Rob Ray makes site specific electronic installations, wondrous public games and experimental videos. He has recently relocated to Los Angeles, CA from Chicago via Rensselaer's Electronic Arts MFA Program in Troy, NY.
Rob's Pedal to the Mental interactive disorienteering adventure was included in the BIKE BOX locative media exhibition at Devotion Gallery in Brooklyn. His most recent workshop, Strange Sounds in Strange Places, was commissioned and created in residency at the Abandon Normal Devices festival in Manchester, UK.
Other recent exhibitions include GET LOST!, an interactive disorienteering adventure commissioned by the Abandon Normal Devices Festival in Cumbria and Lancashire, UK and Bucky’s Animal Spirit, a video game disguised as cash machine, selected for the art.tech exhibition at The Lab (San Francisco).
Recent filmworks include Canaries in the Coalmine, exhibited at the Onion City Film Festival (Chicago) and winner of the DIGIT 2009 Excellence in Cinematography prize.
Rob also collaborates with Jason Soliday and Jon Satrom as a member of the Chicago-based circuit-bent multimedia noise trio I Love Presets and is visual arts editor for the online journal Drunken Boat. Rob is also a keyholder at Public Address Los Angeles via Publica - a new experimental cultural center currently in residence at the Outpost for Contemporary Art.
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From 1999 to 2008 Rob was founder and head curator of DEADTECH electronic arts center in Chicago, IL, USA. DEADTECH’s unique curatorial vision, residency program, and exhibition and workshop spaces were all created to cater to the specific needs of the electronic artist and performer. DEADTECH exhibited artists from across the globe including the Beige Programming Ensemble, Trevor Paglen, Norman White, Kevin Drumm, T.V. Pow and Kazuyuki K. Null.
Selected Exhibitions
2011 - You Can Do It! Good Job at MDW art fair courtesy of What It Is gallery, Chicago IL
2011 - Designated Drivers - a Temporary Services collaboration - The Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL
2011 - Bucky's Animal Spirit - SXSW - Austin, TX
2010 - Pedal to the Mental - part of the BIKE BOX exhibition - Devotion Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.
2010 - The Space Between Two Lines - a Reanimation Library exhibition - GRIDSPACE, Brooklyn, NY
2009 - Bucky's Animal Spirit - part of the art.tech exhibition - The Lab, San Francisco
2009 - Bucky's Animal Spirit - part of the (re)load exhibition - Antena, Chicago
2009 - Undisclosed Location 1 - part of the Without You I Am Nothing: Cultural Democracy from Providence and Chicago exhibition - Green Lantern Gallery, Chicago
2008 - These cookies are, like, tha bomb. - VONZWECK at The Barn, Chicago
2007 - Guilty Party - part of the High Impact exhibition - Deadtech, Chicago
2007 - State Champion Owner/Operator - part of the Interstitial exhibition - Zhou Brothers Art Center, Chicago
2005 - Ahbyezyana - in collaboration with Deborah Stratman - VONZWECK Gallery, Chicago
Residencies
September - October 2010 Abandon Normal Devices Festival Manchester, UK
July - August 2009 - Center for Land Use Interpretation - Wendover, UT Residency Program
Selected Screenings
June 2009 - Canaries in the Coalmine - Onion City Film Festival, Chicago, IL
May 2009 - Canaries in the Coalmine - DIGIT 2009 Digital Media Exhibition , NY
Selected Audio Works
2004 - remix for TV Pow. Burned Bridges and Lost Loves - Bottrop Boy Records
2003 - Snake Charm - 3" CD - Crippled Intellect Productions
I also make audio/visual racket Jon Satrom and Jason Soliday as the circuit-bent multimedia noise trio I Love Presets. We combine improvised electronic music with improvised video in a way that looks and sounds something like a cat trapped in the dryer. We are the kind of band that takes up a lot of table space and says, “We look and sound something like a cat trapped in the dryer.” No cats we harmed in the writing of this paragraph - though right now I’m getting evil looks from the other side of the scratching post.
Curation
1999-2008 - Founder and Chief Curator - DEADTECH Artist Run Center, Chicago
Deadtech was one of the first art and technology artist run centers in the United States and was host to technology-enabled art and artists from across the globe.
2003-2008 - Curator - Chicago Dorkbot
The Chicago Dorkbot is part of a loose affiliation of other Dorkbot cities across the globe. A Dorkbot is where people do strange things with electricity.
