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Victor Acevedo and Michael Wright met for the first time in the of summer 1992. Digital art curator and historian, Patric Prince, made the introduction, who along with Michael Masucci was enlisting collaborators to work on a new digital art space they were building at EZTV. The space was later called CyberSpace Gallery. The teamwork of these four individuals produced the gallery's first exhibitions at its original location in West Hollywood. These early shows included Silent Partners 1992, New Art '92 and Digital Salon Des Independents, 1993. Acknowledging these achievements, Wright and Acevedo's art work was represented in the exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of EZTV at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, September 1999. Acevedo and Wright found they had a mutual passion for making computer art and getting it seen by an audience. In the 1990s in Los Angeles, that meant organizing and curating your own shows. In 1995, they called their art group The Digilantes, as a way to describe their earnest do-it-yourself attitude. Acevedo recalls, "Michael came up with this name one day. We laughed about it and we adopted the name as a lark, but it was actually quite appropriate, and so it stuck." Under this moniker, Acevedo and Wright lead the adhoc committees that spawned the two noteworthy exhibitions called Digital Site, 1995 and LA Digilantes, 1997. The shows were timed to coincide with the large ACM/SIGGRAPH conferences that were being held at the nearby Los Angeles Convention Center in order to maximize attendance. Both Digilante shows were quite successful and they are remembered today as historical flashpoints for the West Coast's 1990's digital art movement.
Cyberspace Gallery, is one of the first galleries in the world dedicated to the exhibition of digital and electronic art. Over the years they have shown some of the most important artists in the digital field. During the 80's and early 1990's, digital art had a difficult time being accepted into the mainstream art world, and needed alternative venues for its continuance. During this period, EZTV served as Los Angeles' most noted organization in support of this new artform. They often hosted events sponsored by SIGGRAPH, the Visual Music Alliance as well as independent curators and artists interested in cyber culture. EZTV's intent to bring digital art to the forefront compelled them to establish the Cyberspace gallery in 1991. EZTV is a
pivotal organization in the history of Los Angeles' Video & Digital
Arts communities, bridging the gap between Fine Art and Hollywood. Long
before the term "desktop video" was coined, artists at EZTV
were doing it, creating elaborate, often feature length productions, shot
on video and edited through an ever-improving combination of consumer,
industrial and professional technologies. "an
avant-garde video production company & digital art center" -Wired.com
MICHAEL WRIGHT Michael Wright
is a painter who began to explore Digital Media in the mid 1980s Wright's digital work revolves around archetypical elements, water, light, relationships, the portrait as representing man/women struggle in discovering their spiritual selves., and the Zen approach of looking to the 1001 things around you at any one moment, finding the universal. His work has appeared in "Computer Graphics World" the leading edge publication specializing in "Innovation in Visual Computing. Wright was featured in their 25th Anniversary Retrospective issue, January 2002 and the magazine's "Portfolio" section of the November 2001 issue. The article was called "Pixel Perfect: Michael Wright". Wright most recently contributed to the "Computer Graphics Companion", 2002, edited by Jeffrey J. McConnell published by Macmillan. Wright's work appears in "The Computer in the Visual Arts", 1999, by Anne Morgan Spalter of Brown University, published by Addison Wesley . His digital works are also published in Linda Jacobs' seminal book "Cyberarts: Exploring Art & Technology", 1992, Wired, Micro Publishing News and Computer Graphics & Applications. He and his work have been featured on Agent X, Television Tokyo. Wright was one of the featured artists at "ACM 1:Beyond Cyberspace" in San Jose in March 2001. He was also featured at "CyberArts X" and "The Impact of YLEM: 20 Years of Art, Science and Technology" both in San Francisco 2001. Howard Fox, curator of modern art for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has called Wright's digital work, "Down and dirty, with underlying tension". Elizabeth A.T. Smith, former curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, called Wrights work, "Powerful, Evocative, an equally charged carrier of meaning about memory, time and transformation." The Spectra Digital Arts Gallery in New York City represents Wright's digital work. Wright is an associate professor in the Digital Media and Liberal Studies Programs at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. He is the recipient of the Otis Award of Excellence in Arts Education. Wright also instructs on a regular basis for the art departments of California State Universities at Los Angeles & Dominguez Hills, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art., and has formally served on the Siggraph Education Committee as a juror and the Siggraph Traveling Exhibition Committee. Wright is the current Art Gallery Chair for Siggraph 2003 in San Diego
Victor Acevedo is an artist, best known for his digital work involving printmaking and photography. He attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (1979-81). He is now based in New York where he teaches at the School of Visual Arts, in the MFA Computer Art program. Inspired
by a range of influences from M.C. Escher and Salvador Dali to R. The main intent of Acevedo's work is to explore the structure of space by re-visioning pictures taken from everyday life. Towards this end, he builds various geometric space frames using 3D modeling software and then composites these purely synthetic structures into the pictorial space of digitized photographs. Acevedo has
shown his work in over 80 exhibitions worldwide including at the Levall
Gallery, Novosibirsk, Russia, 2002; YLEM's 20th Anniversary Exhibition,
SF, California; 2001; Colville Place Gallery, London, 2001; in ArcadeIII,
touring the UK 2001-02, Galerie der Gegenwart, Weisbaden, Germany ,2001;
SIGGRAPH 98, Orlando FL.; M.C. Escher Centennial Congress, Rome, Italy
1998; NY Digital Salon 1996 & 1994; ISEA, Minneapolis,MN 1993; Prix
Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria 1991.
Acevedo and Wright are among eleven artists currently exhibiting work at the Levall Gallery in Novosibersk, Russia. This exhibition honors the memory of the September 11th victims. Novosibirsk is located in the central part of Russia, in Siberia, and is the 3d largest city in Russia with population about 1.5 million people. The exhibit will move to the M'ARS Gallery, Moscow, in December 2002 .
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