Fabian Wagmister

Fabian Wagmister teaches audiovisual creativity at the University of California, Los Angeles. As a professor in the department of Theater, Film and Television, he was instrumental to the creation and growth of the Laboratory for New Media, a curricular environment for the exploration of digital aesthetics. He has also created and chairs the Program on Digital Cultures at UCLA's Latin American Center. This innovative program brings together regional cultural studies and digital communications technologies to facilitate the development of technological strategies dialectical to the endogenous identities. Born in Argentina in 1962, Fabian maintains active collaboration with artists and theorists throughout Latin America. He has been an active contributor to regional efforts such as the 'Institute of Cultural Identity, Art, and Technology' in Costa Rica and the 'Digital Arts Center' of the Universidad Patagonica de las Artes. His own works and writings combine a strong ideological voice with explorations into the protean media structures emerging from digital technologies. A recent work of his, the database-driven exploratory installation "...two, three, many Guevaras", has shown in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, San Jose (Costa Rica), Santiago and Havana and is scheduled to become a permanent exhibit at the Che Guevara Memorial in Santa Clara, Cuba. As the creator and principal investigator of the HyperMedia Studio, at UCLA, Fabian is developing theoretical frameworks, creative procedures, technological strategies, and tool sets for the merging of performance, installation and media art. Utilizing sensing technologies, intelligent databases, show-control protocols, distributed networks, and digital multimedia capabilities, the HyperMedia Studio team is creating immersive artworks in which performers and viewers fluidly interact with media-rich environments. (http://fabian.resnet.ucla.edu)