Michael Betancourt Artist in Residence
Institute for Electronic Arts
Resident Artist Michael Betancourt, will give a public presentation on Thursday, May 2 at 4:30pm in Holmes Auditorium.In Residence: April 22 - May 5, 2024
About his work, Betancourt states: “I break things and play with the pieces; I realize this act is an historically nihilistic gesture, but that is not my interest: the flash of recognition—faces, words, stories, spaces—is my focus. My work challenges understanding the computer as only an instrument of valorization, seduction, or assault. The reason I began systematically corrupting and damaging media in 1990 was to create a critical expression by rupturing the illusionistic perfection of technical images, but my intentions are irrelevant to my semiotic approach: the audience will see what their hopes and fears, education and desires taught/allow them to see. The immanent give-and-take between those quotations the audience recognizes, what’s called “intertext,” and what’s produced using the medium, the “text,” connects glitches to the visionary tradition by crafting a dramatic art from perception itself—the shapes and patterns of this iconography are performers whose actions can neither be anticipated nor described in advance, but arise directly from digital technology—an unknown adventure in an unknowable space. Yet I’m not interested in technological determinism, formalist exploration, nor anything arbitrary and capricious: I’m interested in articulating basic human emotions—ecstasy, sensuality, fascination—via glitches that encourage viewers to find poetic meaning in their everyday life.”
The Institute for Electronic Arts is a high technology research studio facility within the School of Art and Design, NYSCC, Alfred University, New York. The IEA encourages and supports projects that involve interactive multi-media systems, experimental sonic/video production, digital imaging, and publications. The IEA is committed to developing cultural interactions spurred by technological experimentation and artistic investigations.
The IEA is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Schein-Joseph Endowment and the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr Foundation.