Wednesday, September 18 @ 5:00 – 6:15pm
Elvehjem L160
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Cynthia Beth Rubin is a Techspresssionist new media artist whose prints, videos, and interactive works evoke imagined narratives through interwoven layers of representation and abstraction. An early adopter of digital imaging, her transition from paint to computer began in 1984.
Rubin is equally fascinated by the imagined memories of cultural history and with envisioning the unseen microscopic life of oceans and still waters, and her current work combines both in unexpected ways. She began working with the Menden-Deuer lab at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography (URI-GSO) when she was teaching “Digital Nature” at the Rhode Island School of Design. As her teaching evolved to include plankton imagery, her work followed. She soon was combining micro-captures and hand-drawing into expressive prints, video, and AR installations, bringing empathy and awareness to the importance of plankton in the age of climate change.
Rubin’s work has been recognized internationally through exhibitions and festivals, including the Techspressionist Exhibition in Brooklyn, Creative Tech Week in New York City, the Jerusalem Biennial, the Jewish Museum in Prague, the Siberia State Art Museum, the Kyrgyzstan State Museum, and in cities such as Paris, New York, Toronto, Montreal, Avignon and elsewhere around the world. Her videos and interactive works have been shown on the ICC tower facade in Hong Kong, the Cotton Club screen in Harlem, the ICA in London, and numerous international festivals. Her video les affinités recouvrées (Recovered Affinities) was featured opening night of multiple Jewish Film Festivals in 1995 (San Francisco, Boston), selected for the Florida Film Festival, included in an international compilation that toured the world. Her collaborators on innovative artistic projects include the composer Bob Gluck, scientists Andria Miller and Susanne Menden-Deuer, and the artist Yona Verwer.
A three-time recipient of grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Rubin has been awarded international artist residencies and grants from sources as diverse as the Videochroniques (Marseilles) the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. Her work has been published and written about in at least ten international languages, including in Art in the Digital Age by Bruce Wands, The Computer in the Visual Arts by Anne Morgan Spalter, and Arts en Réseau, published by INA in Paris France.
Rubin has served in multiple leadership roles in professional organizations, including Chair of of the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Committee, Chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art, as a member of the Board of ISEA, and on the selection committee for the SIGGRAPH Academy honoring distinguished innovators. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Jewish Art Salon, and is an active member of the Techspressionist group of artists, frequently hosting co-working sessions and online salons.
Based in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, Rubin’s studio practice extends from New York City to Narragansett, Rhode Island, and beyond. A native of Rochester, New York, she holds degrees from Antioch College (BA in studio art) and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MFA in Painting). cbrubin.com