Brittany Ransom
Program Head + Assistant Professor of Sculpture/4D, CSULB
Abstract
As an artist I strive to probe the lines between human, animal, and environmental relationships while exploring emergent technologies. Using ready-made and custom computing interfaces and code in addition to sensory data as a material, my work introduces concepts that explore the conflicted relationship between our human culture, the way we interact with one another via digital interfaces, and our concern for nature.
My work specifically deals with the transformation of material states through digital technologies such as 3D Printing, Laser Cutting, and CNC Milling. The main motivation in my work is to explore the paradoxical bonds between human, urban, and natural ecologies; the inhabitants of said spaces; and the co-evolution between the shifting digital innovations and our human selves. As an artist, my work involves employing these emergent systems in my practice while attempting to propel the viewer/participant to adopt a criticality towards our interactions and adaptations of technological structures within our collective society.
Speaker Bio
Brittany Ransom is an artist and educator currently living in Long Beach, California. Ransom is the recipient of numerous awards and grants including the competitive ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Fellowship (2019), Willapa Bay Artist Residency (2019), Workshop Residency in San Francisco (2016), the Arctic Circle Research Residency (2014), University Research council and Instructional Technology Grant Awards (2013-2014), and the prestigious College Art Association Professional Development Fellowship (2011). Ransom has shown her work internationally and nationally and has been featured in numerous publications. Her most recent work has been exhibited in Berlin (as part of Transmediale 2017), Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas. Ransom’s writing has been featured in numerous publications including the Leonardo Journal published by MIT Press (forthcoming July 2019), The 3D Additvist Cookbook (2016), and The Routledge Handbook on Biology in Art, Architecture, and Design, Routledge Press Essay (2016).
Ransom served as the 2017 SIGGRAPH Studio Chair and will serve as the 2019 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery Chair, both in Los Angeles. SIGGRAPH is the largest and oldest Art and Technology Conference in the world with over 16,000 attendees annually. Ransom received her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Electronic Visualization from the University of Illinois at Chicago (2011) and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University with a concentration in Art and Technology (2008).
Ransom is currently serving as the Program Head of Sculpture/4D and is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture + New Genres at California State University Long Beach. As a member of the faculty of the College of The Arts, she works within the sculpture area and specializes in 3D computerized production / digital fabrication and physical computing / kinetics. Since living in Los Angeles she has produced a number of hands-on community workshops at K–12 focused institutions across the city in addition to her professional academic career. Prior to living in Long Beach, California, Ransom was the Assistant Professor of Digital / Hybrid Media at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas for three years. Ransom has also lived and worked in Chicago, Illinois and Columbus, Ohio. Ransom is queer, half black, and was born and raised in the small city of Lima, Ohio.