Brief Bio and (PR)2: Problems & Pitches – Rants & Raves by Gunalan Nadarajan
(Guna)
Gunalan Nadarajan, an art theorist and curator, is Vice Provost for Research and
Graduate Studies at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Arts). Prior to joining MICA,
Nadarajan was Professor of Art and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at
the College of Arts and Architecture, Penn State University.
His publications include Ambulations(2000), Construction Site (edited; 2004) and
Contemporary Art in Singapore (co-authored; 2007), Place Studies in Art, Media,
Science and Technology: Historical Investigations on the Sites and Migration of
Knowledge (co-edited; 2009) and The Handbook of Visual Culture (co-edited; 2010) and
over 100 book chapters, catalogue essays and academic articles. His writings have been
translated into Mandarin, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, French, German, Italian,
Romanian, Serbian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. Gunalan has curated
twenty international exhibitions including Ambulations (Singapore), 180KG (Jogjakarta),
Negotiating Spaces(Auckland) media_city 2002 (Seoul) and DenseLocal (Mexico City).
He was contributing curator for Documenta XI (Kassel, Germany), the Singapore
Biennale (2006) and served on the jury of a number of international exhibitions, like
ISEA2004 (Helsinki / Talinn),transmediale 05 (Berlin), ISEA2006 (San Jose),
FutureEverything Festival (Manchester, 2010), and ISEA2011 (Istanbul). He was Artistic
Co-Director of the Ogaki Biennale 2006, an international exhibition of media arts in
Japan and Artistic Director of ISEA2008 (International Symposium on Electronic Art) in
Singapore. In 2004, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Art. He is currently
working on an National Science Foundation funded initiative to establish a national
network for art, science, engineering and design.
Five Major Publications
 The Handbook of Visual Culture (consulting co-editor with Martin Gardiner
and Catherine Soussloff; editors, Barry Sandywell and Ian Heywood) Berg, 2010
 Place Studies in Art, Media, Science and Technology: Historical
Investigations on the Sites and Migration of Knowledge (co-edited with
Andreas Broeckmann). Verlag und Datenbank Fur Geistwissenschaften Weimar /
Kromsdorf, 2009
 “Social Formations of Global Media Art’ (with Jose-Carlos Marietegui and
Cubitt, Sean), introduction to the special issue of Third Text, Media Arts:
Practice, Institutions, Histories, Volume 23, Issue No. 3, May 2009, pages 217 –
228; Routledge.
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“Ornamental Biotechnology and Parergonal Aesthetics”, in Signs of Life: Bioart
and Beyond, ed. Eduardo Kac; MIT Press, 2007
“Islamic Automation: A Reading of al-Jazari’s ‘The Book of Knowledge of
Ingenious Mechanical Devices”, in MediaArtHistories, ed. Oliver Grau. MIT
Press. 2007 (also published in Portuguese in 2008)
Relevant Projects
Working with NSF-funded Data Conservancy project with Sheridan Libraries of Johns
Hopkins University on data visualization and data curation of research undertaken at the
Johns Hopkins University.
Developed and currently implementing new graduate program, MPS in Information
Visualization, in collaboration with the School of Professional and Continuing Studies at
MICA.
Developed an artist residencies program for artists to work in scientific research labs at
the National University of Singapore to develop new and experimental works for
ISEA2008 exhibition in Singapore.
Link to your Homepage:
http://www.mica.edu/Research_at_MICA/Vice_Provost_Gunalan_Nadarajan_.html
General Questions
What are your main interests in attending the workshop?
Understanding the current and emerging ideas and practices in visualizations of science
from colleagues and networking with them for my own current and future projects.
What would you like to learn / achieve at the workshop?
A broader and diverse understanding of visualizations of science than I started with.
How might the development of a visual language / metaphors for rendering science
and technology visually align with your work / career?
It would enable me to better enable my colleagues working both in the arts and sciences
to undertake more innovative and speculative visualizations.