Judy Natal Blog

judynatal — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 05:24:58 +0000

Judy Natal

Future Perfect
Photographs, Video, sound, sculpture
By Judy Natal.
Opening October 21, 2011
Reception 5-9 pm

Co-Prosperity Sphere

3219-21 South Morgan Street
Chicago Illinois, 60608

Bio:

Judy Natal is an Associate Professor of Photography at Columbia College Chicago, and is the author of EarthWords published in 2004 and Neon Boneyard Las Vegas A-Z, published in 2006.

Her photographs are in the permanent public collections of the California Museum of Photography, Center for Creative Photography, the International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman House, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, among others. Her work has been exhibited at Projects International and Photograph Gallery in New York City, the Nelson Atkins Museum, Kathleen Ewing Gallery, Washington, D.C., and the Sao Paulo Biennal.
Natal has received numerous grants and fellowships including a Fulbright Travel Grant, Illinois Arts Council Photography Fellowships and Polaroid Grants and New York Foundation for the Arts Photography Fellowships. She has also been awarded numerous artist residencies nationally and internationally, that have taken her to Iceland and Biosphere 2 for her work Future Perfect. Most recently, she had been in residence at the Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh working on Uncanny Valley, her current project where she contemplates Utopic, Dystopic. and Ecotopic environments.

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With Peformance by Mind Over Mirrors

MIND OVER MIRRORS

Mind Over Mirrors is the solitary reeling of American harmoniumist/electronicist Jaime Fennelly. Known primarily as a founding member of transatlantic gothic junk folk expressionists Peeesseye, and psychedelic free jazz trio Acid Birds, Fennelly developed Mind Over Mirrors while living on a remote island in the Salish Sea of Washington State from 2007 – 2010. Utilizing a custom made Indian pedal harmonium, oscillators, tape delays, and an assortment of synthesizing guitar pedals, Fennelly bends slowly-building, repetitive melodies into massive sonic mountains, that fits somewhere between American Primitive, Drone and Kosmische aural territory, and as XXJFG eulogized, sounds “like some drum-less-techno titan stalking the sand blasted bazaars of a near-future, eastern city.”In June 2011, Digitalis Recordings released the project’s debut vinyl LP entitled, The Voice Rolling, and Seattle-based cassette imprint, Gift Tapes, released the companion album, High & Upon. Fennelly recently completed a month long residency at AIR Antwerp, Belgium and his first set of European shows.

http://www.mindovermirrors.com

http://soundcloud.com/mindovermirrors

Join me Oct 9 at the SP Weather Station at the Flux Factory, L.I.C, NY

judynatal — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:02:29 +0000

Sunday, October 9, 4 PM

SP Weather Station Event in conjunction with the Congress of Collectives

EARTH / FUTURE
Utopia—Dystopia—Ecotopia?
with Judy Natal

Flux Factory
39-31 29th Street, Long Island City
Free and open to the public

Why do artists imagine the future? Will we see Utopia? Dystopia? Ecotopia?

In the third in a series of events related to Air, Water, Earth and Fire:

SP Weather Station presents EARTH / FUTURE, featuring a presentation by artist Judy Natal and a conversation about how and why artists imagine the future.

As a photographer and the first artist-in-residence at Biosphere 2 (and co-creator of its ongoing residency program), Natal has often been an observer of contained environments—artificial ecosystems and protected and designed wildernesses—in an uncertain relationship to alien terrain. She travels to extreme environments to capture images that suggest life “after nature,” or perhaps a new relationship between the Earth, the built environment and our human-ness.

Her interest in the way landscapes are altered—by scientists, engineers, designers, and utopians—has recently opened into a broader inquiry into the myriad sources of our collectively constructed futuristic visions. Mining fields such as science fiction, ecology, robotics, architecture, and art history for source material, Natal posits a relationship between a fantastical/imagined future and the peculiar ways the land is already technologized—for research, tourism, and survival.

