New Exhibition at UC San Diego Gallery Explores Art and Activism on the Border

Tijuana/San Diego: Cooperation and Confrontation at the Interface

San Diego, October 9, 2009 -- Seven artists from either side of the border dividing San Diego and Tijuana are represented in an exhibition this fall that deals head-on with politics, immigration, the environment and other hot-button issues - through the lens and sensibility of artists working in multiple media.

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“Tijuana/San Diego: Cooperation and Confrontation at the Interface” opens officially on Oct. 15 in the gallery@calit2 on the first floor of Atkinson Hall on the University of California, San Diego campus. The gallery is part of the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2).

The Oct. 15 launch includes a panel discussion and Q&A with six of the seven presenting artists at 4pm in the Calit2 Theater, and an opening reception from 5pm to 7pm. Both events are open to the public and free of charge.

Jacobs School professor emeritus Lea Rudee photographed the Tijuana River.

Two of those artists – Lea Rudee and Fred Lonidier – are UC San Diego faculty members. Rudee is a professor of materials science, accomplished photographer and former trustee and president of San Diego ’s Museum of Photographic Arts . Rudee was also the founding dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering. Lonidier is a professor in the Visual Arts department at UCSD, which he joined in 1972 (after earning his MFA from UCSD the same year). Other artists also have UC San Diego credentials: Nina Waisman and Felipe Zúñiga earned MFA degrees in visual arts (both Class of ’08) from the university; Camilo Ontiveros earned an undergraduate degree from UCSD, then an MFA from UCLA; and Spanish-born, Peruvian-raised José Ignacio López Ramírez-Gastón is a graduate student in computer music at UC San Diego. Finally, Giacomo Castagnola is a Peruvian architect from Ricardo Palma University in Lima, Peru. Castagnola earned a degree in architecture and urbanism, and now lives and works in Tijuana; he has shown his architectural work on both sides of the border.

The works in “Tijuana/San Diego” range from digital prints to interactive multimedia.

José Ignacio López's mesh structure populated with used speakers and sound sources inside the Calit2 gallery, and (inset) diagram.

José Ignacio López Ramírez-Gastón’s spatialized sound installation, 24 Speakers, 24 Sources, is deployed in the interior of the gallery on the first floor of Atkinson Hall. The installation enacts the concept of the democratization of knowledge and 'reversed migration' in the use of technology. The artist bought 24 used speakers and 24 used sound generators in the streets of Tijuana and ‘smuggled’ them across the border, to be installed in the Calit2 art gallery. The sources of sound – from tape recorders to CD players – are mapped to the speakers in order to generate a ‘sound architecture’ on a half-circular mesh superstructure (see drawing) which visitors can use to control the sounds. “My goal is to reflect on socio-economic conditions outside of the developed world by turning economic obstacles – used speakers and sound sources – into creativity and experimentation with spatialized sound, and a sound architecture that can be controlled using resources native to social interaction in Tijuana,” said Lopez about his interactive sound installation. “This piece is both a nostalgic representation of my early encounters with technology and music, and a reflection of the conditions of access for a new generation of creators of media content on both sides of the border.”

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In the main hallway, the CUBO collective’s MediaWomb creates an interactive sound cocoon made of recycled cardboard crates. The ergonomic structure – designed by Giacomo Castagnola – is outfitted with an interactive system of sensors designed by Nina Waisman, who also contributed environmental sounds from Tijuana , which are audible on one side of the ‘womb’. On the other side, seated visitors hear sounds gathered and edited by Camilo Ontiveros and Felipe Zúñiga from radio and popular media on both sides of the border, dealing with violence on the border, deportations of illegal immigrants, B-movie dialogue and so on. Visitors' movements inside the womb modulate sounds connected to these media representations (and misrepresentations) of drug violence in Tijuana , mixed with environmental sounds, and the interactivity means that no two people will experience the MediaWomb in exactly the same way.. (Audio programming for the MediaWomb using the Pure Data software program developed at UCSD was provided by Marius Schebella.)

Photographs of the Tijuana River

Other works on display include Tijuana River, former UCSD engineering dean Lea Rudee’s photographs documenting the river’s meandering path across the border and its many roles as drainage creek, city water supply, border crossing obstacle, and preserved salt marsh. “In less than 100 miles, the Tijuana River has many identities,” said Rudee, noting that on the U.S. side, most of the water becomes part of San Diego ’s water supply. “On the Mexican side, some of the water serves Tijuana , but occasional floods produce damage to downstream development, causing resentment by the local inhabitants.” It took Rudee over four years to document on film every stretch of the Tijuana River .

UCSD visual arts professor Fred Lonidier’s N.A.F.T.A. #15 Rio Tijuana Bridge: A Tale of Two Globes or Two Tales of a Globe/Puente del Rio Tijuana: Un Cuento de Dos Mundos o Cuentos de Un Mundo combines news clippings, found images, original art and other elements into shallow but long collages that take up the width of a wall in the Atkinson Hall lobby – giving them the feeling of murals, but not quite.

Panel from Fred Lonidier's N.A.F.T.A. #15

The work underscores the dangers of globalization from the perspective of organized efforts by workers to make gains in labor rights and conditions of employment. Lonidier is a long-time proponent of ‘social art’ – art in service to social change – and his work has highlighted class struggle and the union movement. “I have been a union activist for over 25 years,” he noted. “I view my work as an attempt to enter debates about the direction of both art and the labor movement at all levels of theory and practice.”

The gallery @ calit2 reflects the nexus of innovation implicit in Calit2's vision, and aims to advance our understanding and appreciation of the dynamic interplay among art, science and technology. Calit2 is a partnership between UC San Diego and UC Irvine that is organized around cross-disciplinary projects on the future of telecommunications, information technology, new media arts and other technologies that will transform a range of applications important to the California economy and citizens' quality of life.

Note to Editors: The bilingual Catalog for this exhibition (English and Spanish) will be published shortly
Exhibition Opening: Tijuana/San Diego: Cooperation and Confrontation at the Interface

Panel Discussion*
October 15, 2009, 4-5pm
Calit2 Theater, Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego

Gallery Reception*
October 15, 2009 5-7pm
Lobby and Gallery, Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego

* Note: Panel discussion and gallery reception open to the public; RSVP requested to Trish Stone, Gallery Coordinator, tstone@ucsd.edu or (858) 336-6456 .

Exhibition Hours

October 5-November 25, 2009
Monday-Friday, 11am-5pm*
gallery @ calit2
Atkinson Hall
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
Map & Directions: http://atkinsonhall.calit2.net/directions/
http://gallery.calit2.net
http://www.calit2.net
* [Note: Closed Nov. 11 in observance of Veterans Day]

Related Links
gallery@calit2

Media Contacts

Doug Ramsey, 858-822-5825, dramsey@ucsd.edu;
Gallery Contact: Trish Stone, , tstone@ucsd.edu

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New Exhibition at UC San Diego Gallery Explores Art and Activism on the Border