HVCC’s Teaching Gallery Presents Works by Media Artist Silvia Ruzanka

January 26, 2024

Botanical Computing: Phyto-Cybernetics opens with a reception on Feb. 1

“Botanical Computing: Phyto-Cybernetics,” an exhibition of digital “landscapes” by media artist Silvia Ruzanka, an assistant professor in the Department of Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, opens Thursday, Feb. 1, with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. in The Teaching Gallery at Hudson Valley Community College. An artist’s talk precedes the opening at 3 p.m. in the BTC Auditorium on the Troy Campus. The talk, reception and regular gallery hours are open free to the public. The exhibit closes Saturday, March 2.

Ruzanka’s projects include virtual reality, interactive installation, video and performance. (This exhibition includes digitally-animated video projections with sound and two virtual reality stations.) Her work explores the archaeology and memory of technology and media, and their intersections with everyday life. “I am interested in the tension between the rationality of the digital and the complex messiness of human experience. For me, art is a way of teasing out the irrational inside technology,” the artist writes. “Human bodies, plant bodies, and digital computer bodies are all defined by material constraints.”

The artist has exhibited at galleries, museums and festivals internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the New Forms Festival, Vancouver; and Shenzhen’s Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in China. Ruzanka holds an MFA in Art and Technology Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. in Physics from Smith College. In addition to teaching, she currently is a Ph.D. candidate in Visual Arts: Philosophy, Aesthetics and Art Theory at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in Portland, ME. Her research is in the philosophy of computation and care.

The Teaching Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Wednesday; noon - 4 p.m. Saturday, and closed Sunday and Monday; admission is free. The exhibit closes March 2. For directions to the gallery and more information, visit z4b9.hrfjk.com/teachinggallery.

Exhibitions in The Teaching Gallery are installed and assisted by students enrolled in Gallery Management courses and supported by the Department of Fine Arts, Theatre Arts and Digital Media, the Cultural Affairs Program and the HVCC Foundation. Associate Professor Tara Fracalossi is gallery director.