Catherine Richards

ISEA Bio(s) Available:

• ISEA1995:

  Catherine Richards is a visual artist working in the domain of new technologies and the simulation of self. Her work explores technologies’ simulation of the body and subjectivity. Her works have received awards as well as being exhibited internationally. She has written on the subject of new technologies, art and the body, and co-directed the Bioapparatus residency ’91 at the Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada).

  Her formal university education was in the visual arts and English Literature. Her piece, on the virtual body in virtual reality technology , Spectral Bodies was awarded the Canada Council Media Arts Award in 1993, for an artist who has demonstrated outstanding and innovative use of new technologies in media arts. Her interactive installation The Virtual Body, 1993, opened at the Antwerp ’93 Festival, Eldorado, Belgium, exhibited in Europe and was awarded an honorable mention at ARS Electronica’94. Her most recent installation Curiosity Cabinet at the end of the Millennium was invited to open an exhibition “Self Determination/ Body Politic”, at the Gemeentenmuseum, Arnhem, Holland, April, 1995 and shown at ISEA, The International Symposium of Electronic Art, Montreal, Canada, September, 1995.

  She initiated a number of events which investigate the relation of postmodern and cultural theory to new imaging technologies and issues in current art practice. She co directed the Bioapparatas, 1991, an artists’ residency and publication at the Banff Center for the Arts, Alberta, Canada, on the subject of art and the intimacy of the body with new technologies.
  Her published articles, on the role of artists and new technologies, include the inost recei-rt ‘l{. Letter on Fungai Intimacy-‘ , on ari., new technoiogy and feminist tropes, which will be published in Fractal Dreams ed. Jon Dovy, Lawrence & Wishart Ltd., London, England, 1995. In 1993 – 95 she was awarded Fellowships at the National Gallery of Canada. Currently she is based in Ottawa, Canada and is developing a series of new works using the Internet. These works will be part of a residency in the spring of 1996 at Xerox Parc, the Exploratorium and Capp Street Project in San Francisco, California.

  ISEA1994:

  Her work explores the permeable boundary between fiction and science and investigates the body and the self as the site for new technology. She was awarded the Canada Council of the Arts’ Petro-Canada biennal award for Media Arts, 1993, for her innovative use of new technologies in media arts in particular her virtual reality project Spectral Bodies. She was responsible for initiating and co-directing the Bioapparatus, an artists’ residency on the subject of art and intimacy of the body with new technologies, at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada. In 1992 the Bioapparatus won the Canadian Conference of the Arts’ Korel Prize for innovative projects in arts and new technologies.

Last Known Location:

• Canada