Press
"Dork City - Dorkbot Hits Logan Square" - NewCity Chicago - 12.04.2007
"Portrait of the Gallerist - Rob Ray" - NewCity Chicago - 12.04.2007
"Logan Square Art" - Chicago Reader - 09.10.2007
"Matthew Steinke" - review of Matt's show in TimeOut Chicago - 05.31.2007
"High Impact" - a review of Taylor Hokanson, Alexander Stewart and myself in TimeOut Chicago - 09.27.2007
"The New Geeks" - TimeOut Chicago
Education
MFA - Master of Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.
Faculty Advisor - MFA Studio, Sculpture Department School of the Art Institute Chicago
BFA - Northeastern Illinois University - Magna Cum Laude
Minor - Biology
Speaking/Presentations
2009
Into the Wild: Electronic Art and the Great Outdoors
The Lab, San Francisco
Into the Wild: Electronic Art and the Great Outdoors
Dorkbot, Chicago
2007
Exhibiting New Media Art
Location: Columbia College, Chicago
Professor: Erik Brown
"Exhibiting New Media Art" 2 hour presentation and discussion. Session provided guidance and strategies to students on successful installation and exhibition of screen-based art.
Power Tools 2: Interchangable Bits, Independent & Collaborative Practices
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago - Beyond the Postcard: Web and Print Sessions.
"Quick Websites" presentation and tutorial. Presented two sessions of 1.5 hours to 25 students in the computer lab. Each session provided hands-on guidance to 25 students on content planning, understanding your audience, and development of a portfolio website using the open source Wordpress content management tool.
Also presented a 30 minute "Email Marketing Strategies for Artists." for each group.
Creative Chicago Expo - Conversations on Creativity
Location: Chicago Cultural Center
Public conversation with Martin Atkins - amazing artist, drummer, writer, and owner of Invisible Records. We had a great conversation on attention spans, longevity, and time management. A podcast of the conversation is available on the Chicago Artists' Resource website or you can download the mp3 right here (23 megs). Other conversations included: Jim Lasko (Redmoon Theater) + Katrina Markoff (Vosges Haut-Chocolat) Nick Cave (Visual Artist) + Jennifer Reeder (Video Artist)
2006
Guest Lecturer - Graduate Lighting Lab
Professor: Bridgette Buckley
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago
Hour-long presentation to inspire students to take structural and functional clues from Biology (especially Botany) and incorporate those elements into their lighting designs. This lecture kicked-off a two month design project where the students designed and fabricated a lighting/shading system based on plants and trees native to Chicago. Their works exhibited as a group show titled "Curtain/Wall" at the Chicago Art Department in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.
Speaker and Panelist - Multiplicities - [FRAY] conference
Moderator: Jon Cates Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago - Film, Video & New Media Dept Discussions and presentations on connective and collaborative New Media and Digital Arts with Ryan Griffis (The Temporary Travel Office, YOUgenics and The School of Art & Design University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana ), and Lincoln Schatz (OPEN-NODE and The Upgrade! Chicago)
The Entrepreneurial Spirit
Moderator: Mary Jane Jacob
Panel discussion with Peter B. Landon, Ben Nicholson, Morgan Puett and Tony Wight.
“On the Being of Being an Artist” – “The Entrepreneurial Spirit” Presentation
Mary Jane Jacob, Editor; Published by School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2006
2002
Speaker - Version02 Festival - Chicago
Presentation of the technical and social implications of hacking/cracking/phreaking. Technical review of DeCAPitator/ReCAPitator An overview of reverse engineering techniques using the CAPS shopping cart theft prevention system.
2001
Panelist - Out of the Studio into the World
Moderator: Hamza Walker Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago Hour-long panel with Rob Davis, Vincent Dermody, Kathryn Hixon, Jennifer Reeder, and Laura Weathered discussing the role of an artist outside the studio.
Panelist - Nomads and Homesteaders
Moderator: Stephanie Rothenberg and Holen Kahn
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago
Hour-long panel with Ariella Ben-Dov, Sheela Grace-Murthy, Hamza Walker, Brian Frye, Astria Suparek, Paul Chan, Lool Cuab, the People’s Republic of Delicious Food, and Sabrina Craig discussing artistic success via communities and "homesteading."
