Nettrice Gaskins

Last updated
Nettrice R. Gaskins
Nettrice Gaskins.jpg
Born (1970-09-25) September 25, 1970 (age 53)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Nationality American
EducationBFA from Pratt Institute, MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology
Known forArt & Technology
Website nettricegaskins.com
On view in "Transfiguration" at the Frost Art Museum in 2021. Who Fears 2021.jpg
On view in "Transfiguration" at the Frost Art Museum in 2021.
On view in "We Have Always Lived in the Future" at Flux Factory in 2017. Afrofuturism Amplifiied.jpg
On view in "We Have Always Lived in the Future" at Flux Factory in 2017.
At the PASEO outdoor arts festival in Taos, NM in 2015. The Electrofunk Mixtape The PASEO Edition.jpg
At the PASEO outdoor arts festival in Taos, NM in 2015.

Nettrice R. Gaskins (born September 25, 1970) is an African-American digital artist, academic, cultural critic and advocate of STEAM fields. In her work, she explores "techno-vernacular creativity" and Afrofuturism. [1] [2]

Contents

Education

Gaskins was born in Baltimore MD. At DuPont Manual High School Gaskins once painted a mural of parabolic functions in her math class and created computer art illustrating the connection of contemporary door-knocker earrings to traditional Ghanaian accessories. She was engaged, at even that early an age, with the intersection of art and science. That work led the way to her acceptance to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where she earned her BFA in 1992. [2]

In 1994 she received her MFA in Art and Technology from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After working for some years in K–12 and post-secondary education, community media and technology, Gaskins received a doctorate in Digital Media from Georgia Tech in 2014. [3] [4] Her thesis started with making the connections of graffiti and math. [1]

In 2014 she became director of the STEAM Lab at Boston Art Academy which serves forty percent Black and forty percent Latino high-school students. [1] As of 2018, Gaskins was a program manager at the Fab Foundation, [4] a Boston-based nonprofit. In 2019, she had an artist-in-residence at MathTalk PBC and part of the Autodesk Technology Center Residency program on behalf of MathTalk. [5] Gaskins is currently the assistant director of the Lesley STEAM Learning Lab at Lesley University.

Career

Gaskins investigates humans versus nature, sound versus imagery. [3] She wants people of color to be able to see themselves in computing and digital technology fields. [6] She is known for her STEAM work, arguing that adding Art to the traditional Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education will open more opportunities for students of color. She believes that STEM has always existed within groups that are not traditionally part of the mainstream discourse, and through the arts (like hip-hop, film, dance, theater, video games, and visual art) people may realize that these groups were always part of the conversation. She is inspired by the “entrepreneurial spirit," as she calls it, as a way to progress, visible in such ingenious pioneers as Fred Eversley, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, George Clinton and Grandmaster Flash who adapted the currently used cross-fader from reclaimed electronics. [1] [2]

Her work creates spaces that respond to culture, within a culture, thus become a catalyst for change inside communities, instead of being in the control of others. [7] She is also known for her cultural criticism, including the unpacking of Beyoncé's Formation video at the intersection of contemporary police killings of black boys and the story of traditional voodoo spirit, Ghede Nibo. [8]

In 2014, Gaskins spoke at a symposium called "Afrofuturism in Black Theology: Race, Gender, Sexuality and the State of Black Religion in the Black Metropolis" featuring George Clinton at Vanderbilt University. [9] She spoke at a symposium called "Why Comix? Drawing the World You Want to See" about representation in comics at Northwestern University and on a panel called the Aesthetic Architecture Symposium titled "The Aesthetics of Activism: Afro-Futurism, Xenofeminism, and Disobedient Objects" at Yale University in 2016. [10] [11]

Dr. Gaskins' artistic collaboration with artificial intelligence began when teaching high school computer science students about DeepDream. [12]

Gaskins' digital installation, AR Virtual Sounding Space, using both physical computing and projection mapping, was the 2015 feature of Paseo Pop Up, a festival produced by Paseo Projects in Taos, New Mexico. It was a digital projection on the Luna Chapel at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site. The immersive projected piece was inspired by cosmograms, culturally-based maps of space and time like the medicine wheel. The public then could affect the piece through gloves that control the sound and color of the projection. As part of this engagement, she was one of a few artists with engagements in Electrofunk Mixtape: A Virtual Sounding Space, a workshop with local students. [3] She performed Electrofunk Mixtape: Illuminus Edition with Hank Shocklee in Boston, MA as part of the Illuminus outdoor festival. [13]

