ERIKA SCHWARZ

Artistic Disciplines:

Digital Media

Environmental/Land Art

Multidisciplinary Arts

Visual Arts

Artist's Statement -

My works are unified by environmental themes more than by any specific medium, process or application. My goal is to encourage greater scientific literacy in a public audience, believing this is critical to implementing effective solutions to impending environmental and public health issues.

Erika earned a BS in biology from Cornell CALS, and an MFA from UCLA. She then worked in feature film, television and advertising doing visual development, design, layout and composite. She completed fall ‘09, spring ‘11 semesters of the Master of Landscape Architecture program at Harvard Graduate School of Design, and now works as an independent artist.

MEDIA-PETRI

Media Petri visualizes the evolution and morphogenesis of memetic information being “replicated” by and passed between people in web based communities.

FOR MORE INFO:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tl1CM9wNpgB7Zc5GKjnVmTf8Rg-1lM2J5W7se5MwzdQ/edit

MANGROVE REEF -UNWASTED

This image is constructed entirely from scans of botanical debris/compost then digitally assembled. Nature has no garbage yet we must employ the most current technologies available to save them as a priority. Mangroves, en masse, are essential to the health of the earth, coastal economies and shoreline protection. This precious natural resource can’t be so easily reconstructed in it's infinite complexity once gone.

FOR MORE INFO: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BdKafTuT9K4uCF8RdPRePqqErpHJcLcrZJoyC5_hc3I/edit

CITY BLOCK-DYNAMIC GRIDS

The project sought to collect, interpret and present various types of concurrent sensory data embodied in the public pedestrian and traffic / vehicular space of los angeles city blocks (mostly spatial and textural data as revealed to the individual user in real time).

FOR MORE INFO: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SDnLg-pUolQk4IipOi5rG5GucIgayFCzLgAMdr8fdi8/edit

LA CITY BLOCKS -IN CHARACTERS

Description: 10cm x 6cm panels were created as expressions of the pedestrian experience on individual city blocks in LA. These were then rearranged into various idealized formations visually. The image is one such formation.

MORE INFORMATION: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14VimVxOb4V8mFw-M_m4EeO9aAck4PPTJixhGM43Tejs/edit

THE UNSEEN SPECTRUM OF STRESS

Fall leaves of Sumac trees are generally red in nature, but in harsh urban environs like roads or derelict spaces, their leaves respond to many stressors (night light, water/air pollution; excessive heat) by expressing unique patterns. Their fall leaves make visible the stress of marginalization in a form of art; and more practically, the leaves are tiny documents of microclimate forces.

MORE INFORMATION: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10fHGxfeUxlo8AtJEVcrlMzCMd_PAUxrvZZTowJl7TQA/edit

BODY SERIES-PYGMALION AS NARCISSUS

Multiple pinhole exposures on a handmade film camera

"Pygmalion" as creator, tries to bring to life his ideal figure using multiple views at once but mourns a failure to materialize a completed figure; or of just the tangible link to an image. On another level, shows a failure in understanding in the mirror stage and language development; then the endless repetition that ends echoing, overwhelming and annihilating his reality.

MORE INFORMATION:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EPMdicXZFR1c05lI_M6TIzraTMr0I4USD8cIQH-i1i4/edit

ANNIHILATION SERIES-PYGMALION AS NARCISSUS

Multiple pinhole exposures on a handmade film camera.

MORE INFORMATION:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EPMdicXZFR1c05lI_M6TIzraTMr0I4USD8cIQH-i1i4/edit

OCD MINDSTORM

Assemblage of digital artifacting with added acrylic. FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JXaa4fHH2HxQ0Q80G_FRfl0PMezysNBLppuZAL_OgPI/edit

ALLEGORY RYTHYMS

Scans of botanical debris/compost arranged as a study of coordinating and repeating natural forms.

MORE INFORMATION:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b2r8om6MYmBW6Hv64ang16h3w5_x6Volz4-I5o9Exoc/edit