: : Collaboration in New Media: Artists as Producers : :
Commemorative photo of the first digital PHSCologram, Etruscan Venus, NCSA. Left to right: Tom DeFanti, Donna Cox, Ellen Sandor, and Larry Smarr, circa 1986. Courtesy of Ellen Sandor, (art)n.
Ellen Sandor's passion for photography, technology, and outsider art inspired her to invent a new methodology for producing art with a new medium of expression for the digital age.
In 1981, she first created a unique large-scale three-dimensional photographic mural commissioned by a private collector. This immersive installation combined photography and sculpture with the visual illusion of holography without lasers.
From the success of this project, Sandor formed a collaborative group of artists in 1983 with her peers from The School of the Art Institute called (art)n. The first project she produced with (art)n, called PHSCologram '83, is an early example of a virtual reality environment assembled within an artistic context, and opened a dialogue with other artists working in digital media and traditional art forms.
Since the early 1980s, a large body of work has been produced under Sandors direction by the (art)n collective and numerous collaborators. Recurring themes explored include early tributes to artists, virtual portraits, science as art, visual history, video game culture, Chicago Imagists, and renderings of unrealized architectural plans. These large ensemble projects have been shown internationally in galleries, museums, symposia, and publications, and are collected by private individuals and distinguished institutions.
With gratitude to all of our collaborators from the beginning and beyond:
(art)n Members 1983–Present
Craig Ahmer
Ben Carney
Chris Collins
Michael Cone
Chris Day
Miguel Delgado
Janine Fron
Azadeh Gholizadeh
Nick Gaul
Randy Johnson
Gary Justis
Christopher Kemp
Pete Latrofa
Jack Ludden
Todd Margolis
Nichole Maury
TJ McLeish
Thomas Meeker
Stephan Meyers
Keith Miller
Fernando Orellana
Sabrina Raaf
Mark Resch
William Robertson
Dan Sandin
Mike Siegel
Diana Torres
Dien Truong
Gina Ulmann
Jim Zanzi
Major Collaborators
Stephanie Barish
Bill Cunnally
BINO & COOL
Steve Boyer
Donna Cox
Carolina Cruz-Neira
Charles Csuri
Tom DeFanti
Margaret Dolinsky
Jennifer Doudna
Michael Dunbar
Andre Ferella
Barry Flanary
George Francis
Phillipe Paul Froesch
Carla Gannis
David Goodsell
Gero Gries
Claudia Hart
Mr. Imagination
Chris Landreth
Robert Lostutter
Gerhard Mantz
Feng Mengbo
Ron Nielsen
TJ O'Donnell
Arthur Olson
Ed Paschke
Robert Patterson
Dana Plepys
Maggie Rawlings
Miroslaw Rogala
Cynthia Beth Rubin
Dan Sandin
Paul Sickenger
Larry Smarr
Beth Stevens
Lisa Stone
Margaret Watson
Karl Wirsum
Zhou Brothers
Institutional Collaboration
Ellen Sandor and (art)n have collaborated with historians, researchers, and scientists from the following distinguished institutions:
Amoco Corporation
California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Chevron Corporation
Cornell University
Daimler-Benz Research
DePaul University
Florida State University
Genentech, Inc.
GMD National Research Center
Harvard University
Iowa State University
Illinois Institute of Technology
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical
Research & Development, L.L.C.
Michigan State University
Monsanto Corporation
NASA Ames Research
NASA Langley Research
NASA Lewis Research
Naval Historical Center
Northwestern University
The Ohio State University
Picker International
The Royal College of Art
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The Scripps Research Institute
Silicon Graphics
Survivors of the Shoah
Visual History Foundation
University of California Berkeley
University of California Los Angeles
University of California San Diego
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
USAE Waterways Experiment Station
Yale University