Domestic Light, A Participatory New Media Project by Ian Winters

Opening Reception:
Saturday, July 8, 3–6 p.m.

The multi-year project explores the color of home, worldwide, and how we perceive, present, and participate in data representations of natural phenomena.

San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Arts Education Project (SFArtsED) is pleased to announce the opening of Domestic Light, a project by artist Ian Winters running from June 21, 2023 – June 21, 2024 in the SFArtsED gallery at Minnesota Street Project. 

Domestic Light is a multi-year project consisting of a participatory network of multi-spectral color sensors hosted in household window sills in a maximum number of time zones around the world. By tracking the footprint of domestic light worldwide, these sensors will document the color of “home” over the 2023 – 2024 solar year. The live data-set they generate will be translated into installations, performances, and video displays, presented on the Domestic Light website and as a video installation in the gallery. The project will culminate in an immersive installation and a live performance in summer of 2024.

Domestic Light explores the nature of our relationship to the character of light, and how it informs our conception of home and the passage of time; the nature of our perception of light; and the nature and character of the project’s networked relations. Partnering institutions include the University of Sussex Humanities Lab (SHL; Brighton, UK), Leonardo / ISAST (worldwide), the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and the San Francisco Arts Education Project (both, SF Bay Area, USA). Key collaborators include Weidong Yang, Pamela Z, John MacCallum, and Allison Leigh Holt. 


About the collaborators:


Ian Winters is an award-winning media and performance artist. Often collaborating with composers, directors, and choreographers, he creates both staged and open-ended visual and acoustic media environments internationally. His work with noted ensembles and directors in performance, and in more traditional video and visual work, has been supported by the Creative Work Fund, the Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Djerassi, and EMPAC, among many others. He maintains an active worldwide teaching practice, leading workshops in live media and the integration of sensors, physical performance and site-based pieces. He studied video and performance at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University, followed by training in dance / physical theater, and architecture. He is also the co-curator of MilkBar with Mary Armentrout. www.ianwinters.com , 37 North, Inc.

Weidong Yang, Ph.D. is founder and CEO of Kineviz. Supporting world-class businesses, agencies, and nonprofits, Kineviz’ revenue-funded team of scientists, computer engineers, and artists connects humans with data and provides visualizations of complex data to gain insights for better outcomes. After conducting theoretical and experimental research on quantum dots, Weidong spent 10 years as a product manager and R&D scientist in the semiconductor industry, where he invented Diffraction-based Overlay technology to improve the manufacturing precision of silicon wafers. He also co-founded Kinetech Arts, a non-profit organization bringing dancers and engineers together to explore the creative potential of making art via new technologies. Weidong has been awarded 11 US patents; contributed to 20+ peer review publications; and holds a doctorate in Physics and a Masters in Computer and Information Science from the University of Oregon. https://www.kineviz.com/

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist making works for voice, electronics, samples, gesture activated MIDI controllers, and video. She has toured throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. Her work has been presented at venues and exhibitions including Bang on a Can (NY), the Japan Interlink Festival, Other Minds (SF), and the Venice Biennale, and the Dakar Biennale. She has composed scores for dance, film, and chamber ensembles (including Kronos Quartet and Eighth Blackbird). Her awards include the Rome Prize, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Dorothea Tanning Award, the Guggenheim, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. www.pamelaz.com

John MacCallum is a Berlin-based composer. Often practicing in collaboration with choreographer Teoma Naccarato, their work together draws on their backgrounds in music composition, choreography, computer science, creative writing, performance art, and philosophy. They have presented at venues in Toronto, Montreal, San Francisco, Phoenix, London, Hamburg, and Berlin. They have been awarded artist residencies at research centres such as IRCAM (Paris), Djerassi (California), CLOUD/Danslab (The Hague), and Lake Studios (Berlin), and their published articles have appeared in journals across a broad range of disciplines. MacCallum studied music composition at UC Berkeley (PhD), McGill University (MM, Montreal), and the University of the Pacific (BM, California). https://iii-iii-iii.org/

Allison Leigh Holt is a neurodivergent artist and a Fulbright Scholar (Indonesia) using techniques of expanded cinema and the Light And Space movement to model various ways of knowing. Holt’s research–based work has been supported by The Ford Foundation Gallery, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the David Bermant Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Denise Montell Laboratories (UC Santa Barbara), and Cemeti Institute for Art and Society (Indonesia). She exhibits, screens, and lectures on her work internationally, and has been a resident artist / researcher at Sanggar Perbakayun (Indonesia); the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology; and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her writing has been featured in Yale’s Theater Magazine, Panorama Journal, and Public Journal. https://www.oillyoowen.com/


About Partnering Institutions: 

The Sussex Humanities Lab, a flagship research program at the University of Sussex, is concerned with the eco-socio-cultural potentials and impacts of an increasingly digital world. SHL experiments with digital methods in research, investigating the interactions between technology and culture, society and environment, in order to imagine and create more sustainable and just futures for all. Founded in 2014, its substantial awards of external research grants have nurtured deep interdisciplinary collaboration in Digital Humanities and related teaching portfolios, with members spanning the arts, humanities, engineering, informatics, social science, life sciences, and the University library. Its research has a wide disciplinary reach, from community archives to AI, media theory to conservation technology, critical heritage to intersectional feminism, digital humanities to experimental music technology, and critical making. https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/sussex-humanities-lab/

The mission of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program is to support and enhance the creativity of artists by providing uninterrupted time for work, reflection, and collegial interaction in a setting of great natural beauty, and to preserve the land on which the Program is situated. Djerassi is recognized internationally for its pre-eminence as an artist residency. We strive to provide the best possible residency experience for artists of superior talent from a diverse range of backgrounds and geographical locations. As stewards of a unique and beautiful property, we also seek to preserve the land and use our facilities wisely and efficiently for maximum benefit to the artists and with the least impact on the environment. https://djerassi.org/

Leonardo / International Society for Art, Science, and Technology is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 enterprising think tank, offering a global platform for creative exploration and collaboration that reaches tens of thousands of people across 135 countries. Since 1968, Leonardo has forged a worldwide transdisciplinary network to convene, research, collaborate, and disseminate best practices at the nexus of arts, science, and technology. Including scholars, artists, scientists, technologists, and thinkers, this network experiments with cutting-edge approaches, practices, systems, and solutions to tackle the most complex challenges facing humanity today. Leonardo, its flagship publication, is the world’s leading scholarly journal on transdisciplinary art, and anchors a robust publishing partnership with MIT Press. Its partnership with Arizona State University infuses educational innovation with digital art and media for lifelong learning; and its creative programs span events, exhibits, residencies and fellowships, scholarship and social enterprise ventures. https://leonardo.info/