Squeezing Blood from Stones
We find ourselves moving more and more towards a mediated culture dependent on the technologies created to ameliorate our condition. At the heart of it, these technologies are having profound effects on our understanding of our social condition, challenging and changing our very notions of identity, culture, communication and environment.
In his talk Osman Khan will explore how in his and other artists’ works, appropriation, subversion and redeployment of media has provided critical insights into the social and psychological constructs introduced by these new technologies. His talk will also look at how artist have engaged interactivity, synaesthetic transformations, and relational aesthetics (inherent modes of the medium) to explore the effects and affects of new media upon our culture.
Osman Khan is an artist interested in using technology to construct engines that help create artifacts for social criticism and aesthetic expression. His work explores certain themes to see how technology fabricates as well as subverts our understanding of identity, communication, and public space through interactive installations and site-specific interventions.
His work has been shown at the Shanghai Biennial, China; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Netherlands, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, Ars Electronica, Austria, Beyond Media Festival, Italy. He is currently a lecturer at UCLA's Department of Design | Media Arts as well director of the SenseLab, a research and development center for faculty and students at the department of Design | Media Arts.