Nathaniel Stern
Encyclopedia
Nathaniel Stern is an interdisciplinary
artist who works in a variety of media, including interactive art
, public art interventions
, installation
, video art
, net.art
and printmaking
. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
in Ithaca, New York
in 1999, and went on to study at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University
, graduating in 2001. He later taught digital art at the University of the Witwatersrand
, while also practicing as an artist, in Johannesburg
, South Africa
from 2001 - 2006. He holds a PhD from Trinity College
in Dublin, Ireland
, where he wrote a dissertation on interactive art
and embodiment
.
Stern's early study of fashion design
, slam poetry
and music led to his interest in the relationships between the body and text, and eventually to that of broadly interpreted notions of performance
and performativity
, especially in relation to the body and embodiment. He states that his interactive work treats "the body and art as cooperative sites of potential resistance," seeing them as mutable entities that "per-form" themselves in relation to their environments, rather than being extant and "pre-formed." Stern's other work often attempts to bring his ideas around performance
, embodiment, time and interactivity
to more traditional forms like sculpture
, drawing
and print by combining them with digital
and networked
media.
His early (2005) and ongoing "Compressionist" prints
, conversely, ask Stern himself to move in ways he normally wouldn't. These images are made through performances with scanners
, Stern often tying or rigging a flat-bed to his own body, then traversing the landscape
- avowedly referencing Impressionism
and Abstract Expressionism
. These are colored in PhotoShop, then printed on metallic paper and/or transformed into hand-made prints, using more traditional techniques.
Stern's video art
tends to be in a performative writing
style, where he often plays out characters he has created, or uses found footage from pirated films, to explore the fragility of language. He has also worked on collaborative multimedia performances that explore similar issues, usually with more explicit political messages, such as challenging the discourse surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
Stern's interventionist projects
are always site-specific
, playful and political. In his Wireframe Series, for example, he has volunteers from the streets of Dubrovnik
, Croatia
or Johannesburg
, South Africa
, physically erect temporary, 3D architectural structures made of rope. Each of these custom "public spaces" are "activated" only through their "contact with people," and take on different meanings in each context. And in Doin' my Part to Lighten the Load, Stern challenges power relations between artists and critics, and black and white - as well as electrical "power structures" - by convincing South African arts writer, and editor of Art South Africa magazine, Sean O'Toole, to give up electricity for 24 hours; Stern hired workers off the street to follow O'Toole around his apartment with hand-crank generators and bulbs for the evening.
Stern's "Distill Life" works, multimedia collaborations with Milwaukee artist Jessica Meuninck-Ganger
that began in 2009, combine various forms of traditional printmaking
with video
and machinima
. Here the artists "mount translucent prints and drawings on top of video monitors, which appear to bring moving images to life on paper." According to Chris Roper of South Africa's Mail and Guardian, "The work is funny, pretty and accessible, but it’s also complicated, surprising, exceedingly well crafted and rewards a long-term relationship." The works pay homage to and cite a number of artists, including Diego Velázquez
, Katsushika Hokusai, Eadweard Muybridge
, Claude Monet
, Jan van Eyck
, William Kentridge
, Utagawa Hiroshige and others.
And Stern's Second Life
-based mixed reality
art work explores "the juxtaposition of old and new media and illuminates the possibilities and limitations of both." "Given Time," for example, enacts a permanent "connection between two simulated people staring wordlessly at each other across real space." According to John Mitchell, Stern uses "Second Life as a medium much like oil paint or marble, hand-drawing two Second Life avatars and pulling them from out of their universe and into ours. In the gallery, they exist on two large screens facing each other, and the viewer may only encounter them by walking between the screens." The piece directly references both the book "Given Time," by Jacques Derrida
, and the art work "Untitled (Perfect Lovers)," by Félix González-Torres
.
(CC), with his blog
, and many of his pieces, under CC
or GPL. He has been a contributing member of iCommons since its inception, and was an artist in residence with them in 2006 and 2007, the second year of which he ran the program. He believes that "as many people as possible need to see art and talk about it" because it "always brings... value" to "the cultural sphere"; he uses CC as a "tactic for the most effective art work, and with the recognition that this will only bring more value - both culturally and monetarily - to [his] work more generally, whether it's for sale or not."
created a Wikipedia article called "Wikipedia Art" that was simultaneously a self-referential performance art
piece called Wikipedia Art. Although the creators encouraged editors to strictly follow Wikipedia guidelines in editing the page, Wikipedia editors determined its intent was nonetheless in violation of site rules, and it was deleted within 15 hours of its initial posting. The resulting controversy received national coverage, including an article in The Wall Street Journal
. The Wikimedia Foundation
later claimed Stern and Kildall had infringed on the Wikipedia trademark with their own website, wikipediaart.org. The artists publicly released a letter they received in March 2009 from a law firm requesting that they turn over their domain name to Wikipedia. Mike Godwin
, then the foundation's legal council, later stated that they would not pursue any further legal action. Mary Louise Schumacher of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel compared the incident to the "outrage inspired by Marcel Duchamp
's urinal or Andy Warhol
's Brillo Boxes."
