Coalesce Personnel

Paul Vanouse is a SUNY Distinguished Professor of Art at the University at Buffalo, where he heads the program in Emerging Practices. Interdisciplinarity and impassioned amateurism guide his art practice. His biological and interactive media projects have been exhibited in over 30 countries and widely across the US. His recent projects, “Latent Figure Protocol”, “Suspect Inversion Center” and "America Project"  use molecular biology techniques to challenge “genome-hype” and to engage issues surrounding DNA fingerprinting, particularly the idea the most authoritative image of our time, the DNA fingerprint, is somehow natural. He has a BFA from the University at Buffalo and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Web site: www.paulvanouse.com

Solon Morse is the Coalesce Laboratory manager. His interests include evolutionary biology, ecology, and conservation. His research includes the gonservation genetics and of several amphibian species of special concern in New York, the evolution and ecology of the microbiome in blood-feeding ectoparasites of bats, and the landscape ecology, population dynamics and conservation of neotropical migratory birds in the Midwest. Solon has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University at Buffalo and a Master’s in Ecology from the University of Illinois.

Stephanie Rothenberg’s interdisciplinary art draws from digital culture, science and economics to explore relationships between human designed systems and biological ecosystems. Recent projects examine the impact of anthropogenic climate change on ocean ecologies. Her work has been shown internationally including Sundance Film Festival in the U.S., House of Electronic Arts/HeK in Basel, Switzerland, and ZKM Center for Art & Media in Germany. She has been supported by the Creative Capital Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts among others. She is convener of the 2024 FEMeeting SisterLabs symposium in Buffalo, NY and teaches course in design and emerging practices.

www.stephanierothenberg.com

aidelen is an interdisplinary artist working in the art and science fields. Using data as the context to her work, aidelen addresses environmental and social justice topics. With visual outcomes involving beads, thread and mycelium. aidelen hopes to create a multisensory and hollistic appoarch to the art and sience world.

aidelenm@buffalo.edu        aidelenmontoya.com            

Chloe Koegel is an interdisciplinary artist. The concepts Chloe explores in her work are based on the familiar in relation to the environments and homes in which we inhibit. Chloe examines different relationships in domestic spaces through various lenses including the psychological, biological, and ecological. Chloe’s interest ranges from human-to-human relationships to microbial relationships.

Bello Bello is an interdisciplinary artist whose focus is experimenting with art, biology, sound and technology. He creates custom electronics and software to enable participants to interact with plants and other lifeforms.

Andrea comes to the University of Buffalo from Colorado, where they attended Colorado State University, studying electronic art and metalsmithing alongside cellular neurobiology. When not in the lab pouring plates, odds are they’re out camping somewhere or running around the campus

Nicole Chochrek is an interdisciplinary artist utilizing visual and performative frameworks to explore contemporary issues and environmental disparities. Her work is based on the accessibility and digestibility of information, deep listening, shared responsibilities, and the construction of new ways of being together. Her work includes installations, eco-art, performative actions, and collaborations which have been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues from the Kolva-Sullivan Gallery in Spokane, Washington to Al Shaheed Park in Kuwait. She implements projects in vacant store-front windows, basements, and outdoor spaces. Nicole Chochrek earned her BFA in Geography from the University of North Texas. She is currently a MFA candidate in emergent practices at the University at Buffalo. 

Taylor Robers (Row-burrs) is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on forging a connection between the viewer and forest ecosystems by igniting curiosity through sensory experiences. As she continues to learn more about restoration ecology, she takes notes with oil paint and sound. She paints light, color, and texture in a way that captures the spirit of that unique organism or environment. Her paintings are paired with collected ambient forest sounds to create an immersive environment. These installations give pause to analyze our established hierarchy of beings and reassess our personal relationships with nonhuman peoples. Her work encourages the viewer to observe closely, question, and become more engaged with their local environment.

Walker Tufts explores our relationship to others (human and more-than-human) through games, exhibitions, dinner parties, and performances. Currently, Walker works with/as Kosmologym. Kosmologym makes games that challenge players to encounter others and place their bodies in physical relationship to complex systems. 

Felipe is an ecologist and bio-artist who decided to adventure around the world. His journey began when he finished his Ph.D. in Ecology and Nature Conservation, at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. He then decided to explore the visual aspects he had included in his research, beyond the purely scientific perspective, such as the colors of feathers and the shapes of birds' nests. Currently, he is an M.F.A. candidate in Studio Art at the University at Buffalo, working at the intersection between biology and art. All of his work involves aspects of his own identity, and he always highlight the visuality of nature. His current projects involves the deconstruction of archetypes in species that became poetized by humans (such as hummingbirds), and biovisualization.

www.felipeshibuya.com

Rian Hammond is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher. Their work explores the myth of scientific objectivity by focusing on the often unseen interplay between scientific advancement and cultural production, technological progress and desire. In 2015 Rian got involved at a DIY//DIWO biohack space called the Baltimore Underground Science Space where their practice shifted from working primarily with digital media to performing interventions in biological media and living organisms. It was here that their recent long term project, Open Source Gendercodes began. OSG focuses on the intersection of gender variation and technoscience, tracing histories of steroid hormones, and performing science within them. By developing novel hormone production technologies, OSG attempts to queer current regimes of ownership and bio-power. The project has been presented in a series of public talks and online publications. Most notably OSG was featured in Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke’s “Additivist Cookbook,” in a talk at the 2016 Creative Time Summit in Washington DC, in an edition of the magazine Ecocore curated by the Institute for Queer Ecology, as well as having been presented through public talks at the Baltimore Underground Science Space, MassArt, and MICA, HANGAR Barcelona, and Hallwalls of Buffalo NY.

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I came to US  in 2001  and was determined to pursue my dream of being an artist. My work revolves around the complexity of nature and global environmental consciousness, in which living organisms are the major part of my ideas. Through bio-processing and collaboration with living matter  (mycelium, bioluminescent algae, glowing E.Coli and other ) combined with usage of modern technologies (CNC machines) I create interactive installations, visual displays, and sculptures to engage the viewer into becoming more aware of the world around us and push to rethink their place as a ‘sapiens’ part of Earth’s Superorganism. As a part of my art practice I use microscopes with the primary idea of merging scales; colliding the visible and invisible worlds at the point of human perception which brings me closer to the understanding of the interconnections between them.

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