TINA AUFIERO

A visual artist, educator and lover of adventurous outdoors experiences, Aufiero can often be found equipped with balloons and small cameras, recording images and sounds of migrating birds. A self-proclaimed obsessed swan lover, Aufiero creates projects that often focus on utilizing the swan as the metaphor to create meaning. Imagery and information gathered is then articulated in sculptural objects, mixed media video works, and photographic pieces. The images represent a series of projects which allow the digital, analogue and physical to overlap and create a hybrid of objects, videos and photographs: In my studio I explore through sculpture the ‘digital captured in low-tech aesthetics and craft-based traditions’. I am interested in the augmentation provided to an object/sculpture through sound and or video coming from the object itself. Elements of sculpture, 3D form, materials, the space around the object - they become a playground for interactivity. Form coupled with sound or video can inform my viewer more clearly of my conceptual interests. I work to stir my viewer’s curiosity, with an understanding of space and proximity in relation to my sculptures, as well as contextualize the pieces within their digital content. In "Swan in a suitcase", concepts of birth till death, in focus - out of focus, were presented in dissolving video stills, which corresponded with the viewer and their relation to the suitcase.

My practice along with exploration and research into remote video and photography developed into “project_swancam”, in which I attached a small digital camera to a swan. This endeavor frames my interest to ‘freeze a digital moment in time’. This project was much more an attempt to become the swan.

My job as an artist is then later to edit and remake – repurpose the information into meaningful videos and photographs.

These works emerge out of a traditional studio practice, that currently merges digital and analogue with the physical, in an attempt to simulate expressions of my ideas, regarding being and otherness.

BIOGRAPHY:

Tina Aufiero holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons The New School for Design, and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited sculptures, installations, interactions and time-based media. Her artistic practice and research is focused in physical interaction, particularly creating interactions using sensors to mediate video and sound. Works manifest as objects, sculptures, videos and photographic prints. Aufiero’s work and teaching spans across disciplines, to the areas of art, sculpture, craft, design and technology. Teaching includes 15 years at Parsons The New School for Design with courses taught in Design & Technology, Foundation and Product Design.

Other teaching includes Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle WA; Iceland Academy of Art, Reykjavik, Iceland; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; Tyler School of Art Philadelphia PA; Cooper Union Outreach Program, NYC; UrbanGlass, NYC; and Pilchuck Glass School, WA.

http://www.blog.tinaaufiero.com