Diana Rojas
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Diana Rojas is an interdisciplinary artist whose research explores human attempts and desires to engage with the invisible through installation, video, sound, and sculpture. Informed by her interests in philosophy, history, physics, and material science, she approaches the role of technology in art making as the catalyst for larger conversations of existence, consciousness, and metaphysics. Her work, which exists physically and virtually, has been exhibited, screened, and published nationally and internationally in spaces such as: Czong Institute of Contemporary Art, Fiesp Cultural Center, Dallas Contemporary, Chapel of Santa Maria dei Carcarati, Canyon Flats Video Wall, Rockport Center for the Arts, Texas Theater, the Yale Theater, and more. She is the recipient of several OER Grants from the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the 2023 Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award, 2022 Judson-Morrisey Excellence in New Media Award and the Arrowmont Windgate University Fellowship. Diana was born in Mexico, received her MFA from the University of North Texas, and is an Assistant Professor of Sound Art at the University of Texas at Dallas.
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MAIN SCREEN:
Title:Query v2
Statement: Query v2 is a single channel audiovisual work adapted from its planetarium counterpart. This piece utilizes abstracted imagery of the cosmos, specifically rings of light which form as a result of gravitational lensing an occurrence observed when a massive body existing in spacetime, such as galaxy clusters or black holes, cause a curvature in spacetime resulting in the light around the mass to bend. Drawing its title from Isaac Newton’s Opticks, in which Newton wrote about gravity, light and God, Query serves as a reminder of the distance between humanity, the invisible, and the immense.
UPPER SCREEN
Title: Messenger (1)
Statement: Messenger (1) is part of a triptych video work featuring asteroid and spacecraft 3D scans/models and text. This work features “messenger” figures, composed of visual elements found in angelic beings, biological, and technological forms. By combining the mythological and scientific, Messenger (1) creates a virtual space where these ideological lines are blurred.
Ricardo Paniagua
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Dallas-based artist Ricardo Paniagua's sculptures, paintings, murals, and mixed media works range from painstakingly precise and geometric to loose and psychedelic, displaying his incredible diversity. The scrupulous details of his tondos, wall sculptures, and canvases, referencing his background as the descendent of generations of master tile artisans, speak to the artist's meticulous consideration. One strength of Ricardo’s paintings is that they offer visual forms that don’t appear to be directed by a catalogue of art historical references. Ricardo speaks of painting as something that comes from the ground, through you and out you, somewhat like a dream. His works appear to emerge from an internal place where form and rhythm coalesce. Paniagua has participated in exhibitions across the United States, including a 2015 show at the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin.
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TITLE: PLAZZMOID (2024)
Shawn Saumell
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Shawn Saumell is an ALAANA artist born in New York and currently lives and works in Dallas. He received an MFA from Lesley University College of Arts and Design fka The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, BFA from Texas Woman’s University, magna cum laude, and an AA from Collin College, cum laude.
Saumell's work has been featured in over 230 exhibitions worldwide and has won many international awards including, but not limited to:"First Place," "Director's Choice," "Photographer of the Year," "Best of Biennial," "100 Best International," "Top 50 MFA Painters in America," "Top 25 International Fine Artists," and "Best of Show."
He has had a recent solo exhibition at the Mesquite Arts Center, Mesquite, TX [2024]; and recent juried exhibitions at the Bill J. Priest Center, Dallas, TX [2023] and Texas Woman's University, Denton, TX [2023]; as well as recent group exhibitions at Arts Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX [2024] and Adolphus Tower, Dallas, TX [2024]. -
Titles: GLITCH; "I", “II”, “III”, “IV”, “V”, “VI”, “VII”, “VIII”, “IX”, “X”
Medium: archival pigment print
Size: 8.5"x11"
Date: 2024
Edition: 5 + 1 AP -
This work continues common themes of pareidolia, perception of reality, and the human experience from previous projects. Ever since the Information Age, the Internet, and recent rapid development of A.I., humans have been busy hacking and deconstructing our reality faster than ever, while simultaneously being manipulated by it.
Scientists find that the building blocks of our physical reality are molecules or quarks. In technology, we see the blocks coded in binary code bits of ones and zeros. Every now and again some unexplainable phenomena occur, a glitch in the matrix, if you will.
These pieces peel back some of the virtual façade of our relationship with technology. This is how we interface, absorb information, and develop much of our understandings of life and this world. These pieces are still frames from a video piece.