In 2017, Gaskins was in the group exhibition, We Have Always Lived in the Future at Flux Factory in Long Island City, NY. This show was mentioned in Art in America , specifically how her work "presents opportunities for rousing transcendence." [14]

In 2018, Gaskins was in the group exhibition, Probability & Uncertainty at Union College's Mandeville Gallery in Schenectady, NY. [15] "Afrofuturism Amplified in Three Dimensions" included a lecture and maker workshop. In the show, Gaskins was one of six women artists working with scientific themes. She also presented at the National Art Education Association in Seattle, WA, in Barcelona as part of STEAMConf 2018 [16] and in Madrid as part of International Girls in ICT Day.

In 2019, Gaskins was part of a Leoni Art Project group show in Genoa, Italy. [17] Her algorithmic, "neural network" generated portrait of Wangari Muta Maathai was featured in Horticultural Heroes, an exhibit at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA. [18]

Gaskins' work was one five commissions slated to appear at the Smithsonian's FUTURES exhibition, which is scheduled to open in November 2021 in the Arts and Industries Building. Her "Featured Futurists" portraits that include such figures as Octavia Butler were made using an A.I. neutal network application called DeepDream. [19]

In 2021, Gaskins was part of the Transfiguration group exhibition at the Frost Art Museum in Miami, Florida. The show was part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Exhibition Series, which addresses issues of race, diversity, social justice, civil rights, and humanity. [20] Gaskins also gave an artist talk in conjunction with the exhibition. [21]

In 2022, Gaskins' AI-generated portrait of Greg Tate was installed as an outdoor mural by the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA) in Brooklyn, NY. The same image was on view at Lincoln Center in NYC as part of In Praise of Shadow Boxers, Dissonance & Dissidents: A Pop-Up Tribute Exhibition to Greg Tate .

Gaskins' AI-generated artwork was on display as part of The Black Angel of History: Myth-Science, Metamodernism, and the Metaverse in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall Gallery. In addition, she was commissioned to create five AI-generated portraits for the Boston Modern Opera Project's As Told By: History, Race, and Justice on the Opera Stage series.

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afrofuturism</span> Cultural aesthetic and philosophy

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and magic realism. The term was coined by Mark Dery, an American Cultural critic in 1993 and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by Alondra Nelson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hito Steyerl</span> German filmmaker (born 1966)

Hito Steyerl is a German filmmaker, moving image artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary. Her principal topics of interest are media, technology, and the global circulation of images. Steyerl holds a PhD in philosophy from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is currently a professor of New Media Art at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she co-founded the Research Center for Proxy Politics, together with Vera Tollmann and Boaz Levin.

Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, methodology or community. The term was coined in the early 1990s to describe the work of feminists interested in theorizing, critiquing, exploring and re-making the Internet, cyberspace and new-media technologies in general. The foundational catalyst for the formation of cyberfeminist thought is attributed to Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", third wave feminism, post-structuralist feminism, riot grrrl culture and the feminist critique of the alleged erasure of women within discussions of technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black science fiction</span> Science fiction involving black people

Black science fiction or black speculative fiction is an umbrella term that covers a variety of activities within the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres where people of the African diaspora take part or are depicted. Some of its defining characteristics include a critique of the social structures leading to black oppression paired with an investment in social change. Black science fiction is "fed by technology but not led by it." This means that black science fiction often explores with human engagement with technology instead of technology as an innate good.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New media art</span> Artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies

New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D printing, and cyborg art. The term defines itself by the thereby created artwork, which differentiates itself from that deriving from conventional visual arts. New Media art has origins in the worlds of science, art, and performance. Some common themes found in new media art include databases, political and social activism, Afrofuturism, feminism, and identity, a ubiquitous theme found throughout is the incorporation of new technology into the work. The emphasis on medium is a defining feature of much contemporary art and many art schools and major universities now offer majors in "New Genres" or "New Media" and a growing number of graduate programs have emerged internationally. New media art may involve degrees of interaction between artwork and observer or between the artist and the public, as is the case in performance art. Yet, as several theorists and curators have noted, such forms of interaction, social exchange, participation, and transformation do not distinguish new media art but rather serve as a common ground that has parallels in other strands of contemporary art practice. Such insights emphasize the forms of cultural practice that arise concurrently with emerging technological platforms, and question the focus on technological media per se. New Media art involves complex curation and preservation practices that make collecting, installing, and exhibiting the works harder than most other mediums. Many cultural centers and museums have been established to cater to the advanced needs of new media art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galit Eilat</span>

Galit Eilat, born 1965 in Israel, is an independent curator and writer living in the Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morehshin Allahyari</span> Iranian-American new media artist and activist

Morehshin Allahyari is an Iranian media artist, activist, and writer based in New York. Her work questions current political, socio-cultural, and gender norms, particularly exploring the relationship between technology, history, and art activism. Allahyari’s artworks include 3D-printed objects, videos, experimental animation, web art, and publications. As a 2017 Research Resident at Eyebeam, Allahyari also worked on the concept of "Digital Colonialism"; a term she has coined since 2015.

