The University of New Mexico

College of Fine Arts

Diana McCarty
Media Artist

A fellow at the Academy of Media Art in Cologne, Diana McCarty is on the leading edge in studying and advancing new media art. The former UNM Media Arts student co-founded two Internet mailing lists for critical discourse among media practitioners and theorists; organizes conferences on new media; and is developing shareware for alternative media.

"What I really like about Europe is the natural hybridization of media. . . artists are not so constrained by the art market, so there is much more freedom for experimentation and crossing into new territory. It is really great to live here!" writes Diana in e-mail from Berlin.

"Most of what I'm doing comes out of experiences at UNM," says McCarty. By 1993, she had directed the Southwest Film Center (which presents an eclectic and fascinating season in the SUB Theater); organized a Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; and helped Department of Media Arts head Ira Jaffe organize the first Latin American Film Festival. And as a committee member of the ASA Gallery under Barbara Ford, McCarty had helped start the gallery's video collection. Her studies included video history with Gene Youngblood, film theory with Jaffe, photography with Patrick Nagatani  and courses with Gus Blaisdell--the latter an association continued from McCarty's student days at Albuquerque's Freedom High.

McCarty moved to Budapest, Hungary after UNM, lured by word of the strong film scene there. She found work helping organize a Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and made connections with members of The Media Research Foundation, an artists' group. Soon she was involved in organizing a conference on multi-media called the MetaForum; it first took place in  '94, and was held annually through '96.

Organizing MetaForum conferences required recruiting participants and setting an agenda. A mailing list called Nettime, founded by McCarty and others, connected people with similar interests. The two projects dovetailed. "Because we were dealing with similar topics, we used the Nettime list as a pre-conference channel to get the topics flowing," explains McCarty. "Practically this meant inviting people to join, setting topics and organizing events for meetings in real life."

Nettime, an internet mailing list for critical discourse, began as an alternative to Wired magazine in 1995 after the second "secret" meeting of the Medien Zentral Kommittee in Venice at the Bienale (a tongue-in-cheek reference to the old Communist secret society meetings.) The idea was to create a channel for the best media practitioners and theorists to establish a discourse from a European/global perspective. Wired is from a California neo-technology voice. Nettime discussions are free-form and more critical of technology.

"The Venice meeting was really important in bringing together the first 15-20 people to start this discussion," says McCarty. "I was the only 'invited' woman to attend, though some others did drop in (this is important later and one of the reasons for starting a women's list).

"Since then, the Nettime list has grown to 900. It is a totally diverse mix of the best and worst from all over the networked planet. . . I guess all of the big cyber elite participate in the list. It is more like a community of shared interests--though here I don't like to use the word community because that implies something too friendly. People do know each other, but most often it is through what they post to the list."

McCarty is currently involved in publishing a book with Aotonomedia Publishing in New York. The ZKP5 (Zentral Kommittee Proceedings) is a collection of texts, both from Nettime and new texts written especially for the book by Nettime contributing authors. It provides a critical view of new media from various perspectives. "This is a very chaotic project, but also very fun," says McCarty. "It is our first actual book; though it follows on four previous, more informal publications in the form of booklets and newspaper.

"In The ZKP5, texts/voices from around the world are being translated into English and then re-distributed around the world," says McCarty. "It is the total opposite of Kevin Kelly's (ex-editor of WIRED) new book which is one voice being translated into something like five languages on the first printing."

McCarty has also co-founded a mailing list for women in media art, Faces. She and Kathy Rae Huffman, another former Gene Youngblood student, created Faces as a resource network and a forum for open discourse. "Women working with media can get information and have contact with other women doing similar work. This just doesn't happen in the main festivals, exhibitions, conferences. . . and, sadly, it doesn't happen on Nettime."

Though Faces is a closed list, at times it is opened to different projects by McCarty and Huffman. Last year it was used by the cyberfeminist group, OLD BOYS NETWORK, for organizing the first Cyberfeminist International in Kassel, Germany at Documenta X, a conference held every four years.

McCarty is also involved in software development. At the Academy of Media Art in Cologne, she is funded by a Nettime fellowship to work with several programmers to develop a free group-ware for alternative media practice. Based on an open system, the software allows many people access to a central database and will be offered free to other groups and will be adaptable by them--an alternative to something like Lotus Notes.  McCarty describes the Academy, a new school dedicated to Media Art, established by Prof. Dr. Siegfried Zielinski in 1993. "It is a rather elite institution with amazing technical facilities with professors that encourage experimental work with media."

Jennifer Jasper

Performance Artist and Director

Go to the hip Seattle nightclub, Re-bar, make your way past the bar to the back, and there you might find UNM alumna Jennifer Jasper (BFA, Theatre '88) on stage in a high-camp comedy.

Jennifer Jasper

"Cabaret theatre is taking off in Seattle during the last four or five years," says Jasper, who has been ensconced there for the past decade. She is part owner of a stage production company, Vixen Productions. "We produce original works by energizing gay playwrights," she explains. "My personal emphasis is on taking improvisational work and developing it into a full performance piece."

Performance places vary - cabaret spaces, dance clubs turned into theatre spaces. "Vixen Productions performs in alternative venues and traditional spaces," says Jasper.

As a member of the three-woman team, Pulp Vixens, Jasper took a show to San Francisco. Called "Innocent Heat," the original work is a take-off on lesbian pulp novels from the 50s and 60s. "I have decided to do my own work," says Jasper.

