Light Work celebrates internationally renowned media artist Tom Sherman with performance and reception on Sept. 20

Light Work celebrates internationally renowned media artist Tom Sherman with performance and reception on Sept. 20September 16, 2002Judy Holmesjlholmes@syr.edu

Artist and theorist Tom Sherman, associate professor in Syracuse University’s School of Art and Design, College of Visual and Performing Arts, is the featured artist at a celebration of his latest book, “Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment,” from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sept. 20 at SU’s Light Work, located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave.

The celebration will feature readings, a screening of Sherman’s latest video art, a reception and a book signing. Light Work, the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Banff Centre Press and Follett’s Orange Bookstore are co-sponsoring the event.

The videos Sherman will present include three short works he completed in June-“After the I-Bomb,” “Talking to Nature,” and “Tweak #2”-and two short works completed in 2001-“Half/Lives” and “Sub/Extros #3.” The 2001 videos were also featured at the 2001 Toronto International Video Biennial, Eastern Michigan University’s Ford Gallery, the “Signal and Noise: Festival of Contemporary Media” in Vancouver and Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, among other venues.

“Before and After the I-Bomb” is an anthology of some of the best of Sherman’s thinking and writing about art, nature and technology from the last two decades. His series of personal reflections express both a love for and struggle with the new technologies and the cultural changes they have spawned. Most importantly, the writings provide an instrument for gauging the evolution of a human culture inextricably bound to Earth’s ecosystem, and a tool for negotiating the future, even if it is currently “obscured by a dense cloud of scrambled technobabble.”

A 1969 graduate of Eastern Michigan University, Sherman is the founder of the Media Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts, co-founder of Fuse magazine and represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. He performs and records with the group Nerve Theory and teaches media art history, theory and practice at SU.