Curriculum vitae
// Recent Positions
2023
Researcher in Residence, Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art: Centre for Study and Documentation (MACBA CED), March - May.
2020 - Present
Co-founder/Member, Adversorecto Artist Collective, Barcelona, Spain.
2018 - Present
Resident Artist/Researcher, Faculty of Visual Art and Design, University of Barcelona.
2007 - Present [currently on leave]
Professor (2015-Present), Associate Professor (2010-15), Assistant Professor (2007-2010)
Department Chair (2008-11, 2015-17)
Art + Art History Department
Saint Mary’s College, Moraga, California USA.
2018-19
Researcher in Residence, Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art: Centre for Study and Documentation (MACBA CED), Oct 2018 - Jan 2019.
Artist in Residence, Werner Thöni Artspace, Barcelona, August-December 2018. Exhibition: Nov 2018 - Jan 2019.
// Education
PhD, MA: University at Buffalo (State University of New York).
Distinction awarded for comprehensive oral exams.
AB: University of California at Berkeley.
Magna cum Laude.
Additional coursework:
American University in Cairo, Egypt.
Cambridge University, United Kingdom.
// Selected Exhibitions
Forthcoming (2024)
• Mudas Museum of Contemporary Art Gallery, <Adversorecto: Round One>, Madeira, Portugal. Solo exhibition (collective: Peter Freund, Werner Thöni, Vitor Magalhães), 2024.
2023
• 12th Annual International Film Festival of Archive, Memory and Ethnography, Special Session: Works by Peter Freund, Porto, Portugal, October.
• Other Cinema, <Bad Puppets>, San Francisco.
2022
• Mudas Museum of Contemporary Art Gallery, <Vitor Magalhães: «index of matters [on objects and other phantasmagoria]»>, Madeira, Portugal. Contribution of fiction, audio installation, and public dialogue with Magalhães.
• Centre d'Art Tecla Sala, <35 Sentències: Una Acció Col•lectiu Declamatori> (Eloi Puig et al), Hospitalet, Barcelona. Guest performer.
• Fundació Suñol, <Tilottama-Kptekan Alignment> (Eloi Puig), Barcelona, finissage performance for IN>TRA exhibition. Guest performer (with Raquel Muñoz).
2018-2021
• Sala de Exposiciones, University of Barcelona <Agony: You Can Go Whenever You Want>. Video/sound installation by Adversorecto collective.
• The 39th Annual Black Maria Film Festival, Thomas Edison Media Arts Consortium (p. 27).
• Cinema S (section 1), Shoah Film Collection, New Museum of Networked Art.
• Retracted Cinema, Xcèntric, CCCB (Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture), Spain.
• Interim: A Journal of Poetry & Poetics, vol 36, issue 3. <Acorus Calamus>.
• Werner Thöni Artspace, Barcelona. <Solo exhibition: Lost Grids>.
• Sala Ingrávida, O Porriño, Spain
2015-17
• Saint Mary's College Museum of Art, Moraga, California USA. <Solo exhibition: IRAN|USA + other nonorientable surfaces>
• Festival of (In)appropriation: LA Filmforum, Los Angeles, CA; Essay Film Festival, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Birkbeck, University of London, UK; Western Washington University/Limelight Cinema, Bellingham, WA; Metro Cinema, Edmonton, AB, Canada; Hobart&William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY; Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA; Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY; Block Cinema, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn, NY; Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre, Vancouver; University of California Santa Barbara, Pollock Theater.
• Moving Image Art, Comfort Station, Chicago, IL.
• Unexposed Microcinema, Durham, NC.
• Short Circuit: Experimental Documentary Short Films, Brighton, UK.
• Locate Iran, Ko Projects, Dubai.
• Visible Evidence XXIII, Special Events: Festival of (In)appropriation, Bozeman, MT.
