Media artist Adriene Jenik is new School of Art director
The ASU Herberger College of the Arts welcomes telecommunications media artist Adriene Jenik as its new School of Art director. Jenik takes the helm July 1, 2009.
“This summer the School of Art gains an artist and leader who is a hardworking intellectual that brings a unique perspective to her craft and her colleagues,” says Kwang-Wu Kim, dean of the Herberger College. “Having Adriene become a part of the Herberger College reinforces the pillars of the New American University, of access, excellence and impact. Her commitment to students and research plays a significant role in the future successes of our campus community and the larger world.”
Jenik says her approach to her research is both improvisational and collaborative and is mirrored in her style of leadership.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the faculty of the School of Art,” she says. “Located in the desert and housed at a university engaged in deep scientific and technical research, the School of Art offers tremendous potential for creative and intellectual experimentation. I can’t wait to get started.”
Jenik’s creativity is evident in SPECFLIC, her ongoing research project produced in the novel storytelling format, “distributed social cinema.” SPECFLIC stories combine the audience’s present social activity, with live tele-matic performances, pre-recorded media elements, street performers and social networking to produce a multi-modal story experience. All SPECFLIC stories are set in the year 2030 and are research-based speculations about the future of the specific public establishment where the events occur.
Another one of Jenik’s projects of note is her internationally acclaimed MAUVE DESERT:A CD-ROM Translation, an interactive road movie based on the Le Désert mauve novel by French Canadian author Nicole Brossard. Jenik wrote, directed, produced, edited, designed, programmed and published the CD-ROM. MAUVE DESERT has been screened at film and new media festivals in Toronto, Johannesburg and Melbourne, to name a few.
Jenik’s higher education career started at Douglass College at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where she earned a BA in English (magna cum laude). She also holds a MFA in electronic arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. In 1989 Jenik headed west where she began her teaching career at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). She also taught at UC Irvine, the University of Southern California (USC) and UCLA's New Media Lab. Jenik joins the Herberger College following an 11-year term in the Visual Arts department at UC San Diego, where she served as a full-time research faculty member and most recently as chair.
She is a past the recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship and her list of professional and academic credits includes countless accomplishments, awards, publications and exhibitions. She also is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a number of other professional and academic associations. Learn more about Jenik at: http://art.asu.edu/facultystaff/adrienejenik.php.
The Katherine K. Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University was founded in 1964 and is comprised of four nationally ranked academic units: School of Art, School of Music, School of Theatre and Film, Department of Dance plus the Arts, Media and Engineering Program (AME) and the ASU Art Museum. Nearly 3,000 students attend the college, which has 224 faculty and 130 staff. Since 2005, 34 National Merit Scholars and 25 National Hispanic Scholars have studied at the Herberger College. To learn more about the college, visit http://www.herbergercollege.asu.edu.