There has always been a great divide between emotion and technology, an idea that the two could never coexist.
In her lecture for “Let’s Talk Art,” Cristina Molina, assistant professor of New Media and Animation, defied popular belief, showing technology could strike people with emotion in an artistic way.
On Wednesday, March 26, at the Contemporary Art Gallery Molina began her lecture, dubbed “Body Circuitry,” by introducing three influential women artists who bridged the gap between technology and emotion: Lygia Clark, Janine Antoni and Sabrina Raaf.
“In my own research, I combined ideas of technical interfaces, emotions and using those two thing to connect the viewer to the art-maker,” said Molina.
“All of the artists that I talked about used technical tools in some way to directly impact the body through their artwork and therefore produce emotion. The way I became interested in this art was just through research and what [interested me] in my own work; then I just started digging into information on particularly females who did this. And because it was March Woman History month, I decided that it would be a perfect occasion to talk about it.”
In addition to discussion of the designs and artistic achievements of these women, Molina enlightened the audience about her work involving technology evoking emotions and engaging the audience through her art. She introduced what she called the ‘Crystal Radio,’ which is a crystalline lollipop, once bitten down on, made it possible to hear Molina’s voice inside one’s head. This literally made it possible to enter somebody’s headspace.
“The crystalline lollipop has a metal base, and that metal base is attached to a module that has a sound transducer in it,” Molina said. “The track I played today is installed inside of that module, so what happens is that the module’s vibrating and those vibrations travel up the metal stick and up the candy. When you put that candy in your mouth and bite down, your head actually becomes a speaker, the vibrations travel from your teeth, up your jaw, and to your ear. What people were hearing was my voice, a track that I designed, directly.”
The audience was impressed with the intellect and passion displayed by Molina through her research in these women and in her own art. One of the audience members was Irene Nero, associate professor of the fine arts, who was especially excited about the presentation.
“I thought Christina was absolutely amazing,” said Nero. “I think her intelligence, her dedication to her discipline all come across. I thoroughly enjoyed it. She actually gave me information I need to think about, some things I haven’t thought about before. I have never seen anything like that in art. I think it’s unique, extremely thoughtful. You could see that her work is a result of a great deal of research and intelligence. It’s very thoughtful; I thought it was fascinating.”
Molina’s Crystal Radio touched another person in the audience as well. According to Nero, a gentleman from the Hammond Regional Art Center approached Molina after the presentation, inviting her to show off her Crystal Radio at Prospect 3, a national event to be held in Hammond.
For more information on Molina and her work, visit her website cristinamolina.com. As for the “Let’s Talk Art” series, the next lecture will be on April 9 at the HRAC.