I truly LOVE to teach and am available for guest teaching on a variety of topics, ranging from the academic to the personal. I am an expert presenter on personal growth topics such as creativity, peace, community and spirit, and I also teach movement and play.
I am also quite passionate about the role of the arts in our society today, and can address this in depth for either a lay audience or from a more academic and art historical perspective. In keeping with my doctoral research, I am well versed in topics related to digital media and virtual worlds, and I enjoy offering illustrated lectures and leading active discussion groups. Please see my You Tube video lecture on my own virtual world which can be accessed at the bottom of this page. In recent years, I have been a guest teacher and presented on this digital material at Art Center in Pasadena, the School of Visual Arts in NYC and online with digital design students at Cornell University.
During the past two decades, I have lectured, moderated panels and been a guest speaker at museums and galleries in the US and internationally, including such venues as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Armand Hammer Museum of Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, the USC Public Art Forum, the California Institute for the Arts, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the University of Rhode Island, the Bremen Kunstakademie, the Wittgenstein Haus in Vienna, the Villach Kulturamt, in Villach, Austria, and the Arbois Municipal Museum in France, the last lectures being in german and french.
I have addressed conferences and delivered papers at such venues as the 2007 Indigenous Film and Media Conference at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, the 2006 Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Vancouver, the first Refresh Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology at Banff in 2005, the Siggraph 2002 and 2004 Art Gallery talks, the 2004 Virtual Minds, Congress of Fictitious Figures held at the Bremen Kunstlerhaus, the 2002 Digital Cultures Conference at UCLA, the 2002 WHA Conference on Translation and the Reproduction of Culture, the National Conference on Liberal Arts, School of Visual Arts in New York in 2000, the Digi Debate at the American Film Institute in 1994, and the International Art Critics Association in Vienna in 1992.
In addition, I coordinated the 2003 Digital Cultures Project conference held at UC Irvine, the Life By Design: Everyday Digital Culture symposium and an exhibition at the Beall Center for Technology, organized UC Irvine's 2003 round table on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and organized and chaired the 1992 panel at the Los Angeles Art Fair “Quality and the Marketplace: What Role for the Art Critic Today?”
I was a part time Art History lecturer at the California State University at Northridge (CSUN) from 1995-1998, and was a teaching assistant in Asian Art History at UC Irvine in 2002-2003. Besides my more academic offerings, I continue to offer lectures at such venues as the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Joslyn Center in San Luis Obispo County, and the Institute for Philosophy and the Arts in Pasadena.
Education
I have a PhD in Visual Studies from the University of California, Irvine (2006), and received a Master's in Critical Theory from the Art Center College of Design (2000) and a Bachelors in Art History from Barnard College (1988) where I passed with distinction for my thesis on contemporary art.
I did a term in the writing program at the California Institute of the Arts with an emphasis on interactive media (2001). I have studied creative writing with acclaimed poet and performer Juan Felipe Herrera and Margarita Luna Robles in their Manikrudo Mambo summer intensive at Cal State Long Beach(1995) and earlier still with writer Gilbert Sorrentino at the New School (1982).
During the years between 1995-1997, I pursued intensive vajra studies with Lati Rinpoche and with the late Geshe Gyeltsen at the Buddhist temple Thubten Dhargye Ling in Long Beach. I also participated in the Yan Xin Qi Gong Association following the work of Dr. Yan Xin in California and Sichuan province in China. Please see my movement and play page for more about my performance related studies.
Guest Lectures (selected)
"3D Theory" Art Center College of Design, Pasadena 2009
Guest of M.A. Greenstein's classes on Critical Practice
"3D Theory" School of Visual Arts, NYC 2009
Guest of Joseph Nechvatal's class on the "viractual"
“Playing With Space and Time”, Cornell University 2006 Live, remote guest lecture and inworld presentation Topic: “TCWF: Tobey Crockett’s Wild Frontier” Testimonials
July 2009 "Richard and I were thrilled to have you once again lead us in this now thirteen year old salon focused on positive, uplifted thought. There is no one who can better illuminate its purpose than you. "I am also very pleased to have met Hua Anwa, the Spiritual Leader of the Church of Empowerment. Your idea to have her speak about the power of group meetings and ritual provided a fine way to show one precise example of how each of us can do something right now to elevate our lives. I so appreciate knowing Hua and will look forward to looking at her website in the future for further enlightened teachings. "With much love and joy, and deep admiration for all you are doing to make this world a better place..." Carol Soucek King, MFA, PhD, Founder The Institute of Philosophy and the Arts April 2009 Asta Hamaun, for the OLLI Board of Directors
“Virtual Minds – Congress of Fictitious Figures”, exhibition and symposium 2004 Kunstlerhaus Bremen, Bremen Germany. Live, remote lecture and inworld presentation Topic: “Virtual Resistance, Virtual Minds”
The Southern California Institute of Architecture, “Fire in the Library” series, created by Eugenia Butler 1997 & 1998. Featured speaker, with Dr. Zhen-Su She
Topics: “Q.I.: Quantum Information” and “Q.I.: Quantum Information 2”
Orange County Museum of Art, featured speaker 1997
Topic: "The Pursuit of Deity"
"Art Protects You - Municipal Project by Jochen Traar” 1994.
Villach Kulturamt, Villach, Austria (in German)
“The Art of Arleen Schloss”, Bremen KunstAkademie 1993. Bremen, Germany
“Joseph Nechvatal and Excess in the TechnoMediacratic Society” 1992
Arbois, France (in French)
"The Architecture of Memory and Mischa Kuball" 1990
Wittgenstein Haus, Vienna (in German)
"Your presentation before The Salon on the Spiritually Creative Life was magnetic and stimulating. Those gathered here were fascinated by the wide web you wove, showing how various fields of thinking and activity can be seen as gold or dross as they serve or do not serve the fulcrum of 'Creativity and Spirit: The Foundation of Community.'
"Thank you so much for your class 'What's So Important About Art and Beauty?' Participants were 'so grateful to have such an experienced and informative instructor in the OLLI program.' They said you are special and loved your class! We thank you so much for your contribution."
My Virtual World "TCWF" (Tobey Crockett's Wild Frontier)
This is a mini documentary I posted on YouTube about my 3D virtual world and what I created for 7 years - a virtual world as self portrait (and power point substitute!)