Spring Exhibition at Santa Clara University's de Saisset Museum Showcases Electronic, Digital, and Web-Based Art.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Tech Tools of the Trade: Contemporary New Media Art opens April 17 to June 28 at the de Saisset Museum. The exhibition, the first comprehensive new-media show at Santa Clara University's museum in two decades, is designed to be accessible to first-time new-media audiences as well as sophisticated viewers. Tech Tools of the Trade will showcase the work of Bay area artists who are pioneers in the tech/art field, such as Jim Campbell and Lynn Hershman, as well as rising stars, including Stephanie Syjuco and Trevor Paglen. This exhibition is co-curated by the de Saisset Museum and Kathy Aoki, assistant professor, from SCU's art and art history department.

The work in this exhibition explores the ways in which technology has shaped our sense of selves, our vision, our bodies, and our world. The exhibition examines our cultural fascination with technology (including our continued faith in its benefits), our myriad uses of the internet, and the potentially troubling applications of technology in simulation and surveillance.

While the work in the exhibition features a broad range of conceptual and artistic approaches, the collection is unified by its multidisciplinary content. As a result, the exhibition has been organized around thematic areas that highlight the works' connections to contemporary cultural and social phenomena: biomorph, identity, web repurposing, new light, hope and promise, surveillance, and simulation.

The new-media artists in this exhibition adopt current technologies such as online colonies and marketplaces, digital video cameras, and security X-ray machines to achieve their artwork. Some artists in the exhibition comment on technology with low-tech presentations, while others use sophisticated equipment solely to achieve their conceptual goals. As technology becomes more pervasive in our lives, the artists respond in kind--either as users of the technology or as commentators.

Tech Tools of the Trade includes the works of Jim Campbell, Anthony Discenza, Rodney Ewing, Martha Gorzycki, Lynn Hershman, Sherry Karver, Nina Katchadourian, Scott Kildall, Andrew Kleindolph, Jill Miller, James Morgan, Deborah Oropallo, Trevor Paglen, Alan Rath, Jackie Sumell, Stephanie Syjuco, Gail Wight, and Christine Wong Yap.

Santa Clara University students played an active role in the creation of the exhibition by writing all of the identification and interpretive labels in the galleries and helping to organize Guide by Cell content for visitors.

Tech Tools of the Trade opens with a reception on Friday, April 17, from 7 to 9 p.m. On Wednesday, May 20, from 6 to 8 p.m., the de Saisset Museum will host a free panel discussion, Tactical Digital Aesthetics, moderated by Katie Vann, assistant director of public engagement at SCU's Center for Science, Technology, and Society, and Kathy Aoki, assistant professor and co-curator.

About the de Saisset Museum

The de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University is the South Bay's free museum of art and history. The museum is one of only three museums in the South Bay accredited by the American Association of Museums. The de Saisset Museum supports SCU's goal of educating the whole person through diverse exhibitions, collections, and educational programs.

About Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California's Silicon Valley, offers its 8,758 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus master's and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master's universities, California's oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice.