Week 8- Artist-Joseph DeLappe & Micol Hebron

Micol Hebron, founder of Gallery B-12, An artist-run cooperative exhibition and lecture space in Hollywood, in 1997 is a visual and performance artist based in Los Angeles for the past 15 years. She is originally from Nothern California, studied at UCSD, the Accademia Di Belle Arti in Venice, Italy, and UCLA. She earned her MFA in New Genres from UCLA in 2000. She is an artist who retains an active presence in the Los Angeles art scene. Joseph DeLappe is Professor of Games and Tactical Media at the University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland, where he moved to the University of Nevada, Reno, early in 2017 after directing the Digital Media program for 23 years. Since 1983, a native San Franciscan, he has experimented with electronic and new media, his work has been seen throughout the United States and abroad in online gaming performance, sculpture, and electromechanical installation, including exhibitions and performances in Australia, the UK, China, Germany, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Mexico, Italy, Peru, Sweden, and Canada.

Hebron’s work is focused on social media, performance, video, digital media, social networking, events, and the creation of channels that allow other artists and members of the community to come together to collaboratively discuss or create something. She aspires to be in the service of consciousness-raising with her art projects, but each project seems to address that with distinct strategies. She is also interested in the role of the body in society, and some of the topics she discusses most are often: gender equality, freedom of expression, contemporary feminism, visualization of data, the convergence of art and technology and art and social media, the body’s long-term capacities, the relationship between body, mind, and information. Her works include Gallery Tally and (en)Gendered (In)Equity: The Gallery Tally Poster Project, a collective art project in which people around the world tracked the representation of women in art galleries and creating Posters, Acceptable Male Nipple Template, in order to protest Instagram social networks social network’s policy and social media sexism.

DeLappe has always worked in new media through which he expresses his distaste for power politics, claiming that it described his intent when he became engaged in political art. With political analysis, Joseph DeLappe blends his understanding of communication media, concrete materials, and online gaming. It states that games are a major cultural phenomenon that much of the art world lacks, something that he finds challenging. In 2006 his intervention, Dead-in-Iraq, used an online game America’s army, created by the U.S. Department of Defense as a recruiting tool to remember the name and date of death for any member of the U.S. military who died in Iraq, noting that the U.S. Army was nothing but a sanitized metaphor to draw young people to enlist. His other work includes Killbox(2016) a computer game that explores the consequences of drone warfare, CArdboard Gandhi (2008–2009) he merged online gaming, performance art, and sculpture to build a Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March at Eyebeam art and technology, a virtual world.

I think both artists resonate with me because of the time period we live in. Movements and Political issues are one of the biggest events happening right now in America, especially with the election coming up. Hebron being an artist who is known for the movements is really important for raising the voice. And DeLappe being an artist who states the political issues in his art is also important, especially when there is an election coming up and political issues take a hit. It is really important to be educated about politics and the issues it is creating. I think these kinds of artists are playing a huge role in educating people about the social and political issues which we need to be aware of.