Artist Lens
Through the Artist Lens Program, NCM invites emerging artists to enter into dialogue with an artwork currently on display in a Museum-wide exhibition. The project created in response illuminates an aspect or aspects of the original artwork in innovative ways, or brings a new interpretation to that work. Artist Lens projects are highly participatory, thereby helping to engage NCM visitors with the original artwork.

Hybrid Zoo
Ross Karre
2010
Computer, korg mixer, headphones, stuffed animals, wood, hardware
Artist Lens project interpreting Mungo Thomson’s b/w

Local emerging artist and musician Ross Karre’s interactive work Hybrid Zoo plays off of the notion of distortion present in Mungo Thomson’s sound work b/w. The work features a sound station where children can manipulate and alter a variety of recorded sounds, thereby mimicking the same process Thomson used to speed up and slow down a whale and bird song recording. Visitors are invited to don Karre’s “hybrid headphones” that visually imitate the unique combinations of sounds they produce at the station. Karre’s project helps to illustrate Thomson’s artistic process, and expands the visitor’s experience of b/w by offering a visual and tactile means of engagement.

The Artist Lens program is made possible by a generous grant from the James Irvine Foundation. Additional support is provided by the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.

BorderBeast
Rob Duarte
Opening July 15
Artist Rob Duarte’s BorderBeast responds to Marcos Ramirez ERRE’s Toy an Horse through a participatory, multi-media project in the Tech Studio. Duarte has developed dual, contrasting projections that recall the border where Toy an Horse was originally placed. The project invites young visitors to re-imagine this setting by letting them select various scenes in which to position the horse, while also re-envisioning the shape of the sculpture itself.