For EARTH / FUTURE, Natal will explore themes and questions raised by her latest body of work, Future Perfect, while surveying some of the artworks, images, and texts that contribute to our visions of futurity. Audience members will be invited to join the conversation and participate in compiling a visual bibliography for further reading on Utopian/Dystopian/Ecotopian themes. Please bring along visual representation (copies, drawings, paintings, collages, snaps, etc.) of your favorite books on this subject to add to our library installation.

This event is made possible (in part) by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

About Judy Natal:
Judy Natal is a Chicago artist, author of EarthWords published in 2004 by Light Work, and Neon Boneyard Las Vegas A-Z, published in 2006 by Center for American Places. Her photographs are in the permanent public collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, California Museum of Photography, Center for Creative Photography, the International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman House, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Her work has been exhibited widely and she has received numerous grants, fellowships, and residencies, mostly recently at Biosphere 2 and the Robotics Institute. She is a professor of Photography at Columbia College Chicago. For more information: http://www.judynatal.com/

About SP Weather Station:
SP Weather Station is an interdisciplinary project that collects weather data, hosts a Guest Lecture Series, and organizes weather-related publications, events, and exhibitions. More info: http://spweatherstation.net/

Top image: Judy Natal, Future Perfect: Buried Car © Judy Natal 2011 www.judynatal.com

DOMUS features Future Pefect and interview with Judy Natal by Alan Rapp

judynatal — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:15:07 +0000

http://www.domusweb.it/en/photo-essays/judy-natal-future-perfect-/
I am currently in residence at the Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, working on the next logical step of my project Future Perfect. FP has just been featured in the current web issue of Domus, an Italian magazine of global reporting on architecture, design, communication, art, web art, home furnishing and interior design. [in Italian and English]. This issue includes a great selection of work as well as an interview with me by Alan Rapp, web photo editor, and previous editor at Chronicle Books.Your comments are welcome and I’d love to hear from you.

Industry Night! Something Beautiful at Columbia College

judynatal — Fri, 13 May 2011 05:45:22 +0000

Last night, I could not resist making an exception to my vanishing act called sabbatical at Columbia College, succombing to the wonderful magnetism of crazy end-of-semester energy to see what was happening at Industry Night. Industry Night initiates graduating students -BA, BFA, and MFA- into what is being billed as the premier networking experience. This happening series of events takes place annually on the eve of graduation and the accompanying South Loop Spring Fling called Manifest, hosted by Columbia’s students, staff, administration and faculty, and invites working professionals to meet and greet our soon-to-be grads.

And oh what a night! It was a beautiful sight to see rows of bright beautiful students, on the threshold of the rest of their lives, ranging from spit and polish suit and tie, to the totally gothed-out, to the most stylish fashionistas, eager to share their wares, engage with the viewing public, and in particular, working professionals in photography. You gotta love Columbia for it’s diversity- diversity of students and diversity of work that comes out of the photography department! Every facet of photography was represented, mapping the terrain of photography itself – fantastic taped and painted photographs by Daniel Hojnacki to Samantha Gold’s amazing fashion photography and poignant Chicago Public school images of kids at play, to a beautiful portrait series interpreting the pain and resilience of South American citizens, among many that impressed. The breadth and depth of practice was awe-inspiring!

A BIG shout out goes to beloved photography professor Elizabeth Ernst, who does the most balletic, delicate, arm twisting, to get every professional photographer in Chicago to the event.

Though many dedicated people at Columbia makes this night so successful, it is truly a tribute to Elizabeth’s respect in the field, because these busy pro’s show up for her! And we all know that the hardest part is getting everyone to the party, because once there, our students’ work shines and entices.

Just in case you couldn’t make it last night, you are in luck! Columbia just kicked off their new website that is a database called Talent Pool (http://talent.colum.edu/). So relax, get a glass of wine, peruse through the remarkable talent, and get ready to be blown away by the latest and the greatest. And in a few years, you’ll be browsing through the magazines and visiting galleries, to be pleasantly surprised when you think to yourself “I’ve seen that artist’s work before”, and realize that indeed you did, when these vibrant new artists were just emerging into the beautiful world of professional practice.

Excerpt: 22 Views of Watching the Glacier Melt © Judy Natal 2011

judynatal — Mon, 09 May 2011 04:50:54 +0000

Excerpt: 22 Views of Watching the Glacier Melt © Judy Natal 2011 from Judy Natal on Vimeo.

