Edward Shanken
Credit: Edward Shanken
Edward Shanken is best known for his scholarship at the intersections of contemporary art and new media. He has supervised dozens of MFA and practice-led Ph.D. students in the US and Europe and is committed to helping former students succeed in academic careers. He is Professor of Arts at UC Santa Cruz. Prior academic posts include Associate Professor, Digital + Media MFA program at RISD; Associate Professor, DXARTS Ph.D. program at University of Washington; Universitair Docent, New Media MA program, University of Amsterdam. Dr. Shanken earned a Ph.D. and MA in Art History at Duke, an MBA at Yale, and a BA in Studio Art at Haverford College.
Recent publications include essays on art and healing, screen-dance, technoshamanism, sound art and ecology, and bridging the gap between new media and contemporary art. His critically praised survey, Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon Press, 2009) has been expanded with an extensive, multimedia, multilingual Online Companion: www.artelectronicmedia.com. His book, Inventing the Future: Art, Electricity, New Media was published in Spanish in 2013 as Inventar el Futuro. He edited and wrote the introduction to a collection of essays by Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness (University of California Press, 2003). His most recent book is Systems (Whitechapel/MIT Press, 2015).
Overarching praxis statement:
I believe that by opening our hearts more fully to ourselves, we can open our hearts more fully to other beings. By opening our hearts mor fully to other beings, we can open our hearts more fully to the Earth. While attempting to integrate joy and wisdom, I discovered that joy contains its own wisdom, and, . I try to celebrate, embody, and live this non-dualistic relationship between joy and wisdom. In the words of Ram Das, I aspire to love everybody and tell the truth. If we can bring these principles into our art and critical practices, we can help build a more compassionate and peaceful future. Into the light!
Current art and/or research interest:
My current interests focus on the embodied ways of knowing. My research has become more practice-based, with an emphasis on performance. My interest in the healing potential of art has led to research on shamanism and technoshamanism, yielding several publications and a practice-led collaboration with choreographer Anandha Ray on a series of four live-streamed ceremony/performances.
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