• Sazmanab Center for Contemporary Art, Tehran, Iran. <Solo exhibition>
• Chicago Underground Film Festival, Logan Theatre, Chicago.
• Iranian Studies Program, Stanford University, Palo Alto.
Pre-2015 Highlights
• Black Maria Film Festival, US touring show. <Director's choice: third prize>
• Sydney Underground Film Festival, Sydney, Australia.
• Videonale 13, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany.
• Les Rencontres Internationales, Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt; Madrid, Spain: Complejo El Aguila, the Auditorio del Ministerio de Cultura, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, the Instituto Cervantes and the Filmoteca Espanola; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.
• Art in General, New York City.
• Artists Space, New York City.
• Cine Experimental Norteamericano, Havana, Cuba.
• The Picture Show, Brooklyn.
• Australian International Experimental Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia.
• Berlin International Directors Lounge, Berlin, Germany.
• Arab Film Festival, 'Arab Shorts,' Roxie Theater, San Francisco.
• Ozon International Video Art Festival, Katowice, Poland. <First prize>
• Videoholica Video Art Festival, Varna, Bulgaria. <Finalist>
• ISAFF, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
• Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, Poland.
• Cologne Experimental Documentary Film Festival, Cologne, Germany.
• XFILM: TVS, Sydney, Australia.
• KLEX Experimental Film Festival, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
• The Journal of Short Film (vol. 26), Ohio.
• Mena Experimental, ATA, San Francisco.
• Festival of (In)appropriation: LA Filmforum, Egyptian Theatre, Los Angeles; Carsey-Wolf Center, Pollock Theater, UCSB; Society of Cinema & Media Studies.
• Antimatter Film Festival, Victoria BC, Canada.
• Panoptic: New Media, Camden Internat'l Film Festival, Maine.
•Ars Cameralis, Katowice, Poland.
• Museo de Arte, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia. <Invited guest artist>
• InterMedia Arts Festival, Aronoff Center for the Arts, Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Other Cinema, Artists' Television Access, San Francisco.
// Selected Publications
2024 (Forthcoming)
•«Performatic Code», ArteActa, a journal of performative arts and artistic research, August.
2023
• «Allocution: An Inverted Wager», chapter in Aesthetic Authenticity in Cinema (edited by Filipe Martins), Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (FLUP).
• «Retracted Descriptions», experimental dialogue with Eloi Puig + Peter Freund, IN>TRA 2: Reading as an artistic practice: new models of creative decodification, IMARTE Artistic Research Group, University of Barcelona.
• Introduction to «Libretto for Retracted Descriptions», libretto by Werner Thöni, IN>TRA 2: Reading as an artistic practice: new models of creative decodification, IMARTE Artistic Research Group, University of Barcelona.
2022
• «A Door that Doesn’t Close Properly», contribution to book and experimental interview for Vítor Magalhães solo exhibition, Mudas Museum of Contemporary Art, Madeira, Portugal.
• «Performatic Code», Art and Social Spaces in Controlled, Uncontrolled and Isolated Times (proceedings from the 2021 ADD+ART Congress), Intensitat and the University of Barcelona.
2020-21
• «Retracted Cinema», article published in Found Footage Magazine (Issue #7).
• «Retraction», invited guest editor and author of running introduction for the November issue of A*Desk: Journal of Critical Thinking.
• «Endnotes for an Allocution», published in AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought (Vol. 4, Issue 4), April. Print publication forthcoming in December.
• «Il n’y a pas de rapport sémiotique: tres lecturas discontinuas», essay co-authored with Eloi Puig and Vitor Magalhães, in IN>TRA: Artistic Practice as a Model of Experience. El Cep i la Nansa, Vilanova i la Geltrú, 2019. ISBN: 978-84-17756-13-0. DL: B 23284-2019. Book release information: IN>TRA: Artistic Practice as a Model of Experience.
2019
• Acorus Calamus, published in Interim: A Journal of Poetry + Poetics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas + Black Mountain Institute.
