Shirley Steele: January 12 - March 9
Hello World: Cloud Storage 2.0
Wichita Falls native Shirley Steele currently lives and works in Austin, Texas. Each component of her installation displays the tech meme “Hello World” in a different language and writing system. Familiar tech symbols (emojis, location balloons, etc.) are randomly interwoven with the text.
Creating art work to explore fresh ideas about human thinking and our thinking machines, her work combines computer programming, inkjet printing, photography, video, and traditional painting. The images suggest new ways to think about human language, the language of machines, and our dialogue with them.
Steele's current artistic practice is informed by her career as a research scientist in speech and linguistics. After earning a Ph.D. in Brain and Language (University of Texas, Dallas), she worked as a research scientist in speech acoustics at Texas Instruments (Dallas), AT&T Bell Laboratories (Murray Hill, NJ), and Unisys Corporation (Philadelphia).
At Bell Labs, Steele became interested in the art-making potential of computers, while also studying traditional painting and drawing at the Art Students’ League in NYC. Later, leaving speech research for a career in art, she graduated from the 4-year program in painting and printmaking at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Now, she makes artwork combining traditional arts training and computer skills. Her work is currently represented by Ceres Gallery (NYC) and the Generative Art Project (Austin, TX).
We're proud to also present our Distance Learning Virtual Tour recorded during installation. Our Virtual Tours are provided free of charge to all Region 9 ESC schools in partnership with KFDX and through support in part by The Moody Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts.
The North Light is on the first floor of The Kemp Center building located at 1300 Lamar, Wichita Falls, TX 76301. Call for further information: 940-767-2787 ext 202 or email programming@artscouncilwf.org.