The Big Picture Panel Streaming LIVE! on April 20th at 6:30pm

judynatal — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:26:07 +0000

Keep for Future Use, Future Perfect ©Judy Natal 2011

Good news! If you cannot be in Chicago to see the panel The Big Picture: Art, Efficacy, and Climate Change with Alison Deming, William Fox, Diana Liverman, and Timothy Morton, moderated by Judy Natal, you can watch it streaming live on Timothy Morton’s blog,

http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com

April 20th, 6:30pm.

Also, be sure to stop into Columbia College Chicago’s the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Glass Curtain Gallery to check out Cape Farewell’s exhibition U-N-F-O-L-D, till April 23rd!

22 Views of Watching the Glacier Melt

judynatal — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 19:36:55 +0000

22 Views of Watching the Glacier Melt © Judy Natal 2011 from Judy Natal on Vimeo.

22 Views of Watching the Glacier Melt is a slow-paced meditation on human interaction with nature, in this case, the Mýrdalsjökull glacier on the south coast of the Island. (pronounced [ˈmirtalsˌjœːkʏtl] in Icelandic.
It is situated to the north of Vík í Mýrdal and to the east of the smaller glacier Eyjafjallajökull. The glacier in the video is black due to the recent eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which covered the glacier in a blanket of black ash last spring. This acts as a thermal blanket, speeding up the melting and causing significant glacial flooding.
Filmed during my August 2010 photographic trip to Iceland, and edited while in residence at the Biosphere 2, I welcome your feedback as I continue to tweak the piece.

**I would particularly like to thank Camden Hardy, graduate student of photography par excellence at the University of Arizona, Tucson, for his assistance with the editing of the video.**

Enjoy!

GET READY FOR THE BIG PICTURE!

judynatal — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:51:58 +0000

Alison                 Timothy              William              Diana
Deming               Morton                 Fox                Liverman

I’ve been hard at work since June, putting together an extremely provocative panel as part and parcel of all the terrific events surrounding Cape Farewell’s U-N-F-O-L-D exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Photography and Columbia’s Glass Curtain Gallery.

The Big Picture: Art, Efficacy, and Climate Change will take place on Wednesday, April 20th, in the Film Row Center, 1104 S. Wabash, from 6:30pm-8:30pm. Please pencil it in your calendars. It’s not to be missed.

“The Big Picture: Art, Efficacy, and Climate Change” (efficacy: capacity or power to produce a desired effect) to tease out these ideas in regard to contemporary art practice and climate change. This panel will also examine why contemporary art has become such a critical hub that activates, educates, and elucidates, the complex issues of climate change, and how artists and scientists are in collaboration to address climate change.

The brilliant panel, experts in their field, should ensure a lively and diverse discussion:

William L. Fox: Prolific author (http://www.wlfox.net), and Director of the Center for Art + Environment (http://artenvironment.ning.com)

Timothy Morton: Author and Professor, Dept. of English (Literature and the Environment at UC Davis, (http://english.ucdavis.edu/people/directory/tbmorton) and active blogger (http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com) and (http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/search/label/TimothyMorton)

Diana Liverman: Co-Director of Institute of the Environment, U of Arizona, Tucson, Professor of Geography and Development, University of Arizona, visiting professor of Environmental Policy and Development, Oxford University, author of Climate Change: Risks, Challenges, Decisions among other articles, essays and books (http://www.environment.arizona.edu/diana-liverman).

