“Micha Cardenas is pushing the limits of what it means to be human.” – Tiffany Fox, Calit2
“Micha’s extended period of immersion in SL [Second Life] enhances RL [Real Life] and actualizes SL as an alternate operational system, one that allows us to perform beyond the boundaries of our skin and beyond the local space that we inhabit.” - Stelarc
“Avant garde lesbian erotic multi-reality performance art” – Synthtopia
Micha Cárdenas / Azdel Slade is an artist/theorist whose work spans from erotic mixed reality performance in motion capture studios to dislocative border disturbance art in remote desert areas, always striving to identify limits and challenge them. Her transreal work mixes physical and networked spaces in order to explore emerging forms of queer relationality, biopolitics and DIY horizontal knowledge production. She is a Lecturer in the Visual Arts department at UCSD. She is an Artist/Researcher in the Experimental Game Lab at CRCA and the b.a.n.g. lab at Calit2. She blogs at Transreal.org and twitters @azdelslade. Micha holds an MFA from the University of California San Diego, an MA in Media and Communications with distinction from the European Graduate School and a BS in Computer Science from Florida International University. Her current collaboration with Elle Mehrmand, mixed relations, was the recipient of the UCIRA Emerging Fields Award for 2009. Her new book Trans Desire was recently published by Atropos Press together with Barbara Fornssler’s book in Trans Desire/Affective Cyborgs.
Micha’s performances, videos and collaborations have been seen in museums, galleries, community spaces and public spaces around the world including the The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in Bogota, Colombia, GLAMFA 2009 at Cal State Long Beach, Los Angeles Convention Center at Supersonic 2009, the Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum in Alexandria, Egypt, The University of Texas at Dallas, El Centro Cultural de Tijuana (CECUT), the 2008 Whitney Biennial, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Artivistic 2007 in Montreal, Eyebeam NYC and the Gallery@Calit2, the US/Mexico border checkpoint during the Political Equator II, The Art and Social Space Laboratory at the Central Bank Museum of Ecuador, The Gallery Project in Ann Arbor, the Marcuse Gallery at UCSD, the Steinmatte at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Swizterland, the Rubber Rose Gallery, The Voz Alta Project, freEtech 2007, the Casa de Iniciativas in Málaga, Spain, the Americas Social Forum in Quito, Ecuador and the Seoul Human Rights festival as well as on Free Speech TV and Paper Tiger TV.
Micha’s artwork and collective projects have appeared in publications including Art21, Associated Press, BBC World, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone Italy, Vice Magazine, Missy Magazine, .dpi magazine, the Networked Performance blog, the San Diego Reader, San Diego City Beat, San Diego Union Tribune, Art as Authority, Dr. Dobbs Journal, Secondlife.com, New World Notes and Brooklyn is Watching. Micha’s writing has been featured in the Inflexions journal, Digimag, NewMediaFix.net, Augmentology.com and in the San Diego Reader.
In the fall and Winter of 2009, Micha is teaching a 2 course seuqence of “Electronic Technologies for Art”, covering both analog electronics and digital electronics including the Arduino/Freeduino platform. Micha has been a teaching assistant in the Visual Arts department for classes such as “Introduction to Art Making: Motion and Time Based”, “Introduction to Computing and the Arts” in the Interdisciplinary computing and the Arts (ICAM) major, “Introduction to Art-Making: 3-Dimensional Practices” and “History of Film”. In addition, Micha was the recipient of a 2008 Open Classroom Challenge Grant from UCIRA and taught a class entitled “Collective Art Practice, Performative and Networked Approaches to Challenging Power”. She has been a guest lecturer at Calarts in Los Angeles, University of Texas at Dallas, and at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and presented a papers on the project Becoming Dragon at the Digital Arts and Culture Conference at UC Irvine, Society of Photonic Imaging Engineers “Electronic Imaging” Conference in San Jose, and the Ctheory Digital Studies Workshop in Victoria.
Micha has collaborated with faculty members Ricardo Dominguez and Brett Stalbaum on the Transborder Immigrant Tool and the B.A.N.G. lab, and Adriene Jenik on specFlic 1.0.
bookmarks on del.icio.us
azdel slade on vimeo
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[...] Mehrmand and Micha Cárdenas will be visiting Duke next week for a performance and artists talk. The duo will present [...]
January 19, 2010 @ 9:19 pm