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 2018. 3D Wallpaper was on view as part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibit, 3D: Double Vision. LIPSYNC/SCAN/LOOK, an early digital interactive work, was exhibited GLoW3 at King’s College, UK in 2024, Currently, 77 Cores can be viewed at Pasadena Art Center’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, part of GETTY PST:Art+Science.
Since 2011 she has developed 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 Cores, HeadsUP2012, UnderLA and 18 Cores and 77 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. Weil has taught at UCLA’s Design Media Arts and CCA Design School. She is currently teaching at USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Contact
pweilstudio (at) gmail (dot) com
pweil (at) usc (dot) edu
@peggyweil @pweil111
Exhibitions / Performance
77 CORES Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, Art GETTY PST:Art Art & Science Collide Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, ArtCenter, Pasadena. Curated by Stephen Nowlin, Julie Joyce, Christina Valentine September 19 2024 – February 15 2025
LIPSYNC/SCAN/LOOK GloW: Illuminating Innovation. King’s College, London UK. Curated by Sarah Atkinson. 2024
THE BLURRING TEST: Songs of MrMind Libretto Peggy Weil, Composed and Performed by VARISPEED. Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn NY March 2023, Exponential Festival; The Brick, Brooklyn, NY January 2020; PARA\\EL Performance Space, Brooklyn NY May 2019
3D WALLPAPER LACMA 3D: Double Vision 3D Anaglyph wallpaper 44’ X 14’ Curated by Britt Salvesen, 2019
88 CORES CHANGE. Lindblad National Geographic Endurance Expedition Ship, Curated by Zaria Forman 2020 Against Time: Climate Calls from the Ice Archives, Samek Art Museum, Bucknell University, 2019; 88 CORES Colby Museum of Art, Waterville Maine. Curated by Diana Tuite, 2019; Bearing Witness 88 CORES: Putnam County Museum, in partnership with DePauw University Richard E. Peeler Art Center, Curated by Martha Donovan Opdahl. Greencastle Indiana 2019; 8 Cores from 88 Cores. Omega Institute, Rhinebeck NY. 2019; 88 CORES, The Philbrook Downtown, Tulsa, OK. Curated by Sienna Brown 2019; Documenting Change: Our Climate Past Present Future. CU University Art Museum Boulder CO. Curated by Erin Espelie and Hope Saska, 2019; Fire & Ice: The Shifting Narratives of Climate Change. UCI View Point Gallery, UC Irvine, California, 2019; Art for Arctic’s Sake, Fordham University, NYC. Curated by Carleen Sheehan, 2019; United Nations for Secretary General António Guterres’s Address on Climate Action, 2018; The Climate Museum: In Human Time, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons, NYC. Curated by Christiane Paul, 2017-18
UNDERLA Refik Anadol and Peggy Weil Commission by the City of Los Angeles for CURRENT: LA WATER, LA’s Public Art Biennale 2016
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
Project Documentation: LIPSYNC / SCAN / LOOK 2024 GLoW3 (GloW3 Digital Catalogue) King’s College, London March – April 2024
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?
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
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: LIPSYNC / SCAN / LOOK
GLOW: Illuminating Innovation Exhibition
King’s College, London 2024
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 Tulsa 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, Immersive Journalism and Data Visualization for Civic Engagement
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