Email contact: rothenberg.stephanie@gmail(dot)com
Stephanie Rothenberg is an interdisciplinary artist interested in the myths of techno utopian futures – how innovation promises better living for all creatures, human and non-human. This curiosity draws her into both the history and current innovations across new technologies, and the fields of economics and science. She articulates these investigations through mixed media artworks that can take the form of interactive sculptures and installations, video, and performances or include performative elements. She also uses expanded forms of data visualization and often draws from speculative design and science fiction as these genres enable more exploration and playful approaches to sensitive topics.
Through themes such as digital labor and virtual economies, past projects have explored how virtual worlds, networks and invisible infrastructures interface with embodied experience. Currently her focus is on the bodies of nonhuman entities, specifically coastal life, and the challenges and contradictions in the field of ecology and conservation. This includes the bioengineering of both organisms and landscapes to solve climate change problems.
Stephanie has exhibited internationally in venues and festivals including ISEA (international), Eyebeam Art and Technology Center (US), Sundance Film Festival (US), Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art / MASS MoCA (US), House of Electronic Arts / HeK (CH), LABoral (ES), Transmediale (DE), and ZKM Center for Art & Media (DE). She is a recipient of numerous awards including a Creative Capital, Harpo Foundation and NYSCA. She has been an artist-in-residence at ZK/U in Berlin, TOKAS / Tokyo Art and Space (JP), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace/LMCC (US), Eyebeam Art and Technology Center (US), Santa Fe Art Institute (US) among others. Her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art and has been widely reviewed including Artforum, Artnet, The Brooklyn Rail and Hyperallergic. She is Professor and Chair in the Department of Art at University at Buffalo, SUNY where she teaches classes in design and emerging technologies and co-directs an interdisciplinary design studio collaborating with local social justice organizations.