Alison Deming: Prolific poet, essayist, author, Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona (http://www.alisonhawthornedeming.com)

Hope to see you all there. Just in case you won’t be in Chicago, Timothy Morton will stream it live on his blog:

http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com

Speaking of Tim’s blog, for a little preview of our panel, check out his ideas that emerged during a conversation we had today while hashing out ideas for the panel “Thoughts on Global Warming and Art”: http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/search/label/JudyNatal

Light Work’s NEW BLOG! “Show Us Your Studio” with Judy Natal’s Open Studio at Biosphere 2″

judynatal — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 01:15:41 +0000

Check out Light Work’s new blog “Show Us Your Studio”

I was delighted to be invited to kick off Light Work’s great new blog Show Us Your Studio. Light Work, my absolute favorite artist-run organization, has been and continues to be, an artist-centered, community-based exhibition, educational facility and gallery. An Artist-run, non-profit photography and digital media center supporting artists since 1973, their quarterly publication Contact Sheet is now available online! Back issues are also all available from their website: www.lightwork.org. This is a wonderful opportunity to check out all the back issues that you missed. When you explore their chock full website (http://www.lightwork.org) don’t forget to browse through the artist archives which is hosts an astounding collection of 20th and 21st century photographic art.

Under the enlightened Directorship of Hannah Friese, and of course the brilliant Jeff Hoone, who continues to be the guiding light as Executive Director of all the art organizations and galleries at Syracuse University, Light Work continues to stay the course…not just surviving, but thriving to maintain the longest run artist residency program in the world. They do this without editorial bias, chronicling an enormous range of photographic art, while honoring the artists, and enriching the photographic community-through their website, their collection, exhibitions, and publications. If there was an academy award for humanitarian and artistic contributions-no question they would be the first recipients!

Show Us Your Studio: Judy Natal

March 23rd, 2011

Judy Natal will visit the Light Work booth during Art Chicago, held this year April 29-May 2, 2011, to talk about her work and sign copies of Contact Sheet 126. Stay tuned for more information on that event, and in the meantime, get to know Natal by reading this story about her experience running an Open Studio at Biosphere 2.

From November 1, 2010 to March 1, 2011, I created an Open Studio at the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. I have been working at the Biosphere 2 on and off since I first set eyes on the place as a tourist taking a guided tour while attending a friend’s wedding in Tucson in June 2007. It was love at first sight! It is such a spectacularly peculiar place with a sordid past and a present and future of enormous promise where BIG science is now taking place, particularly around the issues of water. Which makes sense, when you consider that it is nestled in the beautiful Canyon del Oro, in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains on the edge of the great Sonoran Desert.

The Biospherians created Biosphere 2 to explore space colonization. It was an enormous engineering feat, with five ecosystems under 66,000 panes of glass, and eight humans (with all the accompanying psycho-drama) sealed within the airtight facility for two years between 1991-1993. (See Biospherian Jayne Poynter’s account in her book The Human Experiment. It’s a page turner!). All the while, growing their own food, filtering their own waste and water, and orchestrating five ecosystems.

At the time of my visit, I had begun what has now become a four-year project, Future Perfect, that entails a photographic sweep of three peculiarly evocative sites where human intervention and land use are exploring the quality and state of futurity, illuminating the present moment and the choices we have yet to make.

Immediately upon my return from visiting Tucson and Biosphere 2, I proposed an artist residency there, and I have been working with Biosphere 2 ever since in a mutually beneficial relationship, helping to establish a residency program in 2008.

When I arrived at Biosphere 2 in November 2010, I knew my time was going to be different. Unlike my previous residencies at Biosphere 2, when I was in the field photographing every minute possible, I now had the intention of setting up an Open Studio, with an expectation of proofing, printing, editing, and sequencing the hundreds of photographs that I had made to date, with the goal of printing the work for exhibition and publication. With this realization, I proposed opening up my art practice to the hundreds of visitors who come to Biosphere 2 seven days a week. The B2 Institute Director Pierre Meystre, who I developed and enjoyed a supportive relationship with (this is key!), gave his enthusiastic support to my proposal, which placed a public face on the artist residency program. The interaction with the general public was enlightening and helped me hone my ability to speak about my new body of work. It also facilitated an ongoing dialogue about imagining the future, which was a primary goal for the project.

Immediately upon my arrival, I ordered wallboards that the maintenance staff helped me paint and install in the casita where I stayed. Within a day and a half of my arrival, the wallboards were up, prints were pinned to the wall, the two inkjet printers I brought with me were plugged in, the door was open (it’s winter in Arizona after all), and a sign welcoming Biosphere 2 visitors was up.

