Looking Outwards 11: A Focus on Women Practitioners

The artist I chose to research this week is Karolina Sobecka. Sobecka was born in Warsaw, Poland and has been known to work across many disciplines, specifically synthesizing art and science. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her MFA in Experimental Animation and Integrated Media from the California Institute of the Arts. Much of her work is interventionist or interactive in nature, serving to promote environmental and social activism. One project of hers I focused on was entitled “Cloud Machine.” This is a small device sent into the atmosphere to develop and disperse miniature clouds in our atmosphere.

This project is quite interesting to me and it creates a unique juxtaposition between manmade and natural processes in a way that is almost performative. Further, it is a also a legitimate response to a climate issue, as scientists have proposed developing larger-scale, but conceptually similar devices to achieve the same effect of global cooling. I appreciate how Sobecka uses her artistic and engineering skills to address a relevant issue.