Julia Christensen: Upgrade Available and Other Projects

Julia Christensen will present her ongoing project, Upgrade Available, which explores how memory, identity, and legacy are changing as we become more dependent upon our electronic devices. She will present new work that investigates how long-standing institutions like museums and colleges are shifting as information becomes increasingly decentralized. Christensen will also present her current public art piece for Cleveland, OH, Waiting for a Break. Christensen installed networked cameras on remote islands in Lake Erie, which are currently transmitting live feeds of the lake’s winter ice as it forms, shifts, and eventually breaks in real time.

JULIA CHRISTENSEN is an artist whose work explores systems of technology, consumerism, landscape, and memory. Her work has been exhibited at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Ronald Feldman Gallery (NYC), Eyebeam (NYC), 21C Museum Hotel (Louisville), MOCA Cleveland (Cleveland), and the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh). She is the author of Big Box Reuse (MIT Press, 2008); her writing has appeared in a range of publications, including Print, Architect, and Cabinet magazines, and online at Hyperallergic. Christensen is a fellow at the LACMA Art + Tech Lab, and a recent recipient of a major public art commission from LAND Studio (Waiting for a Break, Cleveland, 2017). Other awards include the Creative Capital Fellowship, MacDowell Fellowship, and the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. This spring, she will participate in a residency at the Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado. She is Associate Professor of Media Arts in the Studio Art Department at Oberlin College.