Wikipedia Art has since been included in the Internet Pavilion of the Venice Biennale
for 2009. In 2011 it appeared in a revised form at the Transmediale
festival in Berlin, where it was an award finalist.
Art Awards, South Africa's largest contemporary art competition at the time. Both years, he won prizes for interactive installations, and is credited with being "at least partly responsible for opening space within that national art event for interactive or New Media work generally." From December 2004 to January 2005, Stern held his first major solo exhibition, The Storytellers, at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
, South Africa's largest, internationally recognized publicly funded museum.
In 2006 and 2007, Stern held two solo exhibitions of his "Compressionist" prints in South Africa. The series premiered in "Time and Seeing" at Pretoria's experimental Outlet Gallery, and a much larger body of work, including digital and traditional prints, opened as 'Call and Response' at Johannesburg's Art on Paper Gallery (now called Gallery AOP). On January 31, 2008, Ten Cubed Gallery in Second Life
was launched. For its inaugural exhibition, Crossing the Void II, owner and curator Haydn Shaughnessy selected five artists working in and with modern technologies: Stern along with Chris Ashley from Oakland, CA, Jon Coffelt
from New York, NY, Claire Keating from Cork, Ireland
and Scott Kildall
from San Francisco, CA.
In 2010, Stern's Distill Life collaborations with Jessica Meuninck-Ganger
were presented as part of the "Passing Between" solo exhibition at Gallery AOP in Johannesburg, as well as solo exhibitions at the Museum of Wisconsin Art
and Elaine Erickson Gallery in Wisconsin. Given Time launched as part of a solo exhibition at Greylocks Arts in March 2010. The show, which also exhibited "Distill Life" works, was curated by Jo-Anne Green of Turbulence.org. Falling Still, a collaboration with Yevgeniya Kaganovich," premiered in the Art History Gallery at the University of Wisconsin in December 2010.
Throughout his career, Stern's work has also been shown at the Venice Biennale
, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
, South African National Gallery
, Johannesburg Art Gallery
, International Print Center New York
, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
, Pretoria Art Museum
, John Michael Kohler Arts Center
, Milwaukee Art Museum
, Museum of Wisconsin Art
, Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts
and in festivals and performances all over the world.
Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. An interdisciplinary field crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged....
artist who works in a variety of media, including interactive art
Interactive art
Interactive art is a form of installation-based art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some installations achieve this by letting the observer or visitor "walk" in, on, and around them; Some others ask the artist to become part of the artwork.Works of...
, public art interventions
Art intervention
Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience or venue/space. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists...
, installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, video art
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
, net.art
Net.art
"net.art" refers to a group of artists who worked in the medium of Internet art from 1994. The main members of this movement are Vuk Ćosić, Jodi.org, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina, and Heath Bunting...
and printmaking
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Career
Stern graduated with a degree in Textiles and Apparel Design from Cornell UniversityCornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
in Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
in 1999, and went on to study at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, graduating in 2001. He later taught digital art at the University of the Witwatersrand
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...
, while also practicing as an artist, in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
from 2001 - 2006. He holds a PhD from Trinity College
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
in Dublin, Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, where he wrote a dissertation on interactive art
Interactive art
Interactive art is a form of installation-based art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some installations achieve this by letting the observer or visitor "walk" in, on, and around them; Some others ask the artist to become part of the artwork.Works of...
and embodiment
Embodiment
Embodied or embodiment may refer to:in psychology and philosophy,*Embodied cognition , a position in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind emphasizing the role that the body plays in shaping the mind...
.
Stern's early study of fashion design
Fashion design
Fashion design is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. Fashion design is influenced by cultural and social latitudes, and has varied over time and place. Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories....
