User:Johrman2/sandbox

Byron Rich is an internationally known tactical media ecology artist and educator based in Pennsylvania. Hailing from Alberta, Canada, he has been an educator for four years and is currently the acting professor of Electronic Art and Intermedian at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. His work explores the absurdity of techno-solutionism and the obfuscation of traditional concepts of practicality, ethics, and sensibility, in order to provoke questions about larger societal structures.

Education
Byron first received higher education at the University of Calgary, and would later go on the pursue his MFA at The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo New York receiving an MFA in Emerging Practices.

Recent Works
One of Byron’s most notable contributions to the realm of tactical media came in 2016 with his research project Open-Source Estrogen: Birds of Estrogenic Paradise. Together with fellow artist Mary Tsang, this project unites the disciplines of speculative design and bio hacking, in order to demonstrate the ways in which estrogen is a biomolecule carrying both power, and a sum of institutional gravitas. Seeking to provoke a larger discourse about gender sovereignty, and access to hormone therapy, the project deduces the scientific and chemical means for producing estrogen, and then proposes that those very means are available to consumers, as a concise kit, able to store in any household kitchen. Open Source Estrogen, was first exhibited in the Gallery STROOM in the Hague, Netherlands, where it placed Byron and Mary as finalists for the Bio Art and Design Award given by S Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES). A year later, the project received an Honorary Mention in Prix Ars Electronica, a global convention based in Austria, which distinguishes creativity and ingenuity in the field of digital media arts.

Another project which has earned significant attention is Byron Rich’s collaboration with John Wenskovitch entitled: Tweet Shot. This prototypical gun control device uses the platform of social media to explore the potential for public shaming as a means of curbing violent acts. Tweet Shot is a small camera device, which can be fitted to any firearm. When the gun is fired, an image is taken of both the shooter and the target. The images are then geolocated, timestamped, and finally uploaded to twitter. Byron and John have produced multiple iterations of this prototype, and are soon to create one that takes video footage as well. For this work, Byron and his collaborators received recognitions both in the United States and abroad. Tweet Shot was awarded a place in 2015’s Exo Evolution exhibition at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, in Karlsrule, Germany. Byron also received the Coalesce Residency from University at Buffalo, New York, to continue developing Tweet Shot and other projects.

In 2017 Byron Rich has received a commission through the University of Dublin’s Science Gallery Exhibition: In Case of Emergency. There, he will join artists, media engineers, and scientists, in unveiling new ideas about the arts, science, technology, and how these changing forces influence the larger mechanisms of our society.

Published works

 * M-Ark I (Microbiome Ark)
 * Open Source Estrogen, 2015-2017
 * As Above, So Below, 2016
 * G.A.R.R.y (Work in Progress), 2015-2017
 * On-the-body Incubator, 2016
 * Interactivos? 2016 - Madrid
 * Rest. Stop., 2016
 * TWEET_SHOT v2, 2015
 * Repatriated, Ongoing
 * IMMOR(t)AL, 2015
 * Protista Imperialis v4.0, 2015
 * We Don't Say It Enough (Repatriated), 2015
 * Addition 3198713, 2015
 * Autonomous Player Simulation v1.0, 2014
 * Protista Imperialis v2.1, 2014
 * TWEET_SHOT v1.0, 2014
 * Benign Nor Hostile, 2013
 * Paint-by-Numbers, 2013
 * Protista Imperialis, 2011/2012
 * Crowd-sourced Composition v1.0, Work in Progress), 2014-2015
 * JM101 - Distance, 2012
 * Distance v10.1, 2012
 * Human Geography v1.1, 2011/2012
 * Garden Graffiti v2.0, 2010/2011
 * Garden Graffiti v1.0, 2009
 * Farnsworth Additions, 2012