Sondra Perry is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, computer-based media, installation, and performance. Perry's work investigates "blackness, black femininity, African American heritage" and the portrayal or representation of black people throughout history, focusing on how blackness influences technology and image making. Perry explores the duality of intelligence and seductiveness in the contexts of black family heritage, black history, and black femininity. "Perry is committed to net neutrality and ideas of collective production and action, using open source software to edit her work and leasing it digitally for use in galleries and classrooms, while also making all her videos available for free online. This principle of open access in Perry's practice aims to privilege black life, to democratize access to art and culture, and to offer a critical platform that differentiates itself from the portrayal of blackness in the media". For Perry, blackness is a technology which creates fissures in systems of surveillance and control and thus creates inefficiency as an opportunity for resistance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sylvia Acevedo</span> American businesswoman and engineer

Sylvia Acevedo is an American engineer and businesswoman. She was the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Girl Scouts of the USA from 2016 to 2020. A systems engineer by education, she began her career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she was on the Voyager 2 team. She has held executive roles at Apple, Dell, and Autodesk. In 2018, Acevedo was included in a Forbes list of "America's Top 50 Women In Tech". She was a founder, with 3 others of REBA Technology, an infiniband company that was sold and also the Founder and CEO of CommuniCard. As CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, Acevedo led the organization's largest release of badges, over 100 badges in STEM and Outdoors over three years.

Torkwase Dyson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Beacon, New York, United States. Dyson describes the themes of her work as "architecture, infrastructure, environmental justice, and abstract drawing." Her work is informed by her own theory of Black Compositional Thought. This working term considers how spatial networks—paths, throughways, water, architecture, and geographies—are composed by Black bodies as a means of exploring potential networks for Black liberation. She is represented by Pace Gallery and Richard Gray Gallery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joy Buolamwini</span> Computer scientist and digital activist

Joy Adowaa Buolamwini is a Ghanaian-American-Canadian computer scientist and digital activist based at the MIT Media Lab. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL), an organization that works to challenge bias in decision-making software, using art, advocacy, and research to highlight the social implications and harms of artificial intelligence (AI).

Alisha B. Wormsley is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Her work is about collective memory and the synchronicity of time, specifically through the stories of women of color. She states her work is "the future, and the past, and the present, simultaneously."

Osborne Macharia is a self-taught Kenyan commercial photographer and digital artist whose work focuses on themes of Afrofuturism in culture, identity, and fictional narratives. He has been called "a master at creating alternate black universes."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tabita Rezaire</span> Guyanese and Danish artist, therapist and yoga teacher

Tabita Rezaire is a French new media artist of Guyanese and Danish descent, "health-tech-political" therapist, and "kemetic" and kundalini yoga teacher. She has presented her work at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, Arebyte Gallery, London, the Athens Bienniale, MAXXI, Rome, and Artspace, Sydney. Her book is Conscience u.terre.ine. (2022)

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ai-Da</span> Humanoid robot artist

Ai-Da is "the world's first ultra-realistic humanoid robot". Completed in 2019, Ai-Da is an android incorporating computer graphics and artificial intelligence algorithms that makes drawings, paintings, and sculptures. She is named after Ada Lovelace.

Stephanie Dinkins is a transdisciplinary American artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is known for creating art about artificial intelligence (AI) as it intersects race, gender, and history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Karle</span> American artist

Amy Karle is an American artist, bioartist, and futurist whose work focuses on the relationship between technology and humanity, specifically how technology and biotechnology impact health, humanity, society, evolution, and the future. Karle combines science and technology with art and is known for using living tissue in her work.

Xiaoyu Weng (翁笑雨) is a Chinese curator, writer, editor and educator in the area of contemporary art.

