Nina Sobell

PROVENANCE: Courtesy of the Artist

In the Dark belongs to a body of work that is a combination of serendipity and resolve.
Derived from photos of the physical, through experimentation that mirrors the intricacies
and joy in revealing the mysteries of the unknown, a perceptible image is created.

Nina Sobell pioneered the use of video, computers, and interactivity in art, as well as performance on the Web, since 1969, when she first used video to document participants’ undirected interactions with her sculptures. She investigates the extent to which video enables her to manipulate the relation between time and space, and to create a vortex for human experience, in which the mediated event coincides with public experience, memory and relationships. She was part of the feminist video performance movement of the 1970s with works such as Chicken on Foot (1974) and Hey! Baby, Chicky!! (1978), and collaborations with Anne Bean, but she is best known for her work with Mike Trivich and Anatole Shaw, creating the first internet version in 2002 of Interactive Brain Wave Drawings (1973 – 2004) and interactive net performances with Emily Hartzell on ParkBench and ArTisTheater (1993 – 1999). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA and Franklin Furnace for her pioneering work as a digital artist focusing on experimental forms of interaction and performance. Sobell taught at UCLA and SVA, was a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths College and has spoken at Leonardo’s LASER and ISEA Chicago. Sobell presented Brainwave Drawings and Videophone Voyeur (1977) at Joseph Beuys’ FIU at Documenta 6. Her work has been shown internationally and was included in Videoworks at the Whitney and Sunshine and Noir at the Hammer in LA curated by Paul McCarthy; A Feast for the Eyes, Kunst Forum, Vienna and Port, List Gallery, MIT. Her work is in the collections of the Getty Museum; de Saisset Museum; Manchester Gallery, England; Acme Gallery Archives, Whitechapel Gallery, London; The Blanton Museum, Austin; CAM, Houston; the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medien Technologie, Karlsruhe; Archivo Storico delle Arti Contemporane, La Bienalle di Venezia, DIA Foundation; Reading University, England and the Kramlich, Reynolds, RJFleck, Broder, Leo Kuelbs amongother private collections. The Video Data Bank and MLC Gallery represent her work. See www.ninasobell.com for partial bibliography.