During the viral peer-to-peer BitTorrent craze of sharing of files, I downloaded a movie, which happened to be coded. It would appear differently depending on the video viewer that I chose to open the file with. With one of the software applications, it produced a beautiful matrix of EBU (European Broadcasting Union) color blocks. These scrambled blocks were composed of the primary colors of paint (red, yellow, blue), the primary colors of light (red, green, blue), and the primary colors of pigment inks (cyan, magenta, yellow, black). Although I wasn’t able to watch the movie, I was mesmerized by the array of colors, shapes, and patterns that would emerge.
At first, it seemed curious, then meditative, and then cognitive. I began thinking about what I was seeing and experiencing. As I peer into the pixel anatomy of this film. I thought about how people see differently and have different experiences of the same event. We have different minds, as well as different eyes. Our minds develop through nature and nurture metaphysically, but our eyes can have a very physical impact on how we empirically see. As I sat watching different images emerge from the patterns, I wondered what other people would see in the same moment and image. Furthermore, I continued thinking about how many humans have different perceptions of color. It is widely scientifically agreed that about 1 in 200 women are color blind, as compared to 1 in 12 men. Climbing further down this rabbit hole, beyond just the patterns, I began to wonder how these pieces may look differently to various people depending on their retinal deficiency. I then began to connect the idea of certain colors/hues being completely colorless or seemingly invisible to some.
This then triggered a connection to how we see the physical world around us. Our eyes are only capable of viewing or perceiving about 0.00355% of the entire visible electromagnetic spectrum. This means that more than 99% of the world around us is invisible. What do you see that I don’t? If we saw things the same way, would we have less conflict? How can I see the world like you? How can we see all the seemingly invisibleness around us? How does that invisible realm interact with us, unbeknownst to us?
Sound Sculptors Union
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The Sound Sculptors Union was established in the Spring of 2020 as an online salon and vehicle for collaboration for experimental sound artists and musicians. Originally formed in response to the pandemic, when artists were especially isolated, both from their artistic practices – largely reliant on access to physical spaces and in-person audiences – and from each other.
The collective remains a means of connection between artists working in various media across the US who seek community through their artistic practices. The group’s structure has shape shifted over time, through multiple iterations since its inception. The goal is to provide feedback to members of the group on their individual works and as well as a platform for collaboration between artists in the group.
The 2 videos included were created in 2023 by Paige Naylor, urks io, J$Fur, Em Ritchie, Henna Chou, and Alison Wilder in a 'Telephone' style file exchange process. https://soundsculptorsunion.org/
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Untitled 1 (2020)
Untitled 2 (2020)
—-—- ASH ——--
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Ash Hunn is an autodidact New Media & VJ artist whose work explores the intersection of technology, interactivity, and glitch aesthetics. Based in Dallas, Texas, Ash creates immersive and dynamic visual experiences that blur the boundaries between digital creation and analog manipulation. Using the powerful visual programming environment TouchDesigner, they craft intricate generative visuals that pulse with life, offering a dynamic flow of form, color, and, on occasion, sound.
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Title: Fuck Around & Find Out (2024)
Description / How-To:
This sculpture is aimed to give the viewer a feeling of nostalgia, while simutanioulsy bridging them over to the digital realm through the visuals being displayed on the CRT televisions. I invite you to toggle the switches and twist the knobs via the glitch box machine to become a part of the ever-changing result.
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Statement:
My work revolves around the interplay of digital technology and analog systems, exploring how these two realms can collide, coexist, and ultimately blur the boundaries of visual art. Using TouchDesigner to create intricate, generative visuals that explore the potential of real-time, algorithmic design, only to then feed the visuals through CRT televisions, a medium steeped in nostalgia, yet simultaneously an imperfect vessel for today's sharp digital precision. The inherent distortions of the CRT screen - the soft glow, the flickers, the glitches - introduce a layer of unpredictability and raw texture, offering an organic counterpart to the meticulous digital patterns I create.
I employ a glitch box machine, a custom-built analog interface that allows me to manipulate the visuals in real-time. The machine distorts, fragments, and reconfigures the imagery in chaotic, unpredictable ways, creating a tension between control and chance. This physical, tactile manipulation of the visuals invites the viewer to engage directly with the work. As they interact with the glitch box, they too become part of the creative process, actively altering the flow of the artwork. In my work, I seek to embrace the tension between precision and chaos, control and spontaneity, technology and human interaction.
The work is then fed through CRT televisions, and further transformed via a custom-built glitch box machine-an analog interface that allows for real-time, hands-on manipulation providing a deliberate distortion that introduces unpredictability and raw texture into the digital imagery. They have VJ'd these visuals at various live music events, venues, and clubs, and have featured their work in gallery spaces throughout DFW.