<i>Before Yesterday We Could Fly</i> Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room is an art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit, which opened on November 5, 2021, uses a period room format of installation to envision the past, present, and future home of someone who lived in Seneca Village, a largely African American settlement which was destroyed to make way for the construction of Central Park in the mid-1800s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emi Kusano</span> Japanese artist (Born 1990)

Emi Kusano is a Japanese multidisciplinary artist, entrepreneur, singer and songwriter based in Tokyo. Kusano is a co-founder and creative director of the NFT animation project "Shinsei Galverse", which recorded a total transaction amount of 5,895.767 ETH. She is known for her retro-futuristic style and the use of artificial intelligence in her work. In a collaboration auction between Christie's, a British auction house, and Gucci, she unveiled an AI-generated 3D dress. She is also a part-time lecturer at the Tokyo University of the Arts and is the leader and vocalist of the synthwave music unit, Satellite Young. The works of Kusano have been exhibited in contemporary art museums and galleries worldwide, including 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Saatchi Gallery, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Lewontin, Max (2015-12-16). "How efforts to combine arts with STEM education could improve tech diversity". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN   0882-7729 . Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  2. 1 2 3 Staff, Blerds (2014-10-09). "Using STEAM to Move Marginalized Students into the Future: An Interview with Dr. Nettrice Gaskins". Blerds. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
  3. 1 2 3 "The Paseo promotes youth participation". The Taos News. 2015-08-05. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
  4. 1 2 "About the Fab Foundation". fabfoundation.org. Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  5. ↑ "Apply to become a resident at an Autodesk Technology Center| Autodesk". www.autodesk.com. Retrieved 2019-07-04.
  6. ↑ Shein, Esther (April 2017). "Computing the Arts | Communications of the ACM". cacm.acm.org. 60 (4): 17–19. Retrieved 2017-06-26.
  7. ↑ Martinez, Sylvia (2015-05-10). "Making for All: How to Build an Inclusive Makerspace". EdSurge. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  8. ↑ Bradley, Regina N. (2016-02-12). "Getting in Line: Working Through Beyonce's 'Formation'". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  9. ↑ Owens, Ann Marie Deer (2014-10-02). "Musician George Clinton part of Vanderbilt black theology event". Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  10. ↑ Johnston, Rich (2016-01-15). "Blerdwatch: 'It's A Great Time To Be A Person Of Color In Comics'". Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  11. ↑ "Aesthetic Activism - Announcements - e-flux". www.e-flux.com. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  12. ↑ "Afrofuturist Artist Creates Stunning Portraits of Black Artists With Deep Dream AI Algorithms". New World Notes. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  13. ↑ Gaskins, Nettrice. "The Electrofunk Mixtape: Illuminus Edition". Illuminus. Retrieved 2017-06-25.
  14. ↑ Small, Zachary (7 April 2017). "Future Perfect: Flux Factory's Intersectional Approach to Technology - News - Art in America". www.artinamericamagazine.com. Retrieved 2017-05-09.
  15. ↑ "Probability & Uncertainty | Mandeville Gallery". muse.union.edu. Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  16. ↑ "Steamconf 2018 – 4th. International Education Conference". 2018.steamconf.com (in Catalan). Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  17. ↑ "EventidAmare - eventi artistici in Liguria". www.eventidamare.eu. Retrieved 2019-07-04.
  18. ↑ betatowerhill2 (2019-02-11). "Horticultural Heroes Exhibit". Tower Hill Botanic Garden. Retrieved 2019-07-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ Cascone, Sarah (2021-06-15). "The Smithsonian Will Stage a Blowout Show With Objects From Across Its Museums—and 5 New Artworks—to Celebrate Its 175th Birthday". Artnet News. Retrieved 2021-06-20.
  20. ↑ Florida International University-Digital Communications. "Transfiguration". frost.fiu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  21. ↑ Florida International University-Digital Communications. "Art and Algorithms: Conversation with Nettrice Gaskins". frost.fiu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  22. ↑ Gaskins, Nettrice (2018-02-21). "Why Black Panther's Shuri is so important to young black girls and maker culture". Syfy. Retrieved 2018-09-13.
  23. ↑ Gaskins, Nettrice (2016-07-26). "How Art and Dance Are Making Computer Science Culturally Relevant (EdSurge News)". EdSurge. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  24. ↑ Gaskins, Nettrice (2016-07-05). "Marvel's Black Panther Makes STEAM Relevant to Under Represented Youth; Plus, VR's Century Old Roots". EdSurge. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  25. ↑ Gaskins, Nettrice (2015-12-02). "Welcome to Afrofuturism 3.0". Slate. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved 2017-04-21.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.