The ensuing four months were a gift, a unique opportunity, and a challenge. I began a series of photographic portraits of people who visited the Open Studio, which included staff, students, tour guides, and visitors from every walk of life. Nobel laureate scientists, poets, artists, photographers, writers, grad and under grad students, faculty, research assistants, engineers, k-12 classes, the American Boys Choir (accompanied by a brief concert), even one of my own students from Columbia College visited.

I also created a new body of work, now a limited edition portfolio of 35 prints, entitled Astral Projections, inspired by the writings of the renown biologist Edward O. Wilson, on the loss of biodiversity and animal extinction. This work was playful and full of color, and it relieved the tedium of proofing and printing.

The interruptions that happen at an Open Studio did take some getting used to, and I did feel like a bit of a broken record as I explained my work for each tour cycle. But I was surprisingly rewarded by the interactions, and I simply pulled my sign in when I needed a break. By 5pm, when the tours finished for the day, a beautiful calm, not to mention spectacular sunsets, descended on Biosphere 2, the only place of its kind, and what Life magazine called “one of the contemporary wonders” in the world. I am quite a solitary creature while I’m photographing and working, so this was a new experience for me. It was incredibly rich, endlessly surprising, and has me thinking about how I can do this in my studio in Chicago. I invite you to try it! —Judy Natal

Judy Natal was an Artist-in-Residence at Light Work in 2003, and her work was featured in an exhibition in the Light Work Main Gallery in 2004. Natal is a professor of photography at Columbia College in Chicago. Her work is the collection of institutions including the California Museum of Photography, Center for Creative Photography, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among many others. Her work has been exhibited at Projects International, The Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the Sao Paulo Biennial, among other venues.

Cape Farewell’s U-N-F-O-L-D exhibition at Columbia College

judynatal — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:37:56 +0000

I am back in Chicago just in time, after presenting Future Perfect at the Society for Photographic Education’s National Conference in Atlanta, and from six months lecturing across the Southwest United States, four months of which was spent creating an Open Studio in an extended residence at the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona, to participate in the spectacular series of events featuring Cape Farewell’s traveling exhibition U-N-F-O-L-D at Columbia College Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Photography and The Glass Curtain Gallery for an immersive experience into issues of art, advocacy and climate change.

This is an unrivaled constellation of events with Columbia College Chicago setting the pace for a energetic and important site of dialogue around artists and scientists partnering to create a cultural response to climate change.

Save the date for the panel that I will moderate in conjunction with U-n-f-o-l-d on Wednesday, April 20th, at 6:30pm in the Film Row Center, Columbia College entitled:

The Big Picture: Art, Efficacy and Climate Change with panelists William Fox, Director of Art + Environment and explorer and author of many books including Terra Antarctica:Looking into the Emptiest Continent, and Aereality: Essays on the World; Timothy Morton, provocative author of Ecology Without Nature, and The Ecological Thought, professor of literature and the environment at University of California, Davis; Diana Liverman, Co-Director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona and reknowned climate change scientist; and Alison Hawthorne Deming, powerful poet, environmentalist, activist and author of The Edges of the Civilized World, and Monarchs among others.

Hope to see you at these events:

Exhibition and Special Events in Chicago

16 March – 23 April 2011

U-n-f-o-l-d leaves Europe and heads to the US, opening at the Colombia College Chicago on 16 March in the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Glass Curtain Gallery. The exhibition runs until 23 April. Visit www.colum.edu/unfold for more information on the exhibition and special events, or download the programme below.

Burning Ice

Monday 14 March, 6:30pm

A film by Peter Gilbert followed by Q&A with David Buckland and Chris Wainwright. At the Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Avenue.

The Artist as Catalyst

Tuesday 15 March, 6:30pm

An introduction to Cape Farewell followed by a Panel Discussion featuring David Buckland, Carla Delfos, Steve Kapelke and Chris Wainwright. At the Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Avenue.

Opening Reception

Wednesday 16 March, 5–8pm

At the Museum of Contemporary Photography (600 S. Michigan Avenue) and Glass Curtain Gallery (1104 S. Wabash Avenue).