, slam poetry
Slam poetry
A poetry slam is a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judged on a numeric scale by previously selected members of the audience.-History:...
and music led to his interest in the relationships between the body and text, and eventually to that of broadly interpreted notions of performance
Performance Studies
Performance studies have been growing as an academic field since the 1960s. Performance studies believe in the social act of Doing as it takes performance itself as the object of inquiry.The process of defining it becomes a practice in performance studies itself...
and performativity
Performativity
Performativity is an interdisciplinary term often used to name the capacity of speech and language in particular, as well as other non-verbal forms of expressive action, to intervene in the course of human events. The term derives from the work in speech act theory originated by the analytic...
, especially in relation to the body and embodiment. He states that his interactive work treats "the body and art as cooperative sites of potential resistance," seeing them as mutable entities that "per-form" themselves in relation to their environments, rather than being extant and "pre-formed." Stern's other work often attempts to bring his ideas around performance
Performance Studies
Performance studies have been growing as an academic field since the 1960s. Performance studies believe in the social act of Doing as it takes performance itself as the object of inquiry.The process of defining it becomes a practice in performance studies itself...
, embodiment, time and interactivity
Interactivity
In the fields of information science, communication, and industrial design, there is debate over the meaning of interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels:...
to more traditional forms like sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
and print by combining them with digital
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
and networked
Telecommunications network
A telecommunications network is a collection of terminals, links and nodes which connect together to enable telecommunication between users of the terminals. Networks may use circuit switching or message switching. Each terminal in the network must have a unique address so messages or connections...
media.
Work
Stern's interactive art is centered around bodily provocations, often asking his viewers to "perform" - whether publicly or privately. His pieces attempt to "get people to move in ways they normally wouldn't," and accent said movements in relation to their surroundings. His installation, enter:hektor, for example, asks participants to chase projected words with their arms and bodies in order to trigger spoken word in the space, and his subsequent piece, stuttering, floods the interaction area with too many trigger points, pushing its viewers "not to interact."His early (2005) and ongoing "Compressionist" prints
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
, conversely, ask Stern himself to move in ways he normally wouldn't. These images are made through performances with scanners
Image scanner
In computing, an image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting, or an object, and converts it to a digital image. Common examples found in offices are variations of the desktop scanner where the document is placed on a glass...
, Stern often tying or rigging a flat-bed to his own body, then traversing the landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
- avowedly referencing Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
. These are colored in PhotoShop, then printed on metallic paper and/or transformed into hand-made prints, using more traditional techniques.
Stern's video art
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
tends to be in a performative writing
Performative writing
Performative writing is a form of post-modernist or avant-garde academic writing, usually taking as its subject a work of visual art or performance art. It is often loosely semi-autobiographical, free-flowing in an ersatz stream-of-consciousness mode, and heavily informed by left-wing critical...
style, where he often plays out characters he has created, or uses found footage from pirated films, to explore the fragility of language. He has also worked on collaborative multimedia performances that explore similar issues, usually with more explicit political messages, such as challenging the discourse surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
Stern's interventionist projects
Art intervention
Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience or venue/space. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists...
are always site-specific
Site-specific art
Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork...
, playful and political. In his Wireframe Series, for example, he has volunteers from the streets of Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
or Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, physically erect temporary, 3D architectural structures made of rope. Each of these custom "public spaces" are "activated" only through their "contact with people," and take on different meanings in each context. And in Doin' my Part to Lighten the Load, Stern challenges power relations between artists and critics, and black and white - as well as electrical "power structures" - by convincing South African arts writer, and editor of Art South Africa magazine, Sean O'Toole, to give up electricity for 24 hours; Stern hired workers off the street to follow O'Toole around his apartment with hand-crank generators and bulbs for the evening.
Stern's "Distill Life" works, multimedia collaborations with Milwaukee artist Jessica Meuninck-Ganger
Jessica Meuninck-Ganger
Jessica Meuninck-Ganger is a Milwaukee-based printmaker and book artist. She began her professional career teaching in the Elkhart Memorial High School art department where she received the Sallie Mae Outstanding Beginning Teacher award...
that began in 2009, combine various forms of traditional printmaking
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
with video
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
and machinima
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...
. Here the artists "mount translucent prints and drawings on top of video monitors, which appear to bring moving images to life on paper." According to Chris Roper of South Africa's Mail and Guardian, "The work is funny, pretty and accessible, but it’s also complicated, surprising, exceedingly well crafted and rewards a long-term relationship." The works pay homage to and cite a number of artists, including Diego Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
, Katsushika Hokusai, Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard J. Muybridge was an English photographer who spent much of his life in the United States. He is known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which used multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible...
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, William Kentridge
William Kentridge
William Kentridge is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two...
, Utagawa Hiroshige and others.
