TrishStone

Trish Stone is a new media artist, whose conceptual art projects deal with issues of surveillance and intimacy. For her most recent project, Network Error, Trish Stone 3D-printed miniature figurines of herself, and used them to stage tiny protests in public spaces. She displayed photographs of the protests, along with an interactive videogame and a live streaming of the figurines, at gallery@calit2 and San Diego Art Institute. Her project Things I Never Say, in which she used publicly accessible webcams in San Diego as a platform for performance, was exhibited in 2011 at Art Produce Gallery, along with an Outdoor Video Screening, curated along the theme of performance in public space. Selected exhibitions include: San Diego Art Institute, Oceanside Museum of Art, Angels Gate Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Works San Jose, California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside, 21Grand in Oakland, and Southern Exposure in San Francisco, CA. Trish Stone holds an MFA (2003) from California College of Arts and Crafts. She continues her interactive, interventionist art practice in San Diego, where she serves as Administrative Officer for Qualcomm Institute, Calit2, UC San Diego,coordinating the Gallery QI and the IDEAS performance series initiatives. Trish Stone serves as Temporary Lecturer in the Visual Arts department at UC San Diego, teaching classes in the Media and ICAM areas. She also teaches VR for Climate Change for Seventh College, UC San Diego. Stone has been mentoring interdiciplinary student groups in the AIP program at Qualcomm Institute's Learning Academy since 2020.

Teaching Statement

In my new media art practice, I use conceptual strategies to address issues of surveillance and intimacy. My experience as an exhibiting artist (I earned an MFA in 2003) led me to dedicate myself to learning and teaching in the field of art and technology. My approach in the classroom seeks to recognize the skills and interests of the students, leading them to create artwork that includes critical thinking, formal rigor, and technical challenge.

As a Lecturer for Visual Arts UC San Diego, I have successfully taught ICAM Senior Projects (Winter and Spring 2020, 2019 and 2017), Virtual Environments (Fall 2017), Media Sketchbook (Winter 2018), and Strategies of Self (Spring 2019, 2016, 2015, and 2014.) ICAM Senior Projects is a capstone class for graduating students, with an emphasis on developing a computer driven project for final exhibition. Virtual Environments is an ICAM undergraduate class, which investigated the history of virtual/immersive environments with a focus on wearable realities. The students learned to develop strategies of intervention within the Unity platform, and worked collaboratively to design and program projects for Head Mounted Display in the Virtual Reality lab. Media Sketchbook is a Media production class designed to teach the fundamentals of video art through weekly assignments and online journals. Strategies of Self is an upper division video production class in the Media Area, which I taught with an emphasis on performance, surveillance, and public space. I have been consistently impressed with the caliber of the UC San Diego undergraduate students and the work they produce.

As a mentor with the Learning Academy program at Qualcomm Institute, I have succesfully taught two interdisciplinary groups of UC San Diego students through the AIP program (Winter-Spring 2020 and Fall 2020-Winter 2021). The 2020 group collaborated on a project called Anti-Plague, a 2D game they developed in Unity to address the need for social distancing in reposnse to the Coronavirus. The 2021 group are collaborating on a project called Micronaut, a 3D game they are developing using scientifically collected data to address the current health and dangers to the ocean ecosystem. I find it rewarding to work with students from a variety of majors (in these cases, Engineering, Computer Science, Math and Environmental Systems) towards a common educational goal.

Diversity Statement

Fostering equal opportunity, open dialog, and cross-cultural collaboration is an important part of the work I do at UC San Diego. The campus is exceptionally diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, and orientation, and therefore staff and faculty must do all we can to ensure that our practices are inclusive and foster mutual respect.

In the courses I develop for the Visual Arts Department (Media Sketchbook, Virtual Environments, ICAM Senior Projects, Strategies of Self) I present film/video works by artists who represent diverse backgrounds, and whose work explores their own identity as well as the idea of representation. In my role as Principal Investigator for gallery@calit2 at Qualcomm Institute, I have organized numerous exhibitions that present diverse perspectives to the public audience. For the other projects I produce at Qualcomm Institute, such as the IDEAS performance Series, my goal is to create opportunities for our diverse student body to present their work in a professional setting, via a peer-review selection process. Through my recent work as Creative Director at Qi's PoNG lab, I am learning about neurodiversity and the role that technology can play to enhance education. Strategies such as open communication, collaboration, and consensus drive the success of this work. I find it incredibly rewarding to work with a team of interdisciplinary students and staff towards building games that facilitate education for ourselves as well as the broader public.

In addition to my work history, I bring my personal experience as a woman working in the field of art and technology to the discussion. In my own research I explore notions of identity and privilege, including how the self can be represented, reproduced, and empowered to enact change.