Peggy Weil is a multi-disciplinary artist exploring our changing physical, digital and sociopolitical landscapes. Her work has been exhibited internationally including In Human Time, the inaugural exhibit at The Climate Museum in NYC;  CURRENT:LA Water in Los Angeles;  MMOMA in Moscow, and LABoral in Spain. 88 Cores was featured at the United Nations for the Secretary General’s address on Climate Action in 20183D Wallpaper was on view as part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibit, 3D: Double Vision.

Since 2011 she has been developing a series of Extended Landscapes; landscape portraits focused on the unseen but critical processes of climate change. These take the form of Underscapes and Overscapes including  88 CoresHeadsUP2012, UnderLA and 18 Cores.  With Nonny de la Peña in an ongoing collaboration, she has produced a series of Immersive Journalism, VE and VR projects focused on human rights: Gone Gitmo, a virtual installation of Guantánamo Prison, Wall Jumpers, a global visualization of political separation barriers and The IPSRESS Project, an immersive installation documenting the use of stress positions, in collaboration with The EVENT LAB in Barcelona.

From 1998 through 2014, her chatbot, MrMind, conducted a reverse Turing Test, The Blurring Test, asking visitors, “Can you convince me that you are human?”  in 2019, Weil based the libretto for a song-cycle based on sixteen years of transcripts of conversations with MrMind. The Blurring Test: Songs of MrMind, composed and performed by VARISPEED Collective, premiered on March 12, 2023 at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY.

Weil is a graduate of Harvard University and M.I.T.  As an original member of the Architecture Machine Group / M.I.T. Media Lab in the early eighties, she worked on pioneering interactive projects in design and telepresence, going on to create award-winning titles for The Voyager Company, Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Von Holtzbrinck and Ravensberger Interactive.  She designed and produced the James Turrell website created for James Turrell’s 2014 retrospectives, and the original Roden Crater website for the DIA Foundation, From Inside Looking Out to Outside Looking In, online from 1995-2003. As an Advisor to the LACMA Art + Technology Lab, she coordinated a series of conversations on art and technology.  Currently teaching at USC School of Cinematic Arts, she has also taught at UCLA’s Design Media Arts and CCA Design School.

Contact
pweilstudio (at) gmail (dot) com
pweil (at) usc (dot) edu

@peggyweil    @pweil111

 

Writing

I AM A BOT. ALL BOTS ARE LIARS Essay for UCI Conference: “The Future of the Future: The Ethics and Implications of AI” BLARB: Provocations Los Angeles Review of Books  Jan 28, 2020

It’s about time
Los Angeles Review of Books Provocations in conjunction with UCI’s Fire and Ice, The Shifting Narrative of Climate Change 

Oscar-Zero: Notes from a Nuclear Tourist
PLACES Journal, April 2017

Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First Person Experience of News.
Nonny de la Peña, Peggy Weil, Joan Llobera, Elias Giannopoulos, Ausiàs Pomés, Bernhard Spanlang, Doron Friedman, Maria V. Sanchez-Vives, and Mel Slater. “Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First Person Experience of News,” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 19, no. 4 (2010): 291 – 301 Weil delaPeña Immersive Journalism.pdf

The Blurring Test  in Socialbots and Their Friends, ed. Robert W. Gehl and Maria Bakardjieva. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, London, UK 2017

Seriously Writing SIRI
HYPERHIZ Special Issue: NETPROV Spring 2015

City Games Public Art Review, Issue 41, 2009
Weil_City_Games_pp38-41.pdf

Avatar Mediated Cinema  Peggy Weil and Nonny de la Peña, “Avatar Mediated Cinema” ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; 352 (2008): 209-212
Weil_delaPena_AVATAR MEDIATED CINEMA.pdf

Project Documentation: Mirror Archive Profile

Selected Press

NEW YORKER: As The Arctic Melts, An Artist Finds Beauty in Ancient Ice

NEW YORK TIMES: Special Section on Museums: Can Art Help Save the Planet?