And Stern's Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
-based mixed reality
Mixed reality
Mixed reality refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time...
art work explores "the juxtaposition of old and new media and illuminates the possibilities and limitations of both." "Given Time," for example, enacts a permanent "connection between two simulated people staring wordlessly at each other across real space." According to John Mitchell, Stern uses "Second Life as a medium much like oil paint or marble, hand-drawing two Second Life avatars and pulling them from out of their universe and into ours. In the gallery, they exist on two large screens facing each other, and the viewer may only encounter them by walking between the screens." The piece directly references both the book "Given Time," by Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, and the art work "Untitled (Perfect Lovers)," by Félix González-Torres
Félix González-Torres
Felix Gonzalez-Torres was an American, Cuban-born visual artist."For Felix it was much more powerful to assume that the gay and straight audience was the same audience, that being a Cuban-born American is the same as being an American. And being American was something he was extremely proud of."...
.
Stern and Creative Commons
Stern is an advocate of Creative CommonsCreative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
(CC), with his blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, and many of his pieces, under CC
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
or GPL. He has been a contributing member of iCommons since its inception, and was an artist in residence with them in 2006 and 2007, the second year of which he ran the program. He believes that "as many people as possible need to see art and talk about it" because it "always brings... value" to "the cultural sphere"; he uses CC as a "tactic for the most effective art work, and with the recognition that this will only bring more value - both culturally and monetarily - to [his] work more generally, whether it's for sale or not."
Wikipedia Art
On February 14, 2009, Stern and Scott KildallScott Kildall
Scott Kildall is an American conceptual artist working with new technologies in a variety of media including video art, prints, sculpture and performance art. Kildall works broadly with virtual worlds, networked art and speculative technologies. His work centers on repurposing technology and...
created a Wikipedia article called "Wikipedia Art" that was simultaneously a self-referential performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
piece called Wikipedia Art. Although the creators encouraged editors to strictly follow Wikipedia guidelines in editing the page, Wikipedia editors determined its intent was nonetheless in violation of site rules, and it was deleted within 15 hours of its initial posting. The resulting controversy received national coverage, including an article in The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
. The Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an American non-profit charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida, where it was initially based...
later claimed Stern and Kildall had infringed on the Wikipedia trademark with their own website, wikipediaart.org. The artists publicly released a letter they received in March 2009 from a law firm requesting that they turn over their domain name to Wikipedia. Mike Godwin
Mike Godwin
Michael Wayne Godwin is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation , and the creator of the Internet adage Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies. From July 2007 to October 2010, he was general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation...
, then the foundation's legal council, later stated that they would not pursue any further legal action. Mary Louise Schumacher of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel compared the incident to the "outrage inspired by Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
's urinal or Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
's Brillo Boxes."
Wikipedia Art has since been included in the Internet Pavilion of the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
for 2009. In 2011 it appeared in a revised form at the Transmediale
Transmediale
transmediale is an annual festival for media art and digital culture taking place for one week in February in Berlin, Germany. The festival engages in reflective, aesthetic and speculative positions in between art, technology and culture...
festival in Berlin, where it was an award finalist.
Exhibitions
In 2003 and 2004, Stern exhibited at the now defunct Brett KebbleBrett Kebble
Roger Brett Kebble was a South African mining magnate with close links to factions in the ruling political party, the African National Congress. He was shot to death in 2005 by unknown assailants....
Art Awards, South Africa's largest contemporary art competition at the time. Both years, he won prizes for interactive installations, and is credited with being "at least partly responsible for opening space within that national art event for interactive or New Media work generally." From December 2004 to January 2005, Stern held his first major solo exhibition, The Storytellers, at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
Johannesburg Art Gallery
The Johannesburg Art Gallery is an art gallery located in Joubert Park, in the central business district of Johannesburg, South Africa. The building was designed by Edward Lutyens and consists of 15 exhibition halls and sculpture gardens...
, South Africa's largest, internationally recognized publicly funded museum.
In 2006 and 2007, Stern held two solo exhibitions of his "Compressionist" prints in South Africa. The series premiered in "Time and Seeing" at Pretoria's experimental Outlet Gallery, and a much larger body of work, including digital and traditional prints, opened as 'Call and Response' at Johannesburg's Art on Paper Gallery (now called Gallery AOP). On January 31, 2008, Ten Cubed Gallery in Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
was launched. For its inaugural exhibition, Crossing the Void II, owner and curator Haydn Shaughnessy selected five artists working in and with modern technologies: Stern along with Chris Ashley from Oakland, CA, Jon Coffelt
Jon Coffelt
Johnny Lee Coffelt born is an American artist who lives and works in Manhattan in the Financial District of New York City. Coffelt paints, sculpts, sews, makes book arts and curates art exhibitions.-Background:...
from New York, NY, Claire Keating from Cork, Ireland
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
and Scott Kildall
Scott Kildall
Scott Kildall is an American conceptual artist working with new technologies in a variety of media including video art, prints, sculpture and performance art. Kildall works broadly with virtual worlds, networked art and speculative technologies. His work centers on repurposing technology and...
from San Francisco, CA.
