Visiting Artist: Michael Bell-Smith September 15, 2009

Michael Bell-Smith (Transmedia): September 15-17, 2009

Lecture: Tuesday, September 15, 5 – 7 pm, ART 1.102

Seminar: Wednesday, September 16, 3 – 4 pm, Transmedia Studio (ART 3.206)

Michael Bell-Smith uses digital forms to explore contemporary visual culture and how it is mediated through popular technologies. His work often incorporates the visual vocabulary of the Internet, such as animated gifs and lo-res images, and references the aesthetics and semiotics of common computer programs such as Powerpoint and Web sites such as YouTube. Remixing and reinterpreting sources ranging from industrial videos and music clips to classic cinema and contemporary art, Bell-Smith reconsiders the cultural meaning of these materials in a "post-personal computer, post-Internet, post-Google" age.

Michael Bell-Smith was born in 1978 in East Corinth, Maine. He received a BA in Semiotics from Brown University in 2001. His works have been seen in exhibitions at venues including The New Museum, New York; Foxy Production, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.

Official Website: http://www.finearts.utexas.edu/aah/studio_art/special_programs/visiting_artists_series/index.cfm