ART FORUM: 3D: Double Vision

HYPERALLERGIC: The Climate Museum Captures The Gravity of a Global Crisis

Thomson-Reuters: Ice Core Sited in NYC as art tackles climate

artnet news NEED-TO-READ: America’s First Climate Change Museum has opened

The Atlantic: A Trip to a Museum to Convince Americans About Climate Change

Studio Olafar Eliaason

Glacier Hub: Photo Friday Core of Climate Science

NRDC OnEarth: A New Climate Museum Prepares Us for the Long Haul

VICE: The Creators Project: Artist Duo Project Videos on the Banks of the LA River, 

The Atlantic City Lab: A 1,400′ Foot Journey Through LA’s Groundwater Supply

Fast Company Exist: The LA River is Now a Temporary Art Museum

 

Selected Lectures / Speaking

Artist Talk: The Extended Landscape
Beyond All Measure: The Sea, the Sky, the Horizon of our Transitional Present
Fulcum Arts w/Leoanardo/ISAST Los Angeles 2023

88 CORES / UnderOK
First Fridays The Philbrook Museum Tusla 2019

The Extended Landscape
TEDx Cesena Italy 2018

The State(s) We’re In: A New Age of Transatlantic Relations ? Climate Change and Activism
Deustches Haus at NYU 2018

Panel, Climate Change and Design  Moderated by Christiane Paul
Parsons School of Design 2018

CYBERLEARNING 2016, National Science Foundation and SRI
Keynote Speaker, SRI and National Science Foundation  Arlington VA

MindCET: SHAPING THE FUTURE 3: MindBlitz EdTec Conference 2016
MindCET Center for Innovation in Educational Technology, Tel Aviv

PrintScreen Digital Culture Festival 2015
Speaker and Mentor: Tribeca Hackathon, Tel Aviv

Keynote Address: Immersive Journalism
Transmedia Nordisk Panoram 2014, Malmö, Sweden

Enchanted Drawing II: Animation Across the Disciplines 2012
University of Pennsyvlania, Institute of Contemporary Arts

Digital Art and Democracy: People Places and Participation
University of California, Santa Cruz 2012

2012 Sloan Science Seminar: Virtual Reality – The New Frontiers
USC School of Cinematic Arts

Immersive Environments and Data Visualization: Arch 502 Lecture
USC School of Architecture 2012

Human-Computer Interaction Seminar:
Stanford HCI Group: Seminar on People, Computers, and Design 2010
Human-Computer Interaction Seminar: Interactive Art and Social Meaning

ARGfest (Alternate Reality Game Festival) 2010
Atlanta, GA Chaired Panel:  TransGenre:  City Gaming and Public Art

RAVE (Real Action Virtual Environments) 2010
Palau de les Heures, University of Barcelona
Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First Person Experience of News

PICNIC Amsterdam 2009
The Blurring Test: MrMind & The Traits Formerly Known as Human”
“The Reality Continuum – Immersive Journalism”

Art and Science: Exploring the Limits of Human Perception
Centro de Ciencias de Benasque, Spain  2009
Discussion with Mel Slater and Mavi Sanchez-Vives on the art and science of VE

Games for Change (G4C) 2009, New York
Panelist:  Documentary Games

Berkeley Center for Human Rights: The Soul of the New Machine
“Animating Human Rights: Games, Animation and Multimedia”  2009

MIPTV, Cannes 2009
MIP Digital Forum Creative Summit: Immersive Storytelling in Virtual Worlds

MIPDOC, Cannes 2009
MIP: Collaborative Documentary Making

UNLV Hank Greenspun School of Journalism 2009
Virtual Worlds and Interpretive Communities: Opportunities for Global Dialogue

ACM-ACE, Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, Yokohama 2008
“Avatar Mediated Cinema” Published in Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, 2008.

AFI DigiFest 2008
Gone Gitmo awarded best of International Digital Showcase exposition
American Film Institute, Los Angeles

Highways Performance Space Santa Monica:
FACE IT TORTURE in the 21st Century
Gone Gitmo presented along with One for the Road by Harold Pinter

Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley 2008
The Conversation: The Future of Cinema, Games & Online Video
“When Games and Cinema Collide”

Games for Change 2008 Conference (G4C): New York
Panel Moderator:  ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) For Change

 

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