|
Igor Vamos Wins Prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
 |
|
Thomas Griffin |
|
Igor Vamos, internationally known multimedia
artist and assistant professor of integrated electronic
arts at Rensselaer, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
The Guggenheim, a highly competitive and
prestigious fellowship is awarded for outstanding achievement
and exceptional promise in a discipline. Vamos was chosen
from more than 3,000 applicants.
Barbie vs. GI Joe
Vamos’ media-intervention projects, performances,
videos, and films have been shown in museums, festivals,
and featured in the media around the world. One of his most
prolific projects was a 1994 project called the Barbie Liberation
Organization in which he swapped the electronic voice boxes
of hundreds of Barbie dolls and GI Joe action figures so
that Barbie would bark, "Dead men tell no lies"
and GI Joe would squeak, "Math is hard." He then
placed the dolls back on store shelves — along with
a list of media contacts — for people to buy and spread
the word. The story appeared newspapers and television worldwide,
initiating an international discussion on gender roles.
“Grounded” in Utah
Vamos was awarded a Guggenheim to complete a project that
uses Global Positioning System (GPS) and other wireless
technology to provide a new medium on which to view his
new documentary, Grounded.
Grounded is about Wendover, a remote
Utah desert town. It is the home of the Wendover Air Field,
which was the secret training site for the B-29 crews who
dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
The now-defunct military base — the largest in the
world at the time — has used more than three million
acres in the surrounding area for bombing and training activities.
“The documentary will focus on the
historical land uses and the contemporary adaptive re-use
of the military landscape, ranging from the use of former
base buildings for local homes to the use of bomb craters
for landfill sites,” Vamos says.
|