• Werner Thöni’s Four Bar Four (4|4), an introduction to new work, artist catalogue.
• Four texts, A*Desk: Journal of Critical Thinking, Barcelona, Spain:
Entry #1: «Flying over the detritus of the GIF» by Eloi Puig (July 2016)
Entry #2: «Background Silence» by Anna Dot (Sept 2017)
Entry #3: «What Criticism?» by Martí Peran (Feb 2006)
Entry #4: «Fail Better» by Sonia Fernández Pan (Nov 2015) and A*Desk’s May 2019 issue on Failure
2017
• IRAN|USA + other nonorientable surfaces, book-length exhibition catalogue.
2013
• Trauma Desire Otherness, edited by Peter Freund, Hong Kong Society of Psychoanalysis. «Introduction: The Failure of Shared Inquiry» and «Art, or the Perverse Ethics of the Lapse».
• «Film and the Problem of Witnessing», review of Film and Genocide (edited by Kristi M. Wilson and Tomás F. Crowder-Taraborrell), Latin American Perspectives, Vol.39, issue 6.
// Selected Presentations
2023
• Masterclass: Works by Peter Freund, 12th Annual International Film Festival of Archive, Memory and Ethnography, Porto, Portugal, October.
• Video interventions for public talk associated with Vitor Magalhães exhibition, «index of matters [on objects and other phantasmagoria]», University of Madeira, Portugal; March.
2022
• Public dialogue at University of Madeira for Vitor Magalhães exhibition, «index of matters [on objects and other phantasmagoria]», Madeira, Portugal, December 2022-March 2023.
2021
• «Performatic Code», Session: Decoding - Activation, International ADD+ART Congress 2021, organized by Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Barcelona. Abstract link: «Performatic Code».
2019
• «Artificial Intelligence, Art, + Nature», Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, November 4.
• «Recto Verso», Antes del Antes, Werner Thöni Artspace, Gràcia, September 29.
• «Digital Images: Truth or Lie?» Biblioteca Ignasi Iglésias – Can Fabra, May 3.
• «Beyond Word and Image: From Interdisciplinary to Transdisciplinary Poetics», Faculty of English Studies, Literature and Culture; Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), April 26.
• «Nonreciprocal Aesthetics», Faculty of Humanities, Pompeu Fabra University, April 10.
• «Conceptual Method», Faculty of Fine Art, University of Barcelona, February.
• «Lost Grids», Artist Talk, Werner Thöni Artspace, Gràcia, Barcelona, January.
2018
• «Détournement and Its Discontents», Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain, November.
2017
Artist Talk Series (IRAN|USA), Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art:
• Exhibit Opening Talk + Performance, March 2.
• «Digital Tomb», April 26.
• «From Trauma to Desire», May 2.
• «Alternative Facts», May 10.
2014
• «Para-Praxis: From the Clinic to Art and Back», Annual Symposium of Hong Kong Society of Psychoanalysis, November.
• «Without a Propaedeutic Gesture Lexically Inflamed», Teachers, Teaching and the Media Conference, Saint Mary’s College of California, October.
2013
• «Your Money or Your Life: Jean-Luc Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her», University Film and Video Association, Chapman University, August.
• «Lost and Found: The Image in the Drive». 2013 Symposium of the Hong Kong Society of Psychoanalysis, City University of Hong Kong, June.
2012
• «Perspective machine as l’objet petit a», Hong Kong Society of Psychoanalysis (skype), November.
• «Art, or the Perverse Ethics of the Lapse», Trauma, Desire, Otherness: Symposium of the Hong Kong Society of Psychoanalysis, City University of Hong Kong, April.
// Selected Curatorial
2022
Curator, Retracted Cinema (with master class), special session of 11th Annual Archive, Memory and Ethnography International Film Festival,
Juror, selection of final awards, 11th Annual Archive, Memory and Ethnography International Film Festival, Porto, Portugal.
