschnadt.com.

Sara's talk at la Esquina about her own artwork follows a talk on Tuesday, September 28, 5:30-7pm at the Arts Incubator, 115 West 18th Street, sponsored by the 2010 Artist Entrepreneur Speakers Program and during which she will speak about her experience as Co-founder and Technologist for the Chicago Artists Resource.

Sara's visit to Kansas City is sponsored by the 2010 Artist Entrepreneur Speakers Program, which brings experts from across the nation to Kansas City to discuss innovative ideas and opportunities for the diverse community of Kansas City artists. This series highlights experiences, lessons learned, opportunities, and the unique issues and challenges faced by artists of all disciplines in the business side of their work. TheArtist Entrepreneur Speakers Program is a program of KCArtistLink, a partnership among the Charlotte Street Foundation, the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City, the UMKC Small Business Technology & Development Center, and U.S.SourceLink.

To post a comment, you must register and login.