Short Bio

micha cárdenas, PhD, is an artist and Associate Professor of Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and Performance, Play & Design, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she directs the Critical Realities Studio. Her book Poetic Operations, Duke University Press (2022), proposes algorithmic analysis to develop a trans of color poetics. Poetic Operations was the co-winner of the Gloria Anzaldúa Book Prize in 2022 from the National Women’s Studies Association. cárdenas’s co-authored books The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities (2012) and Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs (2010) were published by Atropos Press. She is a first generation Colombian American.

Her solo and collaborative artworks have been presented in museums, galleries and biennials including the Thessaloniki Biennial in Greece,  Arnolfini Gallery, De La Warr Pavilion in London, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Centro Cultural del Bosque in Mexico City, the Centro Cultural de Tijuana, the Zero1 Biennial and the California Biennial.  cárdenas is a member of the artist collective Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0.

She posts updates on Mastodon at http://eldritch.cafe/@michacard

 

Full Bio

micha cárdenas, PhD, is Associate Chair and Associate Professor of Performance, Play and Design, and Associate Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she directs the Critical Realities Studio. Her book Poetic Operations (Duke 2022), proposes algorithmic analysis to extend intersectional analysis and develop a trans of color poetics to reduce violence against trans women of color. Poetic Operations won the Gloria Anzaldúa Book Prize in 2022 from the National Women’s Studies Association. cárdenas’s co-authored books The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities (2012) and Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs (2010) were published by Atropos Press. She is co-editor of the book series Queer/Trans/Digital at NYU Press, with Amanda Philips and Bo Ruberg. Her artwork has been described as “a seminal milestone for artistic engagement in VR” by the Spike art journal in Berlin. She is a first generation Colombian American. Her articles have been published in Transgender Studies Quarterly, GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, AI & Society, Scholar & Feminist Online, the Ada Journal of Gender, New Media and Technology, among others.

cárdenas earned her PhD in Media Arts + Practice in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California and is a member of the artist collective Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0. Her solo and collaborative artworks have been presented in museums, galleries and biennials including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the ZKM in Karlrushe, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Centro Cultural del Bosque in Mexico City, the Centro Cultural de Tijuana, the Zero1 Biennial and the California Biennial. Her co-authored book The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities was published by Atropos Press in 2012. She was the recipient of the first ever James Tiptree Jr. fellowship.

For the past 15 years, micha cárdenas has used digital technologies in performance to call into question commonly held notions about identity such as race, gender, nationality, ability, and the ways these dynamics operate to create safety or violence. In 2015 micha was a visiting scholar in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, and a MacArthur Foundation HASTAC Scholar. In 2013 micha was a fellow at the Post Media Lab at Leuphana University in Germany, a New Directions Scholar at the USC Center for Feminist Research and a HASTAC Scholar. She holds an MFA from University of California, San Diego, an MA in Communication from the European Graduate School and a BS in Computer Science from Florida International University. She blogs at michacardenas.org and tweets at @michacardenas.

Her solo and collaborative work has been presented in spaces including HTMlles in Montreal, the Living as Form Nomadic Edition in Yellow Springs, Ohio, the Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum in Azarita, Egypt, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in São Paulo, Brazil, and Artscape Gibraltar Point in Toronto.

cárdenas has presented keynote talks at the 2013 Dark Side of the Digital conference, the 2014 Digital Gender workshop at Umeå University in Sweden, Temple University’s Beyond the Page series, the Center for 21st Century Studies C21 at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the 2013 Differential Mobilities conference at Concordia University in Montreal, the 2012 Allied Media Conference, and an opening keynote performance at the 2014 Gender, Bodies, Technology Conference at Virginia Tech.

Her two co-authored books The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities and Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs were published by Atropos Press. Her writing has been published in the journals AI & Society, Transgender Studies Quarterly, Ada Journal of Gender, New Media and Technology, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Media-N, and the conference proceedings of Mobile HCI, SPIE Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality and SPIE Three-Dimensional Imaging, Interaction, and Measurement. Her writing has been published in the anthologies Critical Digital Studies Reader, Feminist and Queer Information Studies Reader, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Troubling the Line: Trans & Genderqueer Poetry & Poetics, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, Arse Elektronika 2008 & 2009.

cárdenas is on the editorial boards of Art Journal and Art Journal Open. She previously served on the advisory boards of FemTechNet and the York University Center for Feminist Research. cárdenas was the Interim Associate Director of Art and Technology in the Culture, Art and Technology program of Sixth College at UCSD. She has been a Lecturer in the Visual Arts department and Critical Gender Studies programs at UCSD and an Artist/Researcher at CRCA and the b.a.n.g. lab at Calit2. She taught “Electronic Technologies for Art” in the UCSD Visual Arts Department in 2009 and 2010. In addition, they taught “Gender and Sexuality in Art” in the Critical Gender Studies Program at UCSD. micha holds an MFA from the University of California San Diego, an MA in Media and Communications with distinction from the European Graduate School and a BS in Computer Science from Florida International University.

cárdenas’ artwork and collective projects have appeared in publications including Art21, Associated Press, BBC World, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone Italy, Wired, Vice Magazine, Shameless Magazine, Missy Magazine, .dpi magazine, the Networked Performance blog, the San Diego Reader, San Diego City Beat, San Diego Union Tribune, Art as Authority, Dr. Dobbs Journal, Secondlife.com, New World Notes and Brooklyn is Watching. Micha’s writing has been featured in the Journal of Popular Music Studies, No More Potlucks, the Inflexions journal, Digimag, NewMediaFix.net, Augmentology.com and in the San Diego Reader.

cárdenas was the recipient of a 2008 Open Classroom Challenge Grant from UCIRA and taught a class entitled “Collective Art Practice, Performative and Networked Approaches to Challenging Power”. She has been a guest speaker at University of Toronto, Scripps College, Concordia University in Montreal, USC, UCLA, Duke University, Calarts, University of Texas at Dallas, McGill University in Montreal, UCSD, SDSU and other universities. She has presented papers on her projects and collaborations at numerous conferences and festivals including the Digital Arts and Culture Conference at UC Irvine, Society of Photonic Imaging Engineers “Electronic Imaging” Conference in San Jose, and the Ctheory Digital Studies Workshop in Victoria.

cárdenas has collaborated with Ricardo Dominguez, Brett Stalbaum, Amy Sara Carroll and Elle Mehrmand on the Transborder Immigrant Tool.

To contact me, use the form on my contact page.