In 2010, Stern's Distill Life collaborations with Jessica Meuninck-Ganger
Jessica Meuninck-Ganger
Jessica Meuninck-Ganger is a Milwaukee-based printmaker and book artist. She began her professional career teaching in the Elkhart Memorial High School art department where she received the Sallie Mae Outstanding Beginning Teacher award...
were presented as part of the "Passing Between" solo exhibition at Gallery AOP in Johannesburg, as well as solo exhibitions at the Museum of Wisconsin Art
Museum of Wisconsin Art
The Museum of Wisconsin Art is dedicated to showcasing and collecting contemporary and historical art from the state of Wisconsin. Founded by The Pick family of West Bend, Wisconsin in 1961, its initial focus was on the work of Carl von Marr...
and Elaine Erickson Gallery in Wisconsin. Given Time launched as part of a solo exhibition at Greylocks Arts in March 2010. The show, which also exhibited "Distill Life" works, was curated by Jo-Anne Green of Turbulence.org. Falling Still, a collaboration with Yevgeniya Kaganovich," premiered in the Art History Gallery at the University of Wisconsin in December 2010.
Throughout his career, Stern's work has also been shown at the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia is an Australian museum solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting and collecting contemporary art, both from across Australia and around the world...
, South African National Gallery
South African National Gallery
The South African National Gallery is the national art gallery of South Africa located in Cape Town. The collection began in 1872 with the donation of Sir Thomas Butterworth's personal gallery....
, Johannesburg Art Gallery
Johannesburg Art Gallery
The Johannesburg Art Gallery is an art gallery located in Joubert Park, in the central business district of Johannesburg, South Africa. The building was designed by Edward Lutyens and consists of 15 exhibition halls and sculpture gardens...
, International Print Center New York
International Print Center New York
International Print Center New York is a non-profit organization dedicated to the appreciation and understanding of fine art prints. It was founded by Anne Coffin and established in Chelsea in September 2000 as the only non-profit institution devoted solely to the exhibition and understanding of...
, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is an art museum located on the northwest corner of the Arts Quad on the main campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. It is most well known for its distinctive concrete facade, its collection which includes two windows from Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin...
, Pretoria Art Museum
Pretoria Art Museum
The Pretoria Art Museum is an art gallery located in Arcadia, Pretoria in South Africa. The museum in Arcadia Park occupies an entire city block bounded by Park, Wessels, Schoeman and Johann Streets....
, John Michael Kohler Arts Center
John Michael Kohler Arts Center
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is a not-for-profit art museum located in downtown Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The original house at the facility is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the John Michael Kohler House...
, Milwaukee Art Museum
Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum is located on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Beginning around 1872, multiple organizations were founded in order to bring an art gallery to Milwaukee, as the city was still a growing port town with little or no facilities to hold major art exhibitions...
, Museum of Wisconsin Art
Museum of Wisconsin Art
The Museum of Wisconsin Art is dedicated to showcasing and collecting contemporary and historical art from the state of Wisconsin. Founded by The Pick family of West Bend, Wisconsin in 1961, its initial focus was on the work of Carl von Marr...
, Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts
Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts
ISEA, or Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts is "an international non-profit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organizations and individuals working with art, science and emerging technologies." ISEA was founded in the Netherlands...
and in festivals and performances all over the world.
External links
- Nathaniel Stern's web site
- MacKenzie, Duncan. (2010) Bad at Sports Episode 244: Interview with Nathaniel Stern (audio interview for streaming, download or podcast)
- Sherwin, Brian. (2008) Art Space Talk: Nathaniel Stern (interview)
- Ridgway, Nicole. NYArts Magazine: "Between Text and Flesh" (bio on Stern's work, 2006)
- Johnson, Paddy. iCommons: Art Intercom, featuring artist Nathaniel Stern (interview, 2007). Part I, Part II
- Borland, Ralph. A R T T H R O B _ A R T B I O: Nathaniel Stern (South African feature, 2006)
- Nathaniel Stern's blog
- Wikipedia Art web site
- Gallery AOP (Johannesburg, South Africa)