video still; Photoshop and iMovie; 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
SYMPOSIUM AT KOLAJ FEST NEW ORLEANS 2024
The Future Is Now, Was Then, Too
Saturday, 15 June 2024, 3-4PM
Cafe Istanbul
Christy Sheffield Sanford and AP Faust
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Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 12-16 June 2024. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.
Before we submit to the demands of our robot overlords, it behooves us to consider the role of technology in our collage practice. In this session, we will hear from two artists who are doing just that.
Christy Sheffield Sanford has been making and sharing art and writing on the internet since back in the 1990s when it was called the World Wide Web. The Saint Augustine, Florida-based artist initiated the phrase Web-Specific Art and Writing. Her web-specific piece, Red Mona, is a collection of “fifty French Flash Cards collaged with images and text appear randomly with French sound files.” The work is being restored by Washington State University. She will show examples of her artwork and speak about her work pioneering this genre and talk about what qualities make a work Web-Specific Art and Writing.
collage. Courtesy of the artist.
From Atlanta, Georgia, AP Faust writes, “I’m not an AI apologist, but I am curious. A lot of the discourse I hear from artists/people in my community is fear based and anti-AI, and I think that’s valid and worthy of conversation, too…but as something that exists in the world already and isn’t going anywhere save further into our lives, I have this desire to investigate and look for some silver linings. I don’t think anything will ever match the value of experience, human connection, and learning from people: experts in a field, educators, elders, children, community, each other…but my argument is that there is value in expanded access to knowledge.” Faust will share his experiences and thoughts about using AI as a tool in collage, specifically using Chat GPT to workshop artwork, get feedback, and articulate context to the artwork.
ARTIST BIOS
Adam P. (AP) Faust is an Atlanta-based creative and freelancing jack-of-all-trades. He holds a BFA from Guilford College. He is the Associate Director, Arts and Entertainment at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center. Prior to Callanwolde, Faust ran his own creative services company Adam Good Job ATL. He continues to freelance various art and design-related work. Faust has been a member of the Paint Love’s Artist Cohort and is a member of the Atlanta Collage Society. www.apfaust.com
Christy Sheffield Sanford holds an MA in Creative Writing and Interarts from Antioch University. She has won an National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and was the first Virtual Writer-in-Residence for trAce, formerly housed at Nottingham Trent University. Sanford initiated the phrase Web-Specific Art and Writing. Her digital project Red Mona is being restored and archived by Washington State University. She recently won the Arts and Letters Unclassifiable Contest and is the author of numerous books including The Cowrie Shell Piece (Baroque and Rococo Strains) and The Ostinato and the Furniture or Stiffen. The artist lives and works in Saint Augustine, Florida. www.christysheffieldsanford.com
Kolaj Fest New Orleans is a multi-day festival and symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society, 12-16 June 2024. Visit the website to learn more, see an overview of the program, and register to attend.