Lucian Grossberger
SELF EXPRESSION ON THE BLEEDING EDGE
Lucia Grossberger Morales is an interactive computer artist. Born in Bolivia, Lucia emigrated to the US as a young girl. Her works are visually rich, often reflecting her personal history, Bolivian politics, and Latino and indigenous cultures - particularly through shrines, ritual, fabric, and anthropology.
According to Anna Couey, in a 1995 conversation with Grossberger Morales (Couey 1995), “It's hard to describe the impact of Lucia's work: a Dia de los Muertos shrine installation with candles, marigolds, Bolivian fabric surrounding an almost psychedelic computer screen inviting you to interact. Scanned weavings depicting animals - you move the mouse over an animal, and it moves. An older work, HyperCard, in Spanish and English, about leaving the Bolivian mountains/coming to US cities with tall buildings. Powerful, playful, physical - not electronic art divorced from the body or the spirit”.
At first as she attempted to integrate her cultural roots with the computer, the discomfort was there - but as the years went by, the two just exist together, very comfortably. I feel that it was fortunate that I kept the computer. The computer is not inherent in any culture and is an incredible tool for allowing people to express their own cultures.
In Bolivia I was consulting at the Children's Museum. I had created some animations which incorporated some current weavings of the area and some of the animated some of the characters on those weavings. A group of about forty kids came to see the animation. Of course I didn't have to give them instructions, they were all pretty computer savvy. Afterwards an eight- year-old girl said to me, "I didn't know that you could do that." I wasn't sure what she meant, but finally what came out was that she didn't know that it was possible to have her culture represented on the computer.
Lucia Grossberger Morales is an interactive computer artist. Born in Bolivia, Lucia emigrated to the US as a young girl. Her works are visually rich, often reflecting her personal history, Bolivian politics, and Latino and indigenous cultures - particularly through shrines, ritual, fabric, and anthropology.
According to Anna Couey, in a 1995 conversation with Grossberger Morales (Couey 1995), “It's hard to describe the impact of Lucia's work: a Dia de los Muertos shrine installation with candles, marigolds, Bolivian fabric surrounding an almost psychedelic computer screen inviting you to interact. Scanned weavings depicting animals - you move the mouse over an animal, and it moves. An older work, HyperCard, in Spanish and English, about leaving the Bolivian mountains/coming to US cities with tall buildings. Powerful, playful, physical - not electronic art divorced from the body or the spirit”.
At first as she attempted to integrate her cultural roots with the computer, the discomfort was there - but as the years went by, the two just exist together, very comfortably. I feel that it was fortunate that I kept the computer. The computer is not inherent in any culture and is an incredible tool for allowing people to express their own cultures.
In Bolivia I was consulting at the Children's Museum. I had created some animations which incorporated some current weavings of the area and some of the animated some of the characters on those weavings. A group of about forty kids came to see the animation. Of course I didn't have to give them instructions, they were all pretty computer savvy. Afterwards an eight- year-old girl said to me, "I didn't know that you could do that." I wasn't sure what she meant, but finally what came out was that she didn't know that it was possible to have her culture represented on the computer.
Black Iris
A Mi Abuelita
Modesta
Modesta