News | Michelle Lisa Herman | Interdisciplinary and New Media Artist in Washington, D.C.

Upcoming Exhibitions

March 16, 2012

My work will be in three upcoming group exhibitions and programs, so be sure to mark your calendars!

Experimental Media 2012 Exhibition: D.O.L.L.: DIWO OPNSRC LMFAO LHOOQ
April 12 – May 20, 2012
Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 12, 2012 @ 6:00 pm

D.O.L.L.: DIWO OPNSRC LMFAO LHOOQ, an exhibition of experimental and interactive new media, installation, and sculpture, will take place in the Terrace Gallery at Artisphere from April 12 through May 20, 2012. D.O.L.L.highlights the creative, use, re-use, and mis-use of technology by contemporary artists. Artists featured in the exhibition utilize technological devices and systems to challenge our expectations of contemporary art, while simultaneously questioning common assumptions about technology and our relationship with it.

Experimental Media 2012 Video Screenings
Thursday, April 26, 6:30pm at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Thursday, May 10, 6:30pm at Artisphere, Arlington, VA

Featuring video work by local, national, and international artists, the Experimental Media Video Screenings will include works that use video as a medium to explore our contemporary landscape of data flow, perception, and exchange between systems, whether human, gestural, cultural, chemical, political, or virtual. Of the videos selected for Experimental Media 2012, one will be awarded the 2012 Kraft Prize for New Media, a $750 cash prize. Additional screenings to be announced.

Zeitgeist III: Too Much Information
May 4th – June 10, 2012
DC Arts Center, 2438 18th Street NW
Washington DC 20009
Opening Reception: Friday, May 4, 2012 @ 7 – 9 pm

Exhibitions and Events

LAYC Intro to Video Course

December 21, 2011

I have been asked to teach an Intro to Video course beginning January 19, 2012 at the Latin American Youth Center in Columbia Heights (DC). In this course, I’ll be teaching the basics of video post-production using Final Cut Express.
So, if you’ve been wanting to get into movie making but haven’t had the chance, sign up! Visit the Art and Media House website to register.

Exhibitions and Events

Connecting in the Digital Age: Inter-Net

November 18, 2011

People have worried about the effect of technology on the human spirit for centuries. Michelle Lisa Herman’s Coup d’Espace installation, Inter-Net takes on the topic with wit and compassion. The three pieces included in the installation, Social Network, Virtual Window and Love Letters (Language is a Virus), each play with the juxtaposition of human and machine, offering a perspective that melds the sinister with the soulful.

Read More

Exhibitions and Events, Press

Inter-Net featured on NPR

November 10, 2011

http://wamu.org/audio-player?nid=38500

Exhibitions and Events, Press

Inter-Net Exhibition

October 3, 2011

Washington Project for the Arts Presents
Inter-Net
a Coup d’Espace Project by Michelle Lisa Herman
November 4 – November 23, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, November 4, 6-8pm

at 2023 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC
Exhibition Hours: Monday – Friday, 10am-6pm

Washington Project for the Arts is pleased to present Inter-Net, a Coup d’Espace project by Michelle Lisa Herman. An interdisciplinary artist working in multimedia video installation, audio sculpture, and new media, Herman’s work explores the impact of new communication technologies on our desire for connection, both with one another and with the natural world. For Inter-Net, she presents three new projects that grapple with the increased use of technology to mimic and mediate human experience. As our interactions with one another and the natural world become increasingly mediated through new technology, we face both new opportunities for connection, coupled with a decrease in direct human contact. Herman explores this new communications landscape, finding alienation, but also humor and unexpected poetry.

Inter-Net is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibitions and Events, New Work

24 Hour Intelligent Cities Video Webcast

September 3, 2011

I just found the link to the webcast interview as part of the 24 Hour Intelligent Cities Project and wanted to share it here. Enjoy!
Intelligent Cities Forum: 24-Hour City Project

Exhibitions and Events

24 Hour Intelligent Cities

June 7, 2011

Today was the culmination of about 3 weeks working on an installation that was on display at the National Building Museum as part of the 24 Hour Cities Project / Intelligent Cities Forum. I collaborated with local dramaturg Elissa Goetschius, photographer Chris Mabry, and photographer/producer Dallas Lillich to create the installation “Layered Portraits.” The main piece is made up of small plexiglas squares coated with a translucent rear-projection screen film which were then strung together with monofilament to create a floating, 3-dimensional, pixel-like screen. The subjects projected are DC residents, which we also audio recorded and played (asynchronously) with the video. A projection of a live twitter stream displaying DC statistics was also included.

Check out Dallas Lillich’s blog post on the project to see more photos and read the bios!

Exhibitions and Events

Love Letters (Language is a Virus)

April 9, 2011

I’ve been working on a new video art piece for some time which is a video spin-off of the sculpture/sound piece with the same name (to see that, check it out in the work section). I’ve done a few different shoots with different people (thanks Chajana and Tony), but the most recent version was closest in look and sound to what I was envisioning, but I may try to do more shoots of other types of relationships later on.

I’m still not sure if this is finished, since I thought about adding other visual elements, but the more I watch this, the more I like the total simplicity. So, please take a moment to look and if you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to send them to me.

I was inspired to make the piece by reading several emails, which disguised themselves as friendly personal letters (indicated by subject lines of “hello friend,” “how have you been?”, etc) and turned out to be spam emails advertising Viagra. The emails often contained long passages of text that seemed coherent at first, but then revealed that they were random internet facts strung together into paragraphs. I imagined these emails as love letters sent specifically to me and from there I thought about a fictional relationship in which the couple communicated exclusively in the language of spam. I thought that it spoke to both the idea of the lack of communication (talking without saying anything) as well as a secret system of communication that only a level of connection can bring.

The dialog is the actual text of a single spam email.

New Work

Work in progress

March 7, 2011

Since I received the Young Artist Grant, I’ve been working on getting two new installations underway. I thought I’d post some images of the work in progress for Sensing, an audio installation. I am creating 10 “orbs” which will hang from the ceiling. Each orb will have an audio device and speakers, which are triggered by a motion sensor. Here’s an example of one of the orbs: