Design by Joshua R. Concepcion, Michelle Bac, and Sarah Chow
The one-day immersive event highlights interdisciplinary creative work from the CalArts community
Valencia, CA—On May 4, 2023, California Institute of the Arts presents the annual CalArts Expo, a one-day immersive event featuring interdisciplinary creative work from the CalArts community, ranging from first-year BFA students to internationally renowned faculty and alumnx creators.
Audiences will experience CalArts Expo in 15 student-curated venues across campus, creating an environment of immersive, personal, and communal spaces for exhibition and performance of new work spanning all disciplines of the Institute. Highlighting the immense creativity of the CalArts community, Expo 2023 will feature projects by more than 600 artists including visual art, music, dance, film/video, installations, multidisciplinary work, lighting sculptures, architectural projection mapping, and more.
Featured projects and artists include:
- Luisa Pinzon: Páramo Immersion - An interactive installation inspired by the Páramo ecosystem in Colombia using visual elements processed in Touch Designer software. The work uses distance sensors to distort the audience’s experience of photographs of the “Páramo de Chingaza,” which shift visually as the viewer gets closer, combining with a low drone synth soundtrack to create an immersive experience.
- Emi Sun: Finger Twister - A party game that invites people to have a fun touching experience with others, in which players touch other players’ fingers following a color coded system, and then are challenged to some fun tasks while holding the pose. The game challenges the cognitive boundary of one’s own body and its potential relationship with others.
- Newman-Lessler : ++ - An improvisation for megaphone, piano, ocarina, and percussion.
- Sophia Beall: Vestiges of Tangency - A sculpture that explores the sensation of the loss of touch: “A web of paracord weaves across the space, with hands strung throughout, gesturing towards the viewers below. Some hands lie just out of reach; capturing the moment right after touch is relinquished, but the warmth of that presence remains—haunting the skin like ghosts of physical connection. Other hands dangle low enough for interaction, inviting the viewer to engage with the physicality of the materials and thus experience the sensation of artificial touch from a fragmented body.”
- Chiahui Yu: Carry on Only with the Sweetest Souvenir - A 14x14’ inflatable installation depicting a woman’s hesitation about sex, lust, and affection. The work tells the story of a struggling lovelorn girl, manipulating fantastic elements and visual symbols to depict the story’s background, and leading the audience to question and confront the work’s symbolism.
- Byungkyu Lee: Anthesizer: SPINE - A sonification of ant colonies by applying their social behaviors into sound synthesis in real time. Anthesizer: SPINE focuses on how harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex rugosus) transport, store, and distribute foods and nutrients. Tracking the ants as they collect and sort various types of seeds, piezo mics built into each ant nest pick up audio signals created by the ants, which are then processed through amplifier circuits and fed into a sound synthesis software, MaxMSP.
CalArts Expo is free and open to the public. Exhibitions and performances run from 2 pm to midnight on campus at CalArts in the Main Entrance, eX-Box, Main Gallery, L-Shape Gallery, D300 and D301, Walt Disney Modular Theater and Lobby, Sharon Disney Lund Dance Theater, Bijou Theater, Wild Beast and Mark Taper Courtyard, WaveCave, Roy O. Disney Concert Hall and Lobby, A300, and the Machine Lab. Artist listings and a detailed schedule will be available via expo.calarts.edu/2023 during the week of the event.
Calendar Editors Please Note:
CalArts Expo 2023
Thursday, May 4, 2 pm–midnight
California Institute of the Arts, 24700 McBean Pkwy., Valencia, CA 91355
expo.calarts.edu/2023
Free Admission
About the CalArts Expo
CalArts Expo started in 2013 as a small exhibition by students in need of space to display their creative work, who set up a renegade exhibition in the hallways of CalArts. That exhibition brought an energy to campus for an event that was ambitious, student-led, interdisciplinary, and collaborative. Over the years CalArts Expo has grown to an event that annually supports the work of more than 600 artists representing every artistic discipline at CalArts. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Expo, and the event continues to dream big and grow every year. CalArts Expo brings together artists from across the institute for collaborative work, and annually connects students with industry curators, producers, and employers.
About CalArts
California Institute of the Arts has set the pace for educating professional artists since 1970. Offering rigorous undergraduate and graduate degree programs through six schools—Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, and Theater—CalArts has championed creative excellence, critical reflection, and the development of new forms and expressions. As successive generations of faculty and alumni have helped shape the landscape of contemporary arts, the Institute first envisioned by Walt Disney encompasses a vibrant, eclectic community with global reach, inviting experimentation, independent inquiry, and active collaboration and exchange among artists, artistic disciplines and cultural traditions.