Jasper emphasized directing in her theatre studies at UNM. She studied principally under Denise Schulz and Bob Hartung, and also with Brian Hanson. She is slightly amazed to find herself performing more than directing, though she still directs some scripted plays.

"You take what they teach and take it one step further," says Jasper. "I learned a lot of the tools from that department, because we had to do a little of everything. The freeness in curriculum let me explore all aspects of theatre and find what inspired me the best."

"Denise is my mentor and a good friend--an incredible force for me," says Jasper of the current department chair. "She was an amazing directing professor and was also my student advisor. She is a moving force behind my channeling my passion for theatre and taking it to new places. I follow my creative vision, rather than go with traditional theatre."

Jasper, in association with others, has received funding from the Seattle Arts Commission and the Washington State Arts Commission, as well as Bumbershoot, the annual arts festival.

Before relocating to Seattle in 1988, Jasper spent five years working with the theatre group, Phantasmagoria. Several members of that group also moved to Seattle and the collaboration continued for five years as Kings' Elephant Theatre. The creative juices still flow, because Jasper is currently working with former Phantasmagoria member, Kevin Kent, in mounting a piece called Cul de Sac. "It is a two-person show with 14 characters," says Jasper. "We hope to tour."

Cathy Leach

Trumpet Teacher and Performer

Teaching experience she gained at UNM helped Cathy Leach land a trumpet professorship at the University of Tennessee in 1981. Her audition tape was impressive also. She recalls with gratitude the many hours UNM Music Professors Karl Hinterbichler and Jeff Piper spent helping her record that tape. As a UNM trumpet graduate assistant, Leach had played alongside the professors in the popular and respected New Mexico Brass Quintet for two years. "I got a lot of performing experience with the quintet," says Leach. "And I had a lot of fun." Hard work and talent made a winning combination. Now a tenured trumpet professor at the University of Tennessee, Leach also plays in the faculty Brasswind Quintet and is principle trumpet with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

Leach came to UNM at the invitation of Trumpet Professor Jeff Piper, who had heard her audition at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. By the time the offer reached her, Leach was playing in the Toledo Symphony. But the trumpet assistantship seemed a "perfect opportunity" for the recent graduate to gain both teaching and performance experience, and Leach accepted.

The two-year assistantship offered free tuition and a stipend. In return, Leach taught theory and ear training as well as trumpet--and played with the New Mexico Brass Quintet. Leach's performing life also included positions with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Santa Fe. When NMBQ finished their European tour in the summer of '80, both Leach and Piper stayed on to perform with the Chamber Orchestra of Santa Fe, also on tour in Europe.

"I studied theory with Scott Wilkinson, and Susan Patrick got me interested in research," says Leach who received her Master of Mu sic in Trumpet Performance in 1981. "Susan was very demanding which was good. I am now working on a doctorate at Northwestern University, writing a dissertation on trumpet and voice arias of Bach and Handel."

ERIC PATRICK

Experimental Animator

Stills from Eric Patrick's "Stark Film"

Eric Patrick works in the lucrative world of commercial animation to fund his experimental films. His commercial work is seen on Nickelodeon's children's show, Blues Clues; Absolut vodka's website; and in Nabisco and Fox Network ads.

But Patrick's major ambition is artistic rather than commercial; and he is successful in this arena as well. His MFA thesis film at California Institute of the Arts, entitled "Stark Film," recently was awarded a top prize in the prestigious Black Maria international film competition. "Stark Film" and "As a Matter of Fact," a Patrick production using sculptural puppets, painting and collage, have won awards in an MTV student animation competition, the Humboldt Film Festival, and the Canadian International Annual Film Festival. His films have also played in film festivals in Australia and Europe.

"I approach film from a fine arts perspective," says Patrick (BUS ?94), who studied media arts and studio art at UNM. "I took classes in Media Arts theory, history and criticism and in production. The UNM Department of Media Arts has such potential; it has an amazing theory and criticism faculty. And its production courses could become something soon; it's on the cusp. They need the money."

Based partly on video and film work he created in Media Arts production courses, Patrick was awarded a fellowship and an assistantship to study in the prestigious graduate program in experimental animation at Cal Arts.

He was successful at Cal Arts, receiving increasing fellowship assistance. He also did freelance commercial work in L.A. for several production companies. That included working on sound for films, where Patrick tapped his experience in sound design for radio dramas. As a KUNM volunteer for five years, he co-produced the Sunday afternoon "Live Variety Show" broadcast from the Outpost Performance Space.

Upon receiving his degree from Cal Arts, Patrick was hired to do computer animation for Nickelodeon productions, part of huge media conglomerate ViaCom. He started for the company in Manhattan, and continues in their employ from Austin, where he is happier in his surroundings and closer to his family in Houston.

"I am one of six-to-ten animators working on Blues Clues," explains Patrick. "Each show may have about 50 shots, with perhaps 12 sequences in each. They send me the basic storyboard, I create the animation and send that to New York, then get feedback on any revisions. I usually get the end scenes which are longer shots, maybe two minutes. There are more characters in the end scenes when they wind up the theme."

"My art is better suited for film where I can use visual art within the context of time," explains Patrick. His original projects are experimental animated films with cut-outs and collage, both two and three-dimensional.

Patrick believes in the UNM Department of Media Arts and stays in communication with Ira Jaffe, program head. "Ira was very helpful in my formative years as I found my own film language. He's remarkable. You're lucky to have him."

College of Fine Arts finearts@unm.edu

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