Andrea Polli
Andrea Polli is a digital media artist living in New York City. Polli's work addresses issues related to science and technology in contemporary society. Her projects often bring together artists and scientists from various disciplines. She is interested in global systems, the real time interconnectivity of these systems, and the effect of these systems on individuals. Her projects are hybrids that feed into multiple areas of research and often offer new 'readings' of data produced by natural systems.
Her works include a system that uses the Lorenz attractor as a structure to guide human / computer musical improvisation (1992) and a performance technology project, started in 1996 and titled Intuitive Ocusonics, which is a system for performing sound by using eye movements. She currently works in collaboration with atmospheric scientists to develop systems for understanding storm and climate information through sound (a process called sonification). Recent collaborations include: Atmospherics/Weather Works, a spatialized sonification of highly detailed models of storms that devastated the New York area; Heat and the Heartbeat of the City, a series of sonifications of actual and projected climate in Central Park, the heart of New York City and one of the world's first locations for climate monitoring; and N., a real-time multi-channel sonification and visualization of weather in the Arctic.
For this and related work, she has been recognized by the UNESCO Digital Arts Award 2003 and has presented work in the 2004 Ogaki Biennale in Gifu, Japan and at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, Switzerland. Her work in this area has also been presented at Cybersonica at the ICA in London and awarded funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Greenwall Foundation.
As a member of the steering committee for New York 2050, a wide-reaching project envisioning the future of the New York City region, she is currently working with city planners, environmental scientists, historians and other experts to look at the impact of climate on the future of human life both locally and globally.
She is currently Director of the Integrated Media Arts MFA Program at Hunter College.
Available CDs