2020
Retraction
Five-part theoretical statement with presentation of twenty artists and writers.
A*Desk: Critical Thinking, Barcelona, Spain.
Retracted Cinema
A program of algorithmic cinema.
Xcèntric, Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture (CCCB), Spain
2019
4|4<VU, a project by Werner Thöni.
Curator talk/performance.
Sala de Exposiciones, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Barcelona.
2015-16
Festival Director, Surplus|Lack
International experimental film art exhibition.
The LAB, San Francisco, California (USA).
2004-05
Festival Director, IF (Independent Festival of Digital Arts).
International independent film art festival.
Belladonna Gallery, Berkeley, California (USA).
// Acquisitions
2018-Present: IRAN|USA +other nonorientable surfaces (2017)
Antoni Tàpies Foundation, Barcelona
Asia Art Archive (Library Collections), Brooklyn + Hong Kong
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Spain
Bard College (Center for Curatorial Studies Library + Archives)
Beirut Art Center (Media Library), Lebanon
Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (Film Library + Study Center)
Bidoun (International Libraries), Brooklyn
California Institute for the Arts (CalArts Library)
California College of the Arts (Simpson + Meyer Libraries)
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City
Portland State University (Branford Price Millar Library)
Rhode Island School of Design (Fleet Library)
San Francisco Art Institute (Anne Bremer Memorial Library)
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (John M. Flaxman Library)
University of California, Berkeley (Doe Library)
The University of Texas at Austin (Fine Arts Library)
Whitney Museum of American Art (FMA Library), New York
Yale University (Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library), New Haven
2012
The Journal of Short Film (Vol. 26): CAMP.
Shoah Film Collection, VideoChannel, Cologne/Köln: CAMP.
The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Tel Aviv: Selected works in video.
LA Filmforum: Festival of (In)appropriation (DVD), Los Angeles: CAMP.
2011
ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art (Vol. 3: txt+img): CAMP.
Videonale, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany: CAMP.
2009
University of the Andes, Department of Fine Art, Bogotá, Colombia: Selected works in video.
2001
Wright State University, Motion Pictures Department: IMPULSE OF OBJECTS.
1999
New York University, Bobst Library: FOREIGN FILM.
1998
Art Institute of Chicago: FOREIGN FILM.
1997-98
University of Denver: IS ESSENTIAL, WHAT YOU THOUGHTLESSLY DISCOUNT.
1996
Universität von Göttingen, Germany.
«Word But Image: Literary Studies, Mystification, and the Image of the Word».
. . .
// Education
PhD, MA: University at Buffalo (State University of New York).
Distinction awarded for comprehensive oral exams.
AB: University of California at Berkeley.
Magna cum Laude.
Additional coursework:
American University in Cairo, Egypt.
Cambridge University, United Kingdom.
. . .
// Teaching Appointments
2007-Present
Professor (2015-Present), Associate Professor (2010-15), Assistant Professor (2007-2010)
Department Chair (2008-11, 2015-17)
Art + Art History Department
Saint Mary's College of California
Moraga, California.
2007
Lecturer
Department of Art: Graduate Multimedia Program + Department of Electronic Art
California State University, East Bay
Hayward, California.
2001-2007
Full-time Faculty (Tenured)
Multimedia Arts Program, Berkeley City College, Berkeley, California. Tenure granted Spring 2005; Distinction awarded for outstanding teaching and professional service. Chair: 2003-05
1997-2001
Adjunct Faculty, Art + Multimedia, English, Humanities
Berkeley City College (Vista College)
Berkeley, California.
1998-1999
Artist in Residence
Venue 9, San Francisco, California.
1994-1996
Scholar in Residence, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Research Associate
Center for Cultural Studies
University of California, Santa Cruz.
1993-1995
Lecturer
California College of Arts & Crafts (